Chapter 210 (Patreon)

I listen to Xia and give a small smile, because judging by the mushroom’s description, it is certainly meant for a pill that is probably sought after by people in the Refinement of the Elemental Body.

But after the Spiritual Treasures come the weapons, and with the weapons comes the second argument.

It is a sword, the fifth in the section, a long, narrow blade of a gray so pale that it looks wet, which the catalog describes with so many adjectives that it has almost no room left to explain what it does, although in the end it does explain it. And from what it says, it does a great many things.

Two boxes bid for it from the very beginning.

One on the second floor, on the opposite wall, from which two men with the emblem of the Autumn Waters on their chests are leaning out, and another on the third, to our right and considerably closer, from which a young man with the emblem of the Nine Currents is bidding, with the calm voice of someone in no hurry at all.

The other boxes drop out right away, as soon as the figure passes three hundred, and from then on only the two of them remain.

Three hundred and twenty, three hundred and forty, three hundred and fifty.

And after the bid rises to four hundred, one of the two men from the Autumn Waters addresses the other box directly.

“A sword like that is useless in the hands of someone who doesn’t know how to use it”, he says.

He doesn’t shout, although he doesn’t need to either.

The young man from the Nine Currents doesn’t even turn toward him.

“That is why I want it”, he replies. “To learn.”

This time there is considerably more laughter from the ground floor, and the man from the Autumn Waters turns red to the tips of his ears.

“The swords of this city are the business of the Sect of the Autumn Waters Sword”, he says. “The Nine Currents already have enough things to take care of.”

“Four hundred and twenty”, says the young man, without bothering to answer the other man.

And the auctioneer gives his little rap of the knuckles again.

“May I remind you that in this hall there is only bidding”, he says, with the same smile. “Box nineteen, do you wish to better the offer of four hundred and twenty?”

The man from the Autumn Waters stays silent for a moment, his jaw clenched, while his companion puts a hand on his arm and says something in his ear, and then he leans back without saying anything more.

“Sold to box forty-seven for four hundred and twenty spirit stones”, says the auctioneer.

And once again, the next lot comes out onto the stage as if nothing had happened.

Although I can’t stop thinking that all of this makes a good deal of sense.

Three sects that divide up an entire city and nearly all of its commerce can’t fight in earnest without the whole city paying for it, so they fight over a mushroom or a sword at an auction, in front of everyone, which comes out considerably cheaper and makes it clear who has more money.

After the swords come the spears, the sabers and the rest of the weapons, and just as the last one is done, the auctioneer announces a lot that has nothing to do with anything before it, since it is a piece of carved stone, one of those from the rarities pages.

And instead of bidding, the hall relaxes.

You can tell right away from the noise. People lean back, pour themselves tea, turn to talk to whoever is beside them, and servants with trays appear in the boxes, just like during the intermission of a play. Meanwhile, the piece of stone sells for eleven spirit stones to someone on the ground floor who stares at it as if not quite sure why they bought it, as a piece of bracelet comes up for auction.

And at that moment I understand what the rarities are for.

They aren’t there to be sold, or at least not only for that, but to provide a breather. The Tower intersperses them between the important lots so that people can rest, eat something and come back to the next bidding refreshed and with a cool head, just as the good professors of my other life would tell an anecdote halfway through a class so that their students wouldn’t fall asleep.

Which is excellent news for me, because if no one is interested in the rarities, then no one is interested in my book.

The Pills, the Talismans and the portable formations come out after that, and with them the hall turns serious again.

There is no fighting there, only figures, and some of them so high that Xia gives up counting out of sheer weariness. One of the Pills sells for more than my new chair cost me, and as it is taken off the stage, I confirm to myself that whatever pills we need, we will buy anywhere but here.

In the Talismans section I lean a little farther over the balustrade, out of pure professional interest. But none of the ones that come out is of a level I can create yet, and when I hear what is paid for the most expensive of them, I understand perfectly why Lu Zhiyu asked me for something rare or high-level, and not one more box of the usual.

After the portable formations, more rarities come out, and I don’t need the catalog to recognize the first one.

It is the Greek vase, with its meander band around the neck and its two warriors in profile, which from up here look even smaller than in the drawing. The young woman from the vestibule holds it with both hands and with enormous care, and the auctioneer presents it as a piece of celestial origin decorated with figures, just as the catalog does.

