Chapter 41: Bracelet (2)

Muchen had personally traveled across a great deal of the Qianzhan Continent by now. His memories stretched back even farther, covering the length and breadth of the massive empire. He'd been to the imperial capital, where danger lurked beneath a civilized veneer. He'd negotiated a deal with a stranger who was more than capable of gutting him like a fish. Never, though, had he seen a city that was so overtly threatening.

It was there in the little details. The ground floor windows that were boarded up or sported prominent iron grills for protection. The debris left to rot by the side of the road. The hard, assessing eyes of the suspiciously idle passersby.

The other settlements Muchen had visited, however small, all had a certain history to them. Families had put down roots stretching back generations in even the most humble villages. Even the poor farming villages showed signs of care. The buildings were meant to be cherished and passed down through the family for centuries. They were, in a word, civilized.

Jiaoqu Town wasn't. Oh, it didn't lack for money. The gaudy decorations dotting every other building weren't cheap, and it seemed everyone he saw was flaunting at least one prominent piece of jewelry. The problem was that the wealth only went skin deep. The buildings had been thrown up with little sign of thought or planning, ramshackle construction stretching across the landscape to occupy an area not much less than the capital. The people, too, were more apt to sink their cash into one shiny thing or another rather than putting it away to build for the future.

The ties of community? The bonds stretching back into the past and forward into the future? Muchen saw no evidence of any of that.

This was a frontier town. A convenient base for those brave enough to venture out into the Northern Wastes. A place where you either struck it rich or died in obscurity. Or both. Maybe it was all in his head, but Muchen could feel the potential for violence pressing down on the back of his neck as he guided Huichen down the street.

While this wasn't a place he'd want to try to start a business or raise a family, Muchen actually didn't hate the ambiance. After all, he'd come here intending to separate a woman from a bridal gift. In the more conservative circles of the Qianzhan Empire, such a thing simply wasn't done. If this were an ordinary city, his only option would be to plan a heist of some kind. In a place like this, though, everything was negotiable. If the silver in his pocket wasn't enough, then he'd just have to get creative.

Muchen drove the length of the main street, then circled back around the outskirts of the commercial heart of the city. He didn't dare venture too deep into the residential quarter, where the hostile glares badly outnumbered the welcoming signboards.

After taking the time to get the lay of the land, Muchen drove the cart back to the most disreputable looking bar that he had seen. The building itself looked like it would fall down in a stiff breeze, while the bar was advertised with a painting of a dragon passed out next to a glass of wine.

Xinyi gave the place a skeptical look from her perch next to him on the driver's board. "Disgusting."

"You don't have to come in with me," Muchen said. He only wanted to get a bit more of a feel for Jiaoqu Town before he settled on where they were going to stay. "Although you might face some trouble if you wait out here by yourself."

There weren't many people out and about on the street at the moment, but none of them looked like the type to run to the aid of a young woman being harrassed. Quite the opposite, really.

Xinyi snorted. "I could use a bit of exercise."

Sometimes Muchen found himself slipping into the mindset of judging a situation by its appearance based on his previous life. It had somehow slipped his mind that the young girl wasn't the one in danger here. He nodded to her, saying a silent prayer in his heart for anybody who decided that picking on Xinyi was a good idea. There probably wouldn't be enough left of them afterward to say a prayer over.

Muchen hopped down from the cart and took a step towards the bar, then paused. After a moment he moved around to the back of the cart and grabbed a jug. He was mostly interested in gathering information, but he might as well do a little business while he had the chance.

The bar looked just as seedy inside as he'd expected from his glimpse through the windows. The ground crunched beneath his feet, a mixture of peanut shells and other, less savory, items hiding the floor itself from view. In the corner, an old man was working on what looked like his fifth cup of wine

Muchen wondered how many years it would be before the Qianzhan Empire hit on the idea of a health and safety inspector. Or passed laws against serving alcohol to inebriated patrons. And how many more years it would take for such civilizing concepts to trickle out to Jiaoqu Town.

He shook his head. No point thinking about something that wouldn't happen before a race of alien invaders came to kill them all. He was focused and had his merchant's game face on by the time he reached the bar at the back of the room.

The bartender was a young woman, or at least she appeared to be. On Earth, Muchen would have confidently estimated her age to be in the mid-twenties. Here, with the ability to keep a place like this under control? He wouldn't want to venture a guess.

