Chapter 5: Five – An Old Flame.

The ledger was a bust. It did make a note of private bookings but the only reference to their client who had booked out the upper floor specified that the booking was, ‘requested by a wealthy foreign gentleman in a fur cloak.’

At least that told me that the meeting had presumably been set up by the dead man and not the people he was meeting. Presumably then the subsequent slaughter had not been planned.  

I tossed the ledger into a pile of garbage that had accumulated around the back of a defunct perfume shop. Evidently there were not enough wealthy clients in Asani to make the store a success.

The empire was blossoming with these kind of luxury businesses. The general boom of the economy had evidently not expanded far enough for a town as remote as Asani to feel its effects.

Asani was still restricted to shops of a more practical nature. Coopers, bakers and booze stores.

It would have taken me longer to find the person I was looking for if she had not made her dreams a reality. In the main square of the town was an alchemy store. It was exactly as she described it would be. Made of imported wood from the north and speckled with expensive clear glass windows.

The sign above the door read:

Bai Shu’s Alchemy emporium

It brought a little warmth to my heart to see the store she had described all those years ago manifested into reality. Bai Shu had spoken about the place and the wonders of alchemy with wide eyes as she and I shared stolen sweets in Old Chen’s workshop.

The reality of what she had to do to acquire the skills and capital to run the place sobered me. However sweet those memories were, that was all they were, memories. It was approaching sunset and Asani was winding down for the night. I took a clerk exiting and locking up as my que to sneak in through a window that opened out onto a back alley.

The second story of the building seemed to be a combined living quarters and laboratory. The lab portion of the building was exactly the combination of messy and organised that I remembered as Bai Shu’s distinct style.

There were immaculately clean glass beakers strewn about the workshop, seemingly haphazardly. Every tool and metal instrument were meticulously labelled, with their own special place set out in paint on the walls. None of the tools were where they were supposed to be of course but that was beside the point.

Several projects were bubbling away in cauldrons or dripping slowly from burettes into flasks of various colours. A notepad was left next to each ongoing experiment with Bai Shu’s neat handwriting setting out various observations and calculations.

Stepping into the living quarters of the second floor was like stepping into a completely different person’s life. The rooms almost did not feel lived in they were so orderly. Bai Shu must employ a full-time maid to keep the place as spotless as it was. Particularly in a dustbowl that was Asani. In the dining room was a full oil paint portrait of Patriarch Fan.

The painting depicted Fan as he must look now. Regal and draped in the power of a local despot. I assumed that that his influence is why Bai Shu kept the living quarters so clean. Fan had always been a stickler for order and control.

While I was admiring the painting, I braced myself for an awkward reunion as I heard steps coming up from the ground floor. I blew a puff of smoke at the painting of my old rival and said, “at least you gave her what I couldn’t, you pompous ass.”

I moved out of the dining room and back to the lab. I would prefer to have this conversation in a room that did not remind me of one of my many failures.

The sound of Bai Shu’s footsteps came directly from the staircase to the workshop. Clearly, she did not spend a lot of time in the living quarters when Fan was not around. I saw her poke her head through the door and sniff. She must have smelt the cigarette smoke. She was beautiful. She had always been beautiful, but she had matured since I left. She appeared to be in her mid-twenties not the sixteen-year-old I had left behind. She was only at the low energy storage stage, but that level of cultivation was enough to have staved off the aging process.

Bai Shu followed her nose and found me propped against one of her bookshelves. “Hello Bai Shu,” I said as her face lit up in shock, “it has been too long.”

Bai Shu sagged down into a chair and sighed. “Sun Wei, I heard you were back, but I was not sure if you would come. Not after I didn’t show up to leave with you.” Bai Shu squinted at me and noted in a familiar accusatory tone, “you look terrible. Did they not teach you how to take care of yourself in the army? Why are you smoking medicinal herbs like an idiot. I could make those into a pill that you would only have to take once a day.”

I flashed her a sad little grin, “nothing to worry about. I’ve just hit a little stumbling block in my cultivation. You know self-reflection has never been my strong suit. I also do not blame you for not coming with me. I couldn’t have given you all this.” I gestured around at the lab.

Bai Shu bristled a little at the implication that she had been bought but dropped the anger with a shrug, commenting, “the life of traveling private’s wife did not really appeal to me. It was not just that though. You have an anger inside you Sun Wei. It has always been there. Even when we were kids, I could tell that the world never looked right to you. It is hard to be with a person who is that cynical.”

Her observation stung but considering the trouble I was now having with my dao it was probably fair. I waved away the conversation spreading green cigarette smoke around the room. “I am not here to litigate the past Shu. I am happy for you this place is exactly what you always dreamed about. My only real question is, does he treat you well?”

Bai Shu stood and went to the window. It was an attempt to hind her eyes from me. She knew that I would see the lie in them in that uncanny manner and experienced detective can. “He treats me well enough. I am his third concubine. He only has three along with his main wife. That is surprisingly few for a man in his position. I am mostly left to my own devices when he doesn’t come around.”

It made sense. That was pretty much my assumption when I saw the bifurcated nature of the house. I asked, “any kids? I met his eldest son at the train station and judging from his general abrasiveness I could tell he couldn’t be your child.”

