Humble Merchant

The night's patrol passed relatively peacefully. Jack only failed the first strike on one spirit out of the six he captured, and Kuang Bindun didn't seem to mind the short suffering the spirit caused him before Jack could get it. They even managed to improve last night's speed by over half an hour.

No one met them on the halfway mark, but they didn't mind and went back home.

Kuang Bindun planned to go back to his house immediately, but Jack told him that they'd have to let Shi Furui in on the plan and that he needed him to help out with explaining, so he sent Kuang Bindun to get his learning tools.

When Jack entered his house he found Shi Furui sitting on the cot while throwing the Light Orb up into the air and catching it in his hand.

Shi Furui looked up a little sheepishly and set the Light Orb down on the table when he got up to greet Jack.

With a tired sigh, Jack sat down on the small stool in front of the table and said "Wait a few breaths for Kuang Bindun to come and we can begin."

Shi Furui nodded his head as he sat back down on the cot while Jack leaned his back on the table and closed his eyes for a short rest.

A few moments later the lumbering hulk of Kuang Bindun entered the house with his alphabet carving and stick in one hand, and a few other carvings that he made for himself in the other. They mostly contained various words and phrases that Jack taught him.

With the door closed, Jack started to give roughly the same explanation he gave Kuang Bindun to Shi Furui. He even demonstrated a few language exercises he and Kuang Bindun did.

When he finished the explanation Shi Furui looked at him and asked in a deadpan voice "A wandering scholar?"

Not a single muscle on Jack's face twitched as he nodded solemnly and answered "Yes, a great man."

Shi Furui stared at him for a few seconds, sighed, and with a serious face asked "Fine; and you're sure that doing all of this will make it possible to use this new cultivation technique that you invented?"

Jack hesitated a little before saying "I'm not sure. That's how it worked for me. I can only speculate that it will work for you guys too."

Shi Furui thought about it for a few seconds before standing up and bowing towards Jack while saying "Then, please, teach me." He straightened back up and with a wry smirk said "Even if we can't learn the new cultivation technique it will still be worth it to talk behind the backs of those dogs without them knowing what we're saying."

Jack looked a little awkward as he stood up and said "There's no need to bow. I'm not just doing this for your benefit."

Shi Furui shook his head as he said "No, it's only proper to bow to someone that's imparting knowledge to you."

Kuang Bindun looked shocked for a moment before he quickly stood up from the cot as well and started bowing. Jack managed to stop him before he got too far down and said "Enough, you don't need to do that. I don't care about it."

Kuang Bindun had a lost look in his eyes as his eyes flicked from Jack to Shi Furui a few times before he sighed and reluctantly straightened back up.

Everyone sat back down as a serious look appeared on Jack's face while he said "Now, for the plan…"

The next morning everything went on as usual. Jack visited Elder Yu in the morning and then went to the courtyard of the Gravediggers on his own after. Once again Du Angliang left before giving him his payment and he had to make peace with the fact that he'll only get it every day after the selection.

In the courtyard, Jack did his carrying duties until a young servant girl's corpse arrived to the courtyard and he hurried out in front of the other teens to get it.

Female corpses came by a lot more rarely than male ones because most of the servant girls had jobs inside of the manors of powerful cultivators. Jack had studied a few of them before and discovered that they had mostly the same meridian structure as men did, only some meridian clusters around their stomach looked different than what males usually had.

This time he didn't run out to get a female corpse to study for himself, he gave that part over to Shi Furui and put on the servant girl's clothes. 'A bit tight around the chest, but they'll do.' Jack thought as he moved his limbs around in the new clothes.

He looked up at Shi Furui and asked "How do I look?"

Shi Furui gave him a glance and said "Like a proper young lady."

Jack snorted as he looked down at his new light blue uniform and said "Shut up, the uniforms that the males come in are too big for me, and my old white rags look too conspicuous."

Shi Furui shrugged and continued his work. Just as Jack turned to leave for the back door he heard Shi Furui's voice say "Don't let your guard down, not everyone in this town cares about the Sect's law."

Jack looked at Shi Furui over his shoulder as he said "Don't worry; I can take care of myself."

He walked to the back door of the courtyard, and when the backstreet that it connected to cleared out he snuck out of it. As usual, only a few people glanced at him with any kind of interest, and the ones that did had a glint of schadenfreude in their eyes.

Once he went through the few side alleys and entered the main street Jack heard a noise he almost forgot, the noise of a bustling crowd. Usually, when he came in the early morning the streets only had a few people walking around or setting up their shops, and when they left at midday a lot of people already finished their work, and most people tended to avoid their corpse cart even if they had some business in town.

