Chapter 19: Tea (4)

To be fair, Uncle Haoyu probably wouldn't turn his face immediately should Muchen reject his offer. Any seasoned businessman should understand that negotiation was a process of give and take, and not every product was sought after by every buyer. Still, Muchen knew he needed to be tactful when declining his daughter's hand in marriage.

Probably the biggest obstacle in Uncle Haoyu's mind was that he wanted Muchen to marry into the Wang family. At least, Muchen figured that was the case, considering the difference in social status. With Liling as Uncle Haoyu's only child, it made sense that they would want to find her a biddable son-in-law so that she could carry on the family business.

Most men in the Qianzhan Continent would reject such an arrangement out of a sense of masculine pride and the desire to carry on their family name. Muchen didn’t have that issue. He didn’t have a family name to carry on, and as a modern man he had no problem with his wife having a job.

He had his own reasons for wanting to avoid the marriage. For one thing, he wanted to continue down the road of cultivation. While he was a merchant first and a cultivator second, he'd seen enough of life on the Qianzhan Continent to understand that carving out a secure life for himself would involve cultivation in one way or the other. He couldn't possibly live his life following Uncle Haoyu's directives to stay under the radar.

He also wanted to take advantage of his unique knowledge. He might be able to use some modern insights to improve the performance of the Wang family's businesses. He would never have the authority to impose wholesale changes, though, not for decades to come. Even worse, he would only ever reap a small portion of the benefits gained by implementing his ideas.

Being married into a wealthy family would let Muchen live a comfortable life. For him, though, this strange new life on the Qianzhan Continent wasn't a place where he was looking to carve out a comfortable retirement and wait to die. He wanted to excel. To pave the road of cultivation with silver and see how far it would take him.

"I'm afraid I'm too young to think about such things," he said, trying to put the conversation off for a later date.

"It's never too early to plan for the future," Uncle Haoyu replied. "Besides, you aren't much younger than I was when I wed Baozhai."

"It's too early to plan for the future when the present is still uncertain," Muchen said. "I need to establish my business before I start thinking about starting a family."

"You're already quite capable," Uncle Haoyu said. "I have a dozen workshops that could use someone like you to manage them."

"You overpraise me," Muchen said. "I'd be embarrassed to work for anybody else before I have a chance to prove what I can do on my own."

He risked another glance at Liling. She wasn't glaring at him, at least. Maybe he wasn't the only one who wanted to put off talk of marriage.

It felt a little surreal to think of Liling getting married. She was two years younger than him. Plenty of women on the Qianzhan Continent did get married at that age, but Muchen had a hard time wrapping his head around the idea of Liling doing anything according to ordinary thinking.

Her parents had managed to convince her to grow her hair out and dress like a young lady, but Muchen suspected that the tomboy hellion he remembered as a little sister was still lurking in there somewhere. Even setting aside his own personal feelings, he certainly wasn't going to agree to a betrothal before he had a chance to talk with her about it.

"Well, it's good for young men to be bold and seek their own way," Uncle Haoyu said.

Muchen held back his sigh of relief. At least Uncle Haoyu was sensible enough not to try to force things.

"Liling, you should show him around the capital," he continued. "It has been so long since he has visited that many things have changed."

"Of course, father," she said. Her proper posture and tone of voice still made Muchen nervous, even if he couldn't exactly say why. In any event, he'd at least evaded the crisis of the moment. He could leave future problems to be dealt with in the future.

ooOoo

Muchen's first stop the next morning was the local government office. The capital city wasn't some little village where he could just set up and do business as he pleased. It was a proper city where doing business was subject to the rules and regulations.

Or at least, he had to bribe his way around the rules and regulations if he wanted to do as he pleased. Fortunately, Muchen's aspirations were not nearly so lofty. He simply needed a permit to set up a street stall. The coming winter worked in his favor. The capital had a bustling commercial district year round, but the street stall market was more seasonal. Nobody, customer or vendor alike, wanted to stand around outside to do business in the freezing cold.

Muchen was, if anything, counting on the bad weather to drive up the price he could charge for a piping hot drink. He was happy to accept the secondary benefit as it drove down the cost of the bribe he had to pay for his license. A mere half tael of silver was enough to bypass the usual two week evaluation process and secure a promise that his permit would be waiting for him the next morning.

It was just as well that everything went so smoothly. Muchen was left with just enough time to stop by the local market before making his way to the Thousand Treasures Hall.

He could see the empty stalls already as the market wound down for the winter. He was lucky he was in the capital, to be honest. Any other city this far north would be fully hunkered down for the winter by now. As it was, he was able to lay in a hefty supply of tea at a reasonable price. It helped that he wasn't too fussy about the quality. He also picked up an assortment of herbs. He'd try them out later to see which ones best complemented the tea he offered for sale. Or, at least, which did the best job masking the problems with the tea he was preparing for sale.

Master Huang was waiting for him at the Thousand Treasures Hall. It would be an exaggeration to say that the old man was happy to see him, but he was cheerful enough about taking Muchen's silver.

Muchen was only allowed to read the books from one of the many bookcases arrayed along the back wall. It was a small fraction of Master Huang's overall collection, but it still contained more physical books than Muchen had read in his life. Lacking any better strategy, he picked the leftmost book from the shelf and dove in.

Fortunately, the book was organized into an easy to read tabular format, giving each item's name and a brief description before diving into the details that would be more relevant if Muchen was making a purchasing decision. The overall layout was quite similar to the catalog Muchen had read describing the Long family property that was up for auction.

He sorely missed the basic sort and search functions that this kind of list would have had on a computer, but at least he wasn't being forced to dig through walls of text for useful information. Muchen spent a peaceful if somewhat boring afternoon skimming through the list looking for possible matches.