Bai Shu turned back to face the room and made her way over to a still. She poured two glasses of some clear alcohol while answering, “no, no kids. I have taken… precautions to avoid children over the years. I have a little insight into that political Sect life now and it is not something I would wish a child of mine.” She handed me the one of the glasses.

I took a sip and almost ceased up at the taste. It was so strong that it tasted like rocket fuel. It did have the advantage of circulating my qi more quickly through my meridians than it had in the months since my qi deviation.

Bai Shu used the opportunity of my distraction to place two fingers on my wrist and take my pulse. She gasped and swatted my shoulder saying, “minor problem? Your whole meridian system is grinding to a halt.”

My first instinct was to pull my wrist away but instead I sagged against her and rested my head on her shoulder. “It a problem, I know. I just cannot see my way through,” I whispered. Bai Shu raised up her hand to embrace me but hesitated. Before the moment could become to intimate, I swept past and away from her.

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 “I did not come just to catch up unfortunately,” I said pulling the glass with the white powder from the Baked-moon out of a pocket.

Bai Shu picked up the glass curiously and snorted, “you could not have found a better way to transport the sample?”

I shrugged and replied, “I had nothing else close to hand. What is this stuff? I can tell it is too rich in qi to be sand or flour, but it isn’t something I have come across before.”

Bai Shu used a scalpel to scrap out the powder onto a flat glass plate. She spread the substance out so that it was a fine coating and not a small heap. Bai Shu placed the sample under a microscope she must have ordered from a shop in the Southern Capital.

“Hmm she mused. It is organic for sure. A type of bone maybe?” She flipped open a reference book and then said, “oh that’s interesting.”

“What?” I asked.

Bai Shu looked up at me and said, “I am not sure where you found it but this is Chalk-bone.”

The name did not set off my amazement the way she seemed to think it should. “What is Chalk-bone?” I asked.

Bai Shu muttered something about stubborn fools and head in the sand before answering, “Chalk-bone is a rare type of organic resource only found at the grave sights of massive spirit beasts. The only known sites it can be excavated are the boneyards of the icesheet in the Northern tip of the Empire. It is very valuable. They use it primarily in the construction of large arrays. To ease the flows of qi channels.”

I nodded slowly. That might explain the origins of the fur clad out of towner. Still, why was he all the way down south in Asani. No one was setting up large array networks out here. I probed, “why is it so rare. I can think of several large breeds of spirit beast all over the empire. Surly their bones are not that rare.”

Bai Shu shook her head and elucidated, “The bones have to have been buried for a very long time. The spirits beasts also have to have been truly massive. No living beast we know of is that big. Apparently, there is a sect out north whose cultivation method allows them to sniff out new deposits.”

I grimaced. That was not good news. The more likely option than someone coming all this way with a stash of rare material was that it had been mined locally. The Sects did not tend to leave deposits like that alone and often normal people were swept away in their conflicts.

I stood up to leave shuffling to the window. I called over my shoulder, “thanks for the help, Shu.”

“Wait,” Bai Shu said, “where did you find the Chalk-bone. If you can get more then I can pay for it. You also don’t have to slip out of the window like a thief. I have a front door.”

I looked back at her and countered, “I doubt Fan would like it if he knew I was here. He has always been protective. I’ll keep my eye out for more Chalk-bone but seeing that I found that stuff on the coat of a man at the centre of a massacre it might be tough to get my hands on it.”

Bai Shu frowned, “I saw the Marshal badge, but I assumed it was a punishment post. Not much to do in Asani. Looks like I was wrong you have found yourself in the centre of a building storm. Take care of yourself. In your condition you can’t push yourself too hard.”

I grinned at her, “do not care about me too much Bai Shu. You will just give me false hope.”

Before she could respond I dropped out the window to the alley below. It had been a mistake seeing Bai Shu. I was tempted to try and sweep her away from her confined life as a sect patriarch’s concubine but she wouldn’t thank me for it.

It would be selfish of me to presume to ‘save’ her from owning her dream store. Besides I did not have much to offer in comparison. No prestige, no money and a death sentence if I couldn’t figure out how to square myself with my dao.

Asani was not as quiet as it usually was after sunset. Neighbours were out talking. News of the Baked-moon slaughter was already spreading around the town. For the average person these periodic occasions of extreme violence were a part of life. They could not do anything to stave them off or seek revenge.

The Emperor had nominally given all people even mortals rights in the law but in a place like Asani where his influence held little sway people where used to burying their heads in the sand and waiting for the trouble to go away.

The most they would do was meet for quiet conversations like they were doing now. Perhaps curse the great dao and its permissive nature for allowing evil into the world.

I stopped at a street vendor who was closing up for the night to buy some food for myself and Luli.

The man saw my Marshal badge and barely restrained a sneer. I did not blame him. If I was the only authority this town had for protection, then I would be sceptical too.

My cultivation stuttered as my memories of failures form earth replayed themselves in my mind. Here I was a lawman again. A supposed force for justice. Except at least in America, I had believed in the country and the ostensible ideals it represented.

With a valuable resource like Chalk-bone in the mix I was starting to doubt that the Clockwork Emperor’s interest in Asani was as random as it had seemed. Looking at the hunched back of the man closing up his store I resolved that I would at least try and solve this mystery. The people were living in fear, and I could stop that, maybe. I could give it a shot at least. Not for the Emperors justice but to ease the people of Asani’s troubles a little.

After all with my cultivation failing I did not really have much to lose.

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