By evening the rain had stopped, leaving behind a thick mist that rolled through the streets. Paper lanterns gleamed above and cicadas chirped. It was like the world had conspired with Booker to give him the perfect atmosphere for the scam he was planning.

Finding the identity of the blue-robed cultivator had turned out easy. He was Young Master Wild Swan and everyone in the markets knew his name. Wild Swan was rich, with sophisticated tastes and an eye for ancient treasures.

As he walked along the darkening street in a corner of the bazaar known for selling curios, merchants quickly adjusted their displays, pushing forward prime artifacts and magical treasures and sweeping back the usual tat they sold to gullible idiots. Hawkers called his name, inviting him into their stalls for a cup of wine or to see the new treasures they’d just brought in from distant lands.

From a dark corner, Booker watched. He had concealed his face with a mask, discarded his novice robes for common rags, and even gone to the alchemy markets for an herb that would change his voice.

They really treat him like a king. He thought, watching Wild Swan casually wave off the hawkers and give the merchant stalls nothing more than a glance, his eyes skimming over the curiosities without interest. Well, let’s sell him some poison.

As he stepped past the dark space where Booker was hidden, Booker rang a bell. His eyes snapped instantly to the sound – and to the hideous mask Booker was wearing.

“Young master…” Booker’s voice was a too-deep croak full of rust and age. “Three signs you’ll witness in the markets today, or my fortune-telling has failed me.”

“I didn’t ask.” Wild Swan snorted disdainfully at the sight of the raggedy old fortune-teller he thought he was looking at. He turned away, but Booker called out.

“You will see a man whose wife is so unfaithful his hair has turned green!”

“You will see a cat chase a ghost away from a teahouse!”

“You will see a man die by the deadliest of poisons known to man!”

With each proclamation, Booker rang the bell. For a moment Wild Swan turned back, glancing at the fortune teller again with something like discomfort. Then he turned and continued on, waving to the whores who piled out onto a teahouse balcony to flirt with him.

When he looked back a second time, the fortune-teller was gone.

Booker grinned as he slid into a back alley behind the markets, pulling off his mask, straightening his walk, and beginning to strip off the smelly rags they’d traded for with a vagrant. That part of his costume was maybe too accurate. The three brothers were waiting for him.

They were:

Lu Wei, the fat brother, with a round head like an egg.

Jie Quing, the skinny beanpole brother, who was constantly nervous.

And Chang Bao, the middle brother, whose hair was currently dyed a tremendously bright green. With alchemy, it hadn’t been hard to get the shade right–

But convincing him to go through with it had been another matter.

“Are were sure this will come out again?” He fretted, tugging at his serpent-colored locks.

“Entirely. It was just a simple dye.” Booker replied, patting him on the shoulder. “We can wash it out tomorrow.”

“Great.” He mumbled sourly. “Then all that’s left is to wash out my pride.”

“Cheer up. Tomorrow, you’ll be rich enough that green hair might become the fashion.” Booker joked. “When you’re rich, it’s just that easy.”

This first sign is the easy one. Anyone could pull off making a man’s hair green, but it starts the process. Soon he’ll be seeing miracles everywhere he looks.

The throng of vendors crying out for Wild Swan’s attention made it easy to tell when he was approaching. The market street was curved like a ‘u’ and the alley they’d slipped through led out onto the other side.

With a firm hand on his back, the rest of them shoved Chang Bao out into the street. He froze for a moment, petrified, and then began to walk forward, rubbing his hands nervously.

It only took a moment for the firelight of the lanterns to illuminate his bright green hair. People stared at first, confused by what they were even seeing, and then someone began to laugh. The commotion around him was quickly growing as more people caught sight of the fool with the green hair, and when Wild Swan arrived at the edge of the crowd, nobody was even paying attention to him. He had to force his way forward until he reached the front and caught sight of Chang Bao.

Instantly his demeanor shifted. Stepping forward, he caught Chang Bao by the scruff of his robes and pulled him down onto his knees. “You idiot! Why are you walking about like this? Are you some kind of clown?”

Booker winced. This was a more direct approach than he’d hoped Wild Swan would take. It wasn’t outside the plan but…

If Chang Bao panics, everything is lost.

