Booker pushed his way out of the hospital before he did or said anything else unwise. With the Sect on the scene, and a cure discovered, things were over here. If he stayed any longer the Sect would likely arrest him – and then the issue would definitely disappear into the corrupt bureaucracy.

But as for what he could do now, Booker truly had no idea.

No, he had precisely one idea…

Kill Zheng Bai.

No matter how he looked at things, no matter how he tried to hold true to his determination towards non-violence… Zheng Bai had done nothing but poison the world around her.

Any solution that left her with any power to hurt others was unacceptable. But the Sect, the ruling system of justice in the system, would protect her as long as she was useful. Perhaps – if Zheng Bai didn’t exist, perhaps they would even create one, a useful tool for keeping the city’s criminal elements under their thumb.

There was presently no system within the Sect to enforce justice for her victims. If there ever had been, it was totally corrupt and beyond its original purpose.

No, it was more than that. Even if Booker could imagine some miracle – using the seal he’d been given to summon forth a cultivator from the Upper Sect – he was only hoping. Hoping that someone else would solve his problems.

That’s not how a cultivator thinks.

If he has nowhere to run – if nobody else will enforce justice – then he does it himself.

And maybe it’s not about morality. Maybe killing really is wrong, and yet, some people still need to die. I don’t have to agonize or justify it to myself on any deep level…

Zheng Bai has already killed… I don’t want to know how many… and if the only way I can stop her is killing her…

Then it doesn’t matter.

Whether this is right or wrong – I can worry after.

I’ll put her in the ground and worry about the morality later.

Because if I stop now, and worry about my morals instead of saving lives while I can – what fucking good are those morals to the world, or anyone but me? Selfishly moralistic…

It’s an ugly kind of paradox.

His mind was far from clear. He still remembered Hu Bao. The sensation moving down the knife’s handle as the blade sank into his chest.

But even as he chewed at on the bitter medicine, weighing his alternatives and returning to the simplicity of violence time and time again, Booker began to realize he had no clear way to follow through on that mission.

It wasn’t impossible that he could send Snips to carry out an assassination with his poison claws, but that would mean putting Snips at risk. After all, a poison meant to kill other small spirit beasts would act slowly on a human-size body. A single swat or a crushing hand could kill Snips instantly. Booker could try to cover the moment where Snips was in danger of retribution with one of his darkness pills, maybe…

But then, I’d have to get close.

His mind was dazed. The fog of exhaustion after using Dialyze so recklessly was still hanging over him.

It was painfully slow to think, slower still to recognize the faults in his plans. It was like trying to piece together a puzzle with shaking hands. People bumped against him in the market, first apologizing profusely as they saw his Sect robes, but then regaining the confidence to berate him when they finally looked up and realized he wore the cripple’s brand. He walked past them without a word.

Reaching into his bag, Booker took out a healing pill and swallowed it down. The tiny burst of vitality and life essence contained within helped to cool and calm his mind, and he began to realize where he was, finally taking in his surroundings. His blind wandering had led him into a busy marketplace, full of people haggling over fish and grain and foodstuffs, a knife-grinder nearby whistling over the scrape of his whetstone with a cheery harmony that stabbed at Booker's headache, sending him moving on quickly.

He wasn’t sure where he’d been going…

Where his feet were leading him, in that blind state of anger…

But he had a terrible suspicion that, without even realizing it, he had been heading straight for the drug den where Zheng Bai ruled.

I… If I keep moving forward in anger, I could die.

No.Not merely ‘could’. Even if Booker, somehow, managed kill Zheng Bai before she snapped his spine in half….

There would be guards. Some cultivators, some not. It wouldn’t matter in the end if he was torn apart by a mob or smashed into a crater by a single powerful fist – showing up on Zheng Bai’s territory now was setting himself up to die.

And even if the ragesick part of him wanted to scream defiance and go down fighting, he knew that was only the storm of anger passing through him.

It won’t improve anything…

Just killing her…

Gang leaders die all the time. If all I do with my life is kill one of, another will replace her…

When you’re outnumbered, trading one life for another is a losing strategy.

He gritted his teeth, feeling his temple pulse as the walls of logic closed in, cordoning him off from the simple, satisfying route, the route where he died in bloody revenge and the city moved on without even a pause…

This is how it goes.

At this level, a cultivator can still be killed by a well-placed knife while they’re weakened, or poisoned to death, and even a straight fight can be won if you have the numbers…

But they’ll make you pay.

And the thought of paying with your life brings you up cold, even when you’re sick to your stomach of the world and the way the game is played.

So nothing changes. As long as I play safe, avoiding conflicts I could lose, nothing changes…

But at the same time – who didn’t fear death?

Even knowing the cycle of reincarnation waited to take him to another life, death meant losing. Whatever he died for, would still need protecting again. Whatever he fought for, others would have to fight for it instead. If you threw away your life at the first provocation…

In the long term he’d been trading his life for Zheng Bai – at best – and undoing none of the damage she’d done.

And…

I try to turn the other cheek, to let things go, to live peacefully.

But…

I refuse to die a nobody, having changed nothing. I can’t stand losing – I have my pride.

I try to do things for other people – to do the right things – but this, I can admit, this isn’t just for some high-minded notion of how the world should be.

This is also for me.

By now Booker was moving at a more purposeful pace, watching his surroundings, trying to find some advantage or trick buried in the relentless pace of the market. His pace had slowed, giving him time to think and hope to find the miracle he needed.

But nothing Booker saw gave him comfort. There was only coin changing hands, the cries of merchants hawking their goods, the flash of movement underfoot as street urchins chased each other around and through the busy customers…

And then for a moment the crowd parted just so, and Booker saw him.

There was a tattooed thug watching Booker from about twenty feet back.

For a moment, their eyes met. The scarred man turned away a little too quickly, confirming that he’d been watching. Booker’s right hand clenched instinctively into a fist, but he suppressed the surprise before it could travel and become a readable sign that he’d spotted the pursuer.

Instead, he let his trail pass by a stall selling copper cooking pots, watching the thugs indistinct reflection warp across the bent surface of a cauldron.

He’s following me for sure… I guess the alchemist who warned me to keep silent about Zheng Bai tipped off one of her heavies that I was running around.

He kept moving, leaving the market behind as he drifted past the last stalls. The thug hesitated for a minute as the crowds thinned out, then began to slip after Booker with more distance between them now.

But, Booker couldn’t help but see this as a good thing.

No, it was definitely a good thing. This meant that he had something – anything – that made Zheng Bai’s cartel afraid. The thug wouldn’t bother trying to kill or scare him unless the information was a threat, in some small way.

The information he had – their connection to the ‘plague’ – was something they were afraid of him having over them.

And if that’s true… Then there must be a way to use it against them.

They’re reacting to me like a threat. Why? What can I do against them, here and now?

I’m moving…

Where are they afraid of me going?

For a moment the thought turned over and over in his mind. He was a cripple. The Sect cared very little for him, and Greenmoon, supposedly charged with watching over and protecting him, was profit-obsessed. Booker truly didn’t know if there was anyone in the Sect who had both the power and determination to see justice through…

Valley Tiger.

The thought burst through his mind like the sun clearing the clouds. He might have had a terrible relationship with Rain’s uncle, and barely be on speaking terms with the man, but…

They don’t know that.

No, more than that. Rain probably became a target on Zheng Bai’s radar in the first