A box on the first floor buys it for twenty spirit stones, on the second bid, and judging by the way the woman who bid on it is looking at it, I am fairly sure she wants it for putting flowers in.

And I, who in my other life would have clutched my head on hearing something like that, here almost burst out laughing at the thought.

But as soon as the vase disappears off one side of the stage, the young woman from the vestibule appears on the other with another tray, and on top of the tray there is a book.

From the fourth floor, all I can see is a dark rectangle, and no matter how far I lean over the balustrade, I can’t make out the cover, but I don’t need to.

“A book from a Celestial Fragment”, says the auctioneer. “Written in an unknown language.”

He pauses briefly, as if expecting someone in the hall to say what language it is, although no one does, obviously.

“The starting price is five spirit stones”, he finishes.

For a moment nothing happens. The hall carries on with its intermission, with its trays and its cups of tea, and for an instant I almost allow myself to think that no one but me is even going to bid.

But then, in a box on the second floor, a man who is talking with his companion raises his hand without breaking off his conversation.

“Six”, he says.

His companion laughs, as if he had told him a joke.

So I let go of the balustrade, straighten up in the chair and take a deep breath, because from the fourth floor, to be heard, I am going to have to raise my voice.

“Seven”, I say.

And it comes out considerably louder than I expected.

Loud enough that, in the surrounding boxes, several heads turn toward ours, and on some of those faces appears the surprise of someone who expected to see an adult, or at the very least someone who wasn’t sitting in a chair with wheels.

“Box sixty-one, seven”, the auctioneer repeats, without his smile moving.

“Eight”, says someone on the ground floor.

I lean over the balustrade again and look for him. It is a middle-aged man, sitting in one of the back rows, with a cup in his hand and the face of someone who has just discovered that an auction can be fun even without money.

“Ten”, I say.

“Eleven”, says the man on the second floor, and his companion laughs again.

“Twelve”, I say.

And after that, nothing.

The man on the second floor shrugs and goes back to his conversation, the one on the ground floor raises his cup in my direction, like someone toasting a lost game, and the auctioneer waits a moment longer, out of pure courtesy.

“Sold to box sixty-one for twelve spirit stones”, he says.

I lean back in the chair and let out my breath, having gotten what I wanted.

Twelve stones.

In the Empire, I paid sixty-eight for the Dragon’s Grip, and only because my brothers decided to bid against me to annoy me. Here I don’t have a single enemy, and apparently that makes things considerably cheaper.

On my right, Xia clenches her fists on top of her knees and looks at me with enormous eyes, but says nothing, not a single word.

And behind me, through the golden line, Lianhua’s voice reaches me.

“Congratulations, Xiaojie”, she tells me.

And I have to bite my lip so as not to smile in front of all the boxes opposite.

After the book, the auction turns serious again.

The Spiritual Artifacts begin, and with them the figures stop being high and become something I don’t quite know what to call. A bronze mirror that, according to the auctioneer, sends any lower-level technique back at whoever casts it is fought over by three boxes on the fifth floor until it passes fifteen hundred stones, and on the ground floor, for the first time all evening, no one makes a sound.

The techniques, on the other hand, pass by without fanfare, at least for us, since Lianhua had ruled them all out one by one while we were waiting. The one that receives the most bids is precisely the one that covers its user in stone, and it goes to a man built like a wardrobe in a box on the third floor, who certainly doesn’t seem too worried about being slow.

And then, when the hall is already starting to show signs of fatigue, and in some boxes people have already leaned back in their seats like someone waiting for the show to end, the auctioneer raises a hand.

“Before the last lot of the night, the Tower of the Five Dragons has the pleasure of offering you a lot that does not appear in the catalog”, he says.

And the hall, which was about to fall asleep, wakes up all at once.

I notice it in the noise, which cuts off as if someone had closed a door, and in the boxes opposite, where the people who had leaned back lean forward again.

The young woman from the vestibule comes out onto the stage with a lacquered wooden box, longer than it is wide, and sets it on the table. The auctioneer opens it, takes something out and holds it up between two fingers, facing the hall.

It is a narrow, rectangular paper, and although from the fourth floor I can’t make out the runes, I don’t need to, because I know that talisman better than the back of my own hand.

The auctioneer puts it back in the box.