Chang Bao gasped and his face went very pale at the feeling of Wild Swan’s iron strength, but he squawked out, “It all happened– yes, it all happened when I walked in on my wife and another man! Ever since then, my hair’s been turning green! Nothing I can do washes it out!”

“Moron!” Wild Swan continued to berate him, but Booker could hear the unsettled tone in his voice. “There’s no such thing as green hair!”

Dragging Chang Bao forward, he slammed the poor man’s head into a barrel of water collecting under a rooftop gutter. Again and again, he dunked Chang Bao under the water. But Booker had used an extremely strong dye. Forget washing it out with water – Booker would struggle to remove that color from Chang Bao’s hair.

After splashing Chang Bao down five or ten times, Wild Swan threw him to the ground. “Motherfucker, your hair is really green?”

“Yes!” Chang Bao gasped out. Booker could only pump his fist – this crew might not look like much, but once you gave them a plan, they followed it no matter what. Even after being forced face-first into a water barrel over and over, Chang Bao stuck to the simple script he’d been given.

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“Then go home and tell your wife she’s a whore!” Wild Swan kicked him once, and as Chang Bao sagged, he walked away.

What a lovely character. Booker thought.

Wild Swan glared at the crowd laughing at Chang Bao. “And you, all of you! Don’t you have somewhere better to be?”

And what a strange reaction. Booker was beginning to be puzzled; He seems almost hostile to the idea of the prediction coming true. Does he fear fortunes for some reason?

Either way, his glare was more than enough to send the crowd scattering. Booker and his crew shrank back into the alleyway as Chang Bao crawled away from Wild Swan, who had fully turned on the crowd. “You superstitious idiots!” He called out, raising his fist. The whole crowd shrunk back in shock.

There is definitely something more going on here. Booker thought as he checked on Chang Bao. Despite being waterboarded, as he reached an alleyway and was no longer in the sight of the crowd, he turned back, met eyes with Booker, and lifted his fist.

What a champion. In response, Booker lifted his own fist.

One of the three signs was down. And Wild Swan seemed unsettled, more so than even Booker had hoped. His strange reaction – pure rage – seemed to show he was susceptible to the scam, but it also showed what a wild card he was.

I was expecting him to lie down and chase fate like an idiot. Frankly, it’s how Rain thought, so I thought maybe all cultivators would fall for the same trick.

This… This is something different. And maybe dangerous.

But nevertheless… he was in too deep to back out now.

“Come on brothers. Let’s get to the next scam…” Squeezing the shoulders of Lu Wei and Jie Quing, Booker retreated out of the alley.

It was time for the next phase.

As the Young Master Wild Swan approached the teahouse, there was a huge commotion. The doors began to swing open, but before they could, a blue-faced spirit burst straight through them, pursued by a fiery alleycat with gray fur and scarred eyes. The alleycat was hissing and spitting, and the ghost seemed genuinely terrified as it rushed past Wild Swan, forcing the young master to leap up on one foot to dodge the alleycat which barrelled past him, hissing and yowling with the very rage of war!

All along the street, people shouted, screamed, and hid behind their stalls. The ghost rushed past, trailing spiritual vapor as the alleycat chased it away from the teahouse.

From behind a stall, Booker chuckled. Brother Han was the one he’d knew he could rely upon; the ghost truly was a great actor, wailing silently and wearing a bug-eyed expression of fear as he fled from the tiny cat, like he was being chased by all the hordes of hell.

As for Wild Swan…

His face had gone completely ashen. He looked pale and sick, as if something was upsetting his stomach, and hung in the surprised pose with his left foot up in the air for far too long. When he finally put his foot down and returned to normal, his face was shock-white and he immediately marched towards the greeter for the teahouse.

“Ah, master Wild Swan. We apologize for the inconvenience. It was only a minor ghost–” The man began to say, but Wild Swan was having none of it.

He grabbed the man by the nape of his neck and yanked him in close. Booker strained to hear what he said next, because it was in a low, bloodless whisper. “Where did you get that cat?”

“Ah, ah, that’s the teahouse cat! We’ve had her forever! I don’t know what got into her!”

But Booker did. Beast-Taming wasn’t a property he could buy at the markets. But creating a battle rage pill was easy enough he could have done it in his sleep.

And since the ghost was the next thing the cat saw, all its rage was focused on Brother Han. Chasing him out of the teahouse was nothing! Hyped up on battle rage, the scarred old teahouse cat would have tried to chase a whole army if the army had been willing to run from it, and even if they weren’t it would have tried anyway!