She was more covered up than he would have expected at a bar back on Earth, although she'd modified the traditional clothing so that it did little to hide her impressive figure. She had been going over the bar with a rag—doing little more than moving dirt around, as far as he could tell—but stopped as Muchen approached.

"Next hunting group isn't going out for three days," she said, glancing down at the knife hanging by his side.

Muchen had brought it with him because it seemed foolish to wander around Jiaoqu unarmed. Now he couldn't help but wonder if he was inviting trouble by keeping a weapon at his side. Well, maybe, but he'd definitely be inviting robbery if he did any serious amount of business while unarmed.

"Hunting party?" he asked, stopping in front of the bar.

"It's the Gao family's group," the bartender said. "The usual rules, you get to keep half of what you kill."

Muchen was starting to understand. The best way to strike it rich in Jiaoqu Town was to venture north, searching for treasures nurtured by the wild energy or hunting demonic beasts for their valuable body parts. It wasn't a job for the faint of heart. Even the bravest cultivator wouldn't dare to go alone, not without overwhelming strength. It only made sense to band together with a group and work together.

Muchen wasn't interested in earning a living with his sword arm. Even if he were, he wouldn't be interested in giving up half his earnings to somebody else.

"No thanks," Muchen said.

"You sure?" the bartender asked. "He's only charging half the usual fee to join up."

"I thought you said it's the usual rate," Muchen said.

"The usual rate once you're out there," the bartender replied. "He cut down the entrance fee to only ten taels to begin with."

"I have to pay ten taels so I can give him half of what I hunt?"

The bartender laughed. "Otherwise, wouldn't you be getting a free chance to try your luck? If you think it's a bad deal, you can always try to organize your own hunting party."

If he really wanted to go hunting, Muchen could rely on Xinyi's protection and keep all of his spoils to himself. Maybe charge other people to go out under her protective umbrella, even, if she didn't find it too degrading. As a means to make money, signing up with the Gao family was a bust. For finding connections, though? Muchen could see the possibilities.

He was here because of a betrothal gift, after all. It might just be a coincidence, but if his target's prospective husband was from the Gao family, then tagging along on the hunt might be just the ticket to leaving town with the bracelet he needed.

All that said, there was no need to look too eager.

"Let's set that aside for now," Muchen said. "I actually came here to talk business with you."

"Me?" the bartender asked.

Muchen nodded. "You can make decisions about what drinks to buy?"

"Of course," the bartender replied, putting her hands on her hips, "it's my bar."

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Muchen gave himself a mental pat on the back for his habit of treating everybody with respect, no matter their appearance. He also set the jug in his hands on the bar.

"What's the strongest drink you serve?" he asked.

"I still have some ice wine in back from last winter," she replied.

Muchen nodded, then gestured for a cup. Just as alcohol boiled off before water, water froze before alcohol. If you took wine and kept it in a freezing environment and picked out the first bits of ice that formed, you'd be left with something stronger than regular wine. It made for a potent drink, but Muchen was pretty sure the process didn't allow for as much concentration as he could manage.

The bartender gave him a skeptical look, but did reach under the counter and pull out a clean mug for him to use. Muchen opened the jug and poured a measure of spirits into the glass. Roughly a shot, if a heavy one. That done, he pushed the glass back across the bar.

"Give it a try," he said.

"You should know, I'm immune to most poisons," the bartender said. "If you try something funny, you won't be able to make it back out the door."

Muchen smiled. "As long as you can handle your drink, I'm sure I'll be fine."

She rolled her eyes, then picked up the mug and gave it a sniff. That prompted a more serious, evaluating look towards Muchen, before she gave the drink a sip. Part of Muchen had been looking forward to her reaction if she tried to down the whole thing, but the fact that she had chosen a more cautious approach was probably a better sign for his chance at closing a sale.

He knew that his moonshine was rough stuff. He'd tried a few different attempts at setting up a primitive filtration system, but so far his best efforts had resulted in a product that could most favorably be described as tasting less like kerosene than it might've. Back on Earth he never would have touched it without mixing it with a heavy dose of fruit juice.

He was surprised to see the bartender savor the first sip, then go back for more. She finished off the whole drink in a few minutes of steady drinking. If Muchen didn't know better he would have thought that he'd given her some proper sipping whiskey.