“A complete lot of talismans from the House of the Long Journey”, he says. “Ten of each of the five types. Fire Arrow, Air Barrier, Spiritual Shield, Cutting Wind and Freezing.”

I go still.

“As some of you already know, in Sanjiang these talismans are offered only to the Tower’s clients with preferential treatment status”, he continues. “Tonight is the only opportunity for everyone else to acquire them.”

And the ground floor erupts; there is no other way to describe it.

It is a murmur that is born in the first row and reaches the last in the space of a heartbeat, and then rises to the first floor, where there are also people leaning over their balustrades to get a better look at the box.

I, on the other hand, have stayed where I am, with my hands gripping the balustrade, staring at the box as if I could see inside it from here, because they are my talismans.

I drew them myself, one by one, at the desk in my study on the island, with the brush and the ink I make myself, and I counted them myself before closing every box that has left the house on its way to the Tower. And now they are down there, on top of a lacquered table, at an auction, between a mirror that sends techniques back and whatever the last lot of the night may be.

On my right, Xia brings both hands to her mouth.

“Wen”, she says to me through her fingers, very quietly. “They’re…”

I raise a finger without looking at her, and Xia falls silent, although she doesn’t take her hands away from her mouth.

“Xiaojie”, Lianhua tells me through the Golden Chains. “I believe this is the surprise Lu Zhiyu was talking about.”

“So it seems”, I reply.

Although what I don’t know is which part of all this is the surprise.

Because I knew nothing about my talismans being sold only to clients with preferential treatment status. The last I knew, they were selling very well, Lu Zhiyu always asked me for the next shipment as soon as a box reached her and, according to her, they were in great demand.

And at some point, in some office in the Tower, someone decided that my talismans were going to stop being sold at the counters and that only clients with preferential treatment status would be able to buy them.

In other words, they have become VIP talismans and no one has bothered to tell me.

Although, come to think of it, they had no obligation to do so either, because the agreement I made with Lu Zhiyu sets a price for each type of talisman, with no minimum quantity and no exclusivity, and they pay me that price exactly the same whether the talisman is sold at a counter, in an office or on this stage.

So whatever is paid for that box tonight isn’t going to change a single stone of what the Tower pays me.

And even so, when the auctioneer states the starting price, which is one hundred spirit stones, and the ground floor fills with raised hands, I can’t help leaning over the balustrade so as not to miss anything.

“One hundred and ten!”

“One hundred and fifteen!”

“One hundred and twenty!”

The figures come from everywhere, so fast that the auctioneer has to point with his open hand at each bidder so that everyone knows whose bid he is repeating. From the seats on the ground floor and from the boxes on the first floor, and at first also from the odd higher box, although those drop out right away, as soon as the figure passes two hundred.

Which also makes sense, since if they have preferential treatment status, they can buy them whenever they want without fighting anyone.

But those down below can’t.

One hundred and eighty. Two hundred.

And from two hundred on, only two are left.

One is a box on the first floor, from which a woman in a plain robe with a sword at her waist is bidding, saying each figure without thinking about it, like someone who had already decided in advance how far she was going to go.

The other is a group on the ground floor. Four men, sitting together in the third row, who before each bid put their heads together and talk quietly for an instant, and who then raise their hands at the same time, as if all four were bidding.

And watching how they do it, I realize that all four of them are, in fact, bidding, pooling what they have between them.

Two hundred and ten. Two hundred and twenty. Two hundred and forty.

“Two hundred and fifty”, says the woman on the first floor.

The four men in the third row put their heads together again, and this time it takes them considerably longer to pull apart, and when they finally do, one of them stands up.

“You people up there buy them whenever you want”, he says to the box on the first floor. “And the rest of us have to fight over the leftovers.”

He says it with more weariness than anger, but he says it loudly enough to be heard throughout the hall, and on the ground floor a murmur rises that sounds very much like agreement.

The woman on the first floor doesn’t answer him, but the auctioneer gives his little rap of the knuckles on the table, the third of the night, and smiles.

“Third row, seat twelve”, he says. “Do you wish to better the offer of two hundred and fifty?”

The man stays on his feet a moment longer, looking at the box.

Then he shakes his head and sits down.

“Sold to box nine for two hundred and fifty spirit stones”, says the auctioneer.

And I stay watching as the young woman from the vestibule closes the box and carries it off the stage, with the same care with which she carried off the vase earlier.