That was why Booker had fed it the pill in a bit of tuna, after all.

Wild Swan seemed shaken as he let the man slip out of his grip. He mumbled something, and when the attendant nervously asked him to repeat it, shouted violently, spit flying into the man’s face. “I said, I WANT THE BALCONY! Can you not even get that right? Must I repeat myself? I want the balcony seats! Three more are on their way, and we expect the best of service – so you can get out of my sight!”

A casual slap knocked the man to the ground, and Wild Swan seemed on the verge of attacking again before the teahouse’s owner appeared, descending the stairs to the base floor. She was an absolutely gorgeous woman, her face painted to appear porcelain white with elegant lips and imposingly bright eyes, her body concealed behind a silk dress. “Wild Swan, why are you so cruel today?” She called out, her voice piercing.

Even Wild Swan, even in his current state, paused for this level of beauty. His face flashed nervous embarrassment, and he grabbed the man by the shoulder and pulled him back onto his feet. “My… composure slipped… that’s all.”

Booker couldn’t help but crack a grin. So the great Young Master Wild Swan was susceptible to beauties. That would be good to know if they had to pull another caper like this…

As the beautiful madame led Wild Swan up the stairs to the balcony, Booker retreated back out of sight.

In the mouth of an alleyway, Lu Wei was preparing for his role by gulping down gallons of water they’d tinted with red dyes. As Booker returned, he lowered the jug and gasped out… “Is everything well?”

“Everything’s going exactly to plan. Wild Swan has taken roost on the balcony, and is in the perfect position to see your show.” Booker said.

“Ah, but are we sure this will work?” Ji Quing nervously asked, rubbing his hands together. “I mean… No, it has to be said! Wild Swan could kill any of us as easily as we could wave our hands! And you saw him yourself! He’s enraged. He’ll surely act like a madman when he sees this sign too, and Lu Wei could really die!”

Lu Wei burped nauseously, and said, “I admit, this plan seems… grotesque.”

But if Lu Wei was merely doubtful, Ji Quing was deep in the middle of a crisis of faith. Cold sweat dripped down every inch of his face. “Cultivators… cultivators fight beasts face-to-face and upheave entire countries. What chance do we have, brothers? We’re just rabbits trying to trick a tiger…”

Booker placed his hand on the trembling man’s shoulder. “How do you think a cultivator puts on their pants, Quing?”

He blinked in confusion.

“One leg at a time.” Booker answered his own question. “And they piss with their dicks in hand too, if you were wondering. The fact is, they’re stupid and greedy, hungry and angry, all of the mixed up things that come with being human. And our ancestors…”

He pulled Ji Quing to look dead into his eyes.

“Our ancestors weren’t the strongest or the fastest creatures alive. They didn’t survive by strength or speed. We’re not tigers and we’re not rabbits. Our ancestors survived because they were smart, just like us. We’re humans. That goes for cultivators – and that goes for us too. There’s not a single member of the human race who can’t fall for a scam. Do you hear me?”

“Y-yes.” Ji Quing stumbled out, squeezing his hand into a fist. “They’re just– they’re just human.”

Letting out a swollen belch, Lu Wei slapped Booker on the shoulder. “Give me the pill. It’s time for my big entrance.”

Booker passed him a small, unassuming pill, and Lu Wei placed it between his teeth as he composed himself, taking on the role of a passing merchant. Not a person on the street took notice of him as he stepped out of the alley and walked along the road…

Not until he came to right beneath the balcony where Wild Swan was sitting, and suddenly froze. Booker caught the small motion of his throat as Lu Wei swallowed the pill. His face turned shock white, and he dropped to his knees. People glanced at him in alarm as he opened his mouth, and let out a strange, gasping sound, “Ghhauuaaa!”

And before anyone could reach out to help him, his mouth suddenly exploded open, and he vomited a geyser of blood! Two, three, four… five meters of blood! It shot up alongside the balcony of the teahouse, and Wild Swan surged from his seat in shock.

“GHAAUUUAAA!” With a scream, he vomited blood again! This time it spewed across the ground and filled the gutters.

Back in the alley, Booker leaned against the wall and covered his mouth, laughing hysterically.

That was some poison alright!