Jack looked around the bustling street for a few seconds as he thought 'So many servants. How many disciples and Elders does this Sect have if they need a population of a town just to do their menial tasks?'

He only saw a small number of disciples in the crowd when compared to the servants, they looked like islands of solitude in the river of people as everyone either subconsciously or deliberately avoided going anywhere near them.

Jack entered the bustling crowd and walked down the street. Most of the buildings here served as leisure locations where members of the Sect could go and relax. Those buildings had the Sect's mark, a large white circle with a smaller circle inside of it, painted somewhere prominent on their front. If servants wanted to enter those for any reason they either had to go to the back or come in the company of their master.

Jack only gave those buildings a glance as he moved towards one that Shi Furui had pointed out for him earlier. It looked a bit shabby, built with old wood that had a couple of spots where it looked slightly rotten. On the top of the building a sign that read "Golden Dragon Store" stood. It had a yellow dragon coiling in between the characters of the name; the paint on the sign had a decent number of flakes missing.

Entering into the store Jack more smelt than saw a number of different dead animals hanging from the ceiling, on the opposite side of the door stood a large counter and a wall filled with sealed clay jars on shelves. Tables and shelves with various items like weapons, tools, and dried food stacked on them stood scattered around the store. 'Even the courtyard filled with corpses doesn't have as unique a smell as this store does' Jack thought as he frowned in disgust.

He had to take a few breaths through his mouth to get used to the new environment before he navigated his way through all of the obstacles to reach the counter. Once there he looked around and saw no one.

"Hello, anyone here?" he called out towards a partially closed door in the back of the room. A few seconds later the first old man Jack saw since he came to the Sect appeared. He had a bald head, a long goatee and mustache, and a slightly hunched back.

The old man gave Jack a slightly annoyed look as he slowly walked to the counter and said "Hello, young one. What can old Long do for you?"

Jack gave him a slight polite bow and said "Sir, my Young Master sent me here to exchange some spirit stones for gold so he has some spending money in town." He reached into his uniform and took out the pouch that he made previously in the courtyard; the one that Du Angliang gave him looked too rough for a direct servant of a Young Master.

He turned the pouch upside down and the three spirit stones clonked onto the counter. They didn't roll even a bit; they just stayed right where they fell. Jack tested this phenomenon a little last night and still had no idea on why they did that.

Old Long gave the three spirit stones a glance and said with a pained face "I can give you a gold coin and 50 silver for the lot."

Jack furrowed his brows a little as he said "Sir, these spirit stones can fetch up to 2 gold and 50 silver in the outside world. Please give my Young Master some face."

The old man picked up one of the stones and gave it a closer look, after a few seconds he sighed sadly and placed it down. He checked the other two stones in the same way as well before looking up at Jack and saying "These are some of the lowest quality spirit stones that I've ever seen." He looked even more pained as he continued "Even as a favor to your Young Master I can only raise the price to 1 gold and 60 silver,"

Jack's brows furrowed even more as he thought 'That bastard would probably give me the lowest quality stones that he had. S*it.' He looked into the eyes of the old man for a few seconds before relaxing his face and saying "Very well, I thank you in the name of my Young Master."

The old man's pained look disappeared as he snatched the three spirit stones and reached under the counter. After a few seconds of fiddling with something he placed a gold coin and a small heap of silver coins on the counter while saying "Thank you for your business, here is your payment." He looked at the door and continued "Please come again in the future."

Jack looked at the small fortune for a second and started counting. After a minute he looked up at the old man's beaming face and said with a slightly harsh voice "Sir, I think you made a mistake, there are only 52 silver coins here."

Old Long put on a horrified face and looked down at the silver coins. He himself counted them out loud and exclaimed "Spirits, you're right! A clever little boy that can count so high is hard to find. Your Young Master sure is lucky."

He quickly took out additional silver coins from under the counter and said "There, everything's fine now."

Jack gave him a sidelong glance as he begun to count the coins again. A minute later he counted them up to 60 and stored them in the pouch. He looked up at the old man with a polite smile and with a slight bow said "Thank you for your service, my Young Master will remember this generosity. Goodbye." He navigated the obstacle course to the main door and exited the store.

As soon as Jack left, the old man's face turned emotionless as he turned towards the back door and yelled "Go and find out who that brat works for." After a few seconds of consideration, he added "And if it turns out that he's trying to scam me you know what to do."

Three voices shouted from the back room in a chorus "At once, Elder Long."