Two hundred and fifty spirit stones for fifty talismans that I sold to the Tower for a great deal less than what has just been paid for them.

But it doesn’t bother me, because I was the one who accepted the price, it seemed fair to me, and it still does, since if I sold them on my own, those talismans would end up being sold on a blanket in some square instead of at this auction.

What does amuse me is something else, which is that only a short while ago, in this very box, Lu Zhiyu told me it was a pity I hadn’t been able to create a high-grade talisman for the auction, when she knew perfectly well that my talismans were going to end up on this stage anyway.

“Xiaojie”, Lianhua tells me through the Golden Chains. “You are smiling.”

And she is right, because if there is anyone in this hall who knows which of all these boxes belongs to the House of the Long Journey, a girl smiling right after her talismans have been sold is the last thing they should see, so I put on my poker face and look around me without moving my head more than necessary.

But no one is looking at us, or at least no one is looking at us more than people usually do, which is always considerably more than I would like. In the boxes opposite they are discussing the bidding, on the ground floor the four men in the third row are still arguing in low voices, and no one, as far as I can see, is looking for the box of the House of the Long Journey.

And I hope, with all my strength, that it stays that way.

The last lot of the night is another Spiritual Artifact, a fan with jade ribs that makes me think of Master Mu, and it goes to a box on the fifth floor for a figure I refuse to remember.

Once that bidding is over, the auctioneer gives thanks, wishes everyone a good night and reminds them that the Tower’s staff will come by the boxes to deliver the lots and collect payment.

We don’t have to wait long, since Xia has barely begun closing the refreshment boxes when there is a knock at the door of the box, again two soft, spaced-apart knocks, and Lianhua gets up to open it.

It is the young man in the gray robe, the same one who guided us here, with the same smile measured to the millimeter and a lacquered tray in his hands.

And on the tray there is a bundle wrapped in a cloth of dark silk.

“Your lot, miss”, he tells me, and he bows toward me, not toward Lianhua, just as in the vestibule.

This time I don’t need to twist my neck, because Lianhua, without my asking, moves one of the chairs beside me out of the way to make room for me, so I pull back on the rims, move the chair away from the balustrade, turn it on the spot and end up facing the door.

The man comes closer, lowers the tray to the height of my hands, and I take the bundle.

It is heavier than it looked from the fourth floor, and through the silk I can feel the corners of the covers and the edge of the pages, and for an instant, just one, I am tempted to pull back the cloth and look at the cover.

But I don’t, because if I open it here, I know perfectly well that I won’t be able to close it, so I set it on my lap, with the silk still on, and rest both hands on top of it.

“How do you wish to settle the amount?” the man asks me.

“I would like it charged to the accounts of the House of the Long Journey”, I reply.

The man doesn’t stop smiling, but he pauses briefly, the pause of someone who knows he has to ask for something and is looking for the most polite way to do it.

“In that case, I would need to confirm that the young lady was invited on behalf of that company”, he tells me.

Which is completely reasonable, because anyone could ask to have what they bought charged to someone else’s accounts, so I turn toward Xia, who doesn’t need to be asked twice and takes the invitation out from inside her clothes, with the same care with which she put it away when we came in, and hands it to me, and I hold it out to the man.

He takes it, although this time he doesn’t read all of it, he only looks at one particular part, and then he looks at me, just as in the vestibule, and I finally understand what he read back then and why he looked at me differently.

But even so, so that no doubt remains, I take the jade seal of the House of the Long Journey out of my bag and show it to him in the palm of my hand.

The man leans in a little to look at it, studies the three characters carved into its base, looks at the invitation, and looks back at the characters.

Then he straightens up and returns the invitation to me with both hands.

“It will be charged to the accounts of the House of the Long Journey”, he tells me. “Thank you very much for your trust in the Tower of the Five Dragons.”

He takes a small notebook from his sleeve and writes something in it, resting it on the tray, in quick, clean handwriting, and then he bows again.

“I wish you a safe journey home”, he finishes.

And he leaves along the gallery with the same unhurried pace as before.

I hand the invitation back to Xia, who puts it away again as if it were made of glass, and I put the seal away in my little bag while she finishes packing everything up. The refreshment boxes, now closed, go one on top of another inside the backpack, and then the cups, the plates and the tea container, each thing in its place and in the same order in which it came out.