"An interesting drink," she said. "Potent, but not unpleasant."

"Something your customers would be interested in," Muchen said.

"Of course," she replied. "If the price is right."

"This drink is unique," Muchen said, spreading his hands dramatically. "In all the Qianzhan Empire, you won't find a second seller. It's hard to put a price on something like that."

She smiled at him. "I'm sure you're up to the challenge."

"You'd have a better idea than I, just how much your customers are able to pay," Muchen said.

It was a basic negotiation tactic, waiting for the other person to name their price first, but no less effective for its simplicity. After all, the final price would never be lower than her opening bid or higher than Muchen's opening offer.

Muchen could, of course, figure out the price that was needed in order for him to make a profit. He couldn't do such calculations on the spot, but he had already run the figures before leaving Li Village. Starting from just how much rice wine was used in order to produce a single jug of spirits, including reasonable compensation for the labor involved in distillation, not to mention gathering the fuel needed to run the still, Muchen needed to sell each jug for five taels of silver in order to break even.

He didn't go to all of this trouble just to break even. Also, while he had transported this load to market personally, in the future there would also be freight costs to consider. All in all, he wanted to bring in at least ten taels per jug. That would be enough of a profit margin to build a business on.

He naturally wouldn't say no to a final price of twenty, thirty, or forty taels, but he didn't know if those sky high prices would be viable. At the end of the day the bartender had to come away with a profit of her own after selling individual drinks to her customers. If Muchen threw out a ridiculously high starter price he could kill the negotiations before they even began. If he started out too low he could be leaving money on the table. That was why he wanted her to go first.

He was optimistic about the market for hard alcohol in Jiaoqu Town. It was a place where men could earn great fortunes by putting their lives on the line. The demand for quality booze should be in place, together with the ability to pay for it.

The bartender frowned, meeting Muchen's eyes in a silent battle of wills. Muchen held her gaze, unmoved. There were plenty of other bars he could visit if this sale fell through.

It was the bartender who gave in. "Fifteen taels, for each jug that size."

Muchen raised an eyebrow. He'd been sure that there was good money to be made selling drinks in a place like this, but even so he didn't expect to hear those kinds of sums thrown around casually in such a dive.

He put away his surprise. This wasn't the time to be giving away information for free. "Hmm. You know, I developed this product using an ancient method that I was lucky to discover by putting my life on the line."

"I can feel the sincerity at fifteen taels," Muchen continued, "but to make a sale, I think twenty-five would be more reasonable."

The bartender gestured at their surroundings. "Does this look like the kind of place that could sell such an expensive drink?"

She had a point. The walls were bare, unfinished wood, marked with unidentifiable stains and a few crude carved decorations. The floor was, as best Muchen could tell, dirt, covered with a layer of peanut shells and other detritus. The crude tables and chairs looked like they had been put together by an amateur in the expectation that they'd be collateral damage in a fight sooner rather than later. Everything about the place declared it a total dive.

Looks could be deceiving. After all, she'd been happy enough to offer fifteen taels for a jug, which would make the individual drinks as expensive as could be found in the nicer restaurants at the capital.

"This looks like the kind of place where men return after risking their lives and seek to celebrate their good fortune with a drink," Muchen said. "A rowdy crowd, maybe, but not the sort to quibble over the price."

"Quibble? No, they're more like to try to put a chair through a wall," she replied. "They have money to spend, but they're not looking to throw it away."

Muchen leaned forward. "With a drink this strong, you can sell it in smaller servings. A jug like this would be good for twenty or thirty sales, easy."

She raised an eyebrow. "Make my drinks smaller and more expensive? Are you trying to get me run out of town?"

"If you're catering to the type who care about the size of their glass," Muchen said, "you can always add a mixer. It goes well with fruit juice, or anything sweet."

The bartender eyed the jug in his hands. It looked like she was doing some mental math. Before she could say anything, the door was thrown open and a customer came swaggering up to the bar.

"Xiaodan! Stop flirting and get me something strong. I know you've been hiding ice wine in your back room, so stop holding out on me."

Muchen had figured there was every chance an obnoxious drunk would try to elbow his way in between Muchen and the bartender eventually. He hadn't expected to be interrupted by a beautiful young woman.

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