By the time he was ready to call it a day, he had found two candidates that bore further investigation. One was a pair of tortoiseshell bracers that were said to be able to resist any attack by cultivators at the level of Core Formation or lower. The other was a shield with turtle-shell like decorations that could project a protective bubble around its user. The second one was a little suspect. It seemed from the description that it was iron marked with stylzed turtle shell like inscriptions rather than being made from turtle shell, but Muchen figured it was close enough to at least be marked down as a possibility.

He bid farewell to Master Huang after showing that he was indeed only carrying away a single page of notes, then headed out to pick up the durable goods he had ordered. The cups were as he expected, somewhat rough in construction but with his chosen logo on prominent display. Good enough to be getting started with, at least.

At the metal workshop he found they had truly outdone themselves in putting together a samovar with all the functionality he had asked for. The foreman was quite eager to demonstrate how to build a fire in the central pipe in order to heat the water stored within. They'd even included a lever that would cut off the vents feeding air to the fire so that he could control the heat with as little fuss as possible. The appearance of the samovar was a little rough around the edges, but it would do the job that Muchen needed.

He was ready to start his market test and hopefully kick start his cultivation. Muchen was feeling optimistic as he headed back to the Wang family residence. He didn't expect to strike it rich while he was in the capital, but anything he could learn about the consumer culture of the Qianzhan Continent would be worth its weight in silver in time.

He ate a simple meal and spent a quiet hour in meditative contemplation. His martial exercises were on hold, as it was inconvenient for Xinyi to take human form and give him lessons in the Wang family compound, but even slow progress towards the next level of cultivation was still progress. Muchen hadn't been great about sticking to his gym routine back on Earth, but the prospect of earning superpowers through diligent effort really focused the mind.

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The flow of his spiritual energy was a little sluggish after another day spent without selling anything for profit, but he'd be remedying that problem soon enough.

ooOoo

"Your permit application is still being processed."

"I'm sorry?" Muchen asked.

The clerk didn't react to his surprise. "Your application has been accepted and is under review."

"I paid," Muchen said, catching himself just before the word "bribe" left his lips, "I paid an extra fee to get my permit today."

"According to our records," the clerk said, "you paid the ordinary fee as required by law."

Muchen leaned forward, lowering his voice and allowing a bit of the anger he was feeling into his tone. "I remember how much silver left my pocket yesterday."

Bringing a formal complaint against the clerk would be a gigantic pain in the neck. After all, Muchen would be admitting to an attempt to bribe a government official. Not that he had a reputation in the capital to ruin, but it still wasn't a great way to introduce himself to society at large.

If things did reach that point, though, it wasn't like the clerk would get off scot free. The law might be obtuse, but the people running the Qianzhan Empire were well aware that an ordinary citizen had little choice but to grease the wheels when they wanted something from the government. By taking the money and refusing to deliver, the clerk was throwing sand in the gears of the machinery that enriched more or less everybody working for the government.

"I can assure you, your request is receiving an expedited review," the clerk said. "But you can't expect to receive an official document overnight."

Muchen was pretty sure he'd been promised just such a thing, but obviously this clerk wasn't going to be moved by an appeal to his conscience. If this was just a shakedown for an extra few pieces of silver, then matters were still within Muchen's tolerance. If it was more than that, then Muchen was going to have to figure out what to do in response to such blatant provocation.

He knew what Xinyi's answer would be, but if he slaughtered the entire office then there would be nobody to issue him the business permit he needed.

"When can I expect it?" Muchen asked.

"It's hard to say," the clerk said. "This city sits on the doorstep of the imperial palace, after all. We need to be careful when dealing with anything that could affect the smooth flow of foot traffic."

Muchen took a deep breath and counted to ten. "And if I did want that permit by tomorrow morning?"

The clerk looked at him for a moment, then held up four fingers.

Muchen sighed. What a sad state of affairs when you couldn't rely on the honesty of the official you'd already bribed. Still, at least he could solve this problem without going past his bottom line.

He pulled two taels of silver from his money pouch and set it in front of the clerk. "The rest will be paid tomorrow, when I get my permit."

The silver disappeared from the clerk's desk as if by magic. Muchen only received the barest of nods before he turned and made his way out of the building.

He'd always figured the biggest market for hot tea would be in the morning, when workers needed a pick me up on the way to work. His original plan had been to spend the afternoon testing the waters, then to start doing business for real tomorrow morning. Unfortunately, it looked like everything would have to be set back a day.

He gave the full samovar an irritated glance as he unhitched his cart and started back down the road. Moving around a container filled with that much water was no joke. If he hadn't already taken the first few steps along the road of cultivation then he wouldn't have been able to move it as well.

He reached forward and gave Huichen a pat on the neck in apology for making him move goods back and forth without any chance of a sale. Hopefully this time the clerk would stay bought.

"That servant is lucky to have survived this long," Xinyi said, her voice clearly audible despite the morning hubbub.

Muchen shook his head. "I suppose I look like an easy mark."

That clerk wouldn't have lasted long if he engaged in such perfidious extortion towards people who could fight back. Muchen, with his relatively simple mode of dress, down to earth means of transportation, and slightly rustic accent, must have looked like an ideal target.

"Like I said," Xinyi replied, "lucky."

Muchen clicked his tongue in disapproval. "You can't solve every problem with violence."

Now that he had a bit of a distance from the moment of extortion, his murderous rage had died down. Given the opportunity, he'd still like to give the clerk a good beating, but the urge to destroy the man had already faded away. The important thing was to figure out how to get past the obstacle and get his business permit, not to vent his anger with his fists.

"True," Xinyi said, "not at your cultivation level."

Well, on some things they would just have to agree to disagree.

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