When she finishes, she hangs the backpack on her shoulders and pulls the straps as tight as she did this morning.

“All done”, she says.

Lianhua opens the door, and I push the rims and leave the box behind her.

The gallery is crowded, since people are coming out of every box at once, and instead of heading for the staircase, half of them stay standing at the doors of their boxes, talking with the people next door, saying goodbye, arranging to meet another day or simply watching who comes out of each door.

That means I make slow progress, with Lianhua on my left and Xia on my right, her hand on the armrest, while people move aside as we pass, some because they see the chair, others because they see Lianhua, and some, it seems to me, because they have just recognized the girl who bought the strange book.

When we reach the staircase, Lianhua already has another Minor Levitation Talisman between her fingers.

She sticks it on the side of the chair, at the height of the armrest, the talisman glows for an instant and the chair rises a few fingers’ breadth off the floor, so I let go of the rims and rest my hands on top of the book as Lianhua starts down with me.

And it is on the way down that I begin to notice it, not in us, but in everyone else.

On the third-floor landing, two groups coming down at the same time look at each other in a way that has nothing to do with courtesy, and one of them stops on purpose so that the other has to wait. On the second-floor one, the two men from the Autumn Waters who were left without the sword come out of the gallery and start down right in front of us, with the faces of men who still haven’t finished digesting it.

And on the first-floor one, they run into the last thing they want to run into.

The young man from the Nine Currents is standing in the middle of the landing, with two companions, saying goodbye to someone, and the two men from the Autumn Waters have to pass beside him to keep going down, but neither group moves aside to let the other pass.

Lianhua stops a couple of steps above, with the chair suspended in the air, and waits.

“I hope you enjoy your sword”, says the man from the Autumn Waters. “While it lasts.”

“I will enjoy it”, the young man replies. “And if someday you want me to teach you how it’s used, you know where to find me.”

The hand of the man from the Autumn Waters goes to the hilt of his own sword.

But he doesn’t have time to do anything else, because, as if out of nowhere, two men from the Tower appear on the landing, dressed like the guards at the entrance and with the same faces of men who have never smiled.

They say nothing, nor do they need to, since they simply take up positions one on each side of the two groups and stay there, still, watching, and after a moment the two groups each move aside to their own side of the staircase and go on their way as if they had never stopped.

Lianhua waits for the landing to clear and finishes going down.

On the ground floor, Lianhua pushes the chair down until the wheels touch the floor, the talisman goes out and crumbles into ash, and I close my hands around the rims again, with the book in my lap.

But in the vestibule, the scene repeats itself.

This time it is the four men from the third row, the ones who pooled their money to bid on my talismans, who have run into the woman with the sword from the first-floor box at the door, and one of them is saying something to her in a low voice that I can’t hear, but which, judging by the look on her face, isn’t a congratulation.

And this time too, two men from the Tower appear and stand still beside them, and the four men leave for the square without saying anything more, while the woman with the sword holds against her chest a lacquered wooden box that I know rather well.

It is clear that there are people who aren’t happy with the outcome of the auction, which, come to think of it, is exactly what the auctioneer was referring to at the beginning, that whatever they had pending should be settled outside this building.

And apparently, there are those who don’t like waiting until they are outside.

But fortunately no one approaches us, so we cross the vestibule, pass between the guards at the entrance and go out into the square.

Outside, night has already fallen.

The red silk lanterns hanging from the eaves are all lit, and from down here, with the five stories lit up one above the other and the bronze dragons gleaming at the corners, the building looks even larger than it did this afternoon, and the square, which is still full of people, has turned into a sea of small groups saying goodbye, gathering or simply watching those who come out.

As soon as the front wheels touch the flagstones of the square, I feel Lianhua’s hands on the handles of the backrest, so I let go of the rims and leave my hands on top of the book.

And at some point, as the square falls behind us and the streets of shops with carved facades begin to slide past me, their doors already closed and their gilded signboards gleaming in the light of the lanterns, I let the golden line that connects me to Lianhua go out and lower my eyes to my lap.

Beneath the silk I feel the edge of the covers under my fingertips, and although I still don’t know what is inside, whether a prayer or a recipe, whether it will tell me something about the Celestial Realm or only how to prepare the rice for a biryani, I do know one thing.

That for the first time in years, I am eager to lose myself once again in a language I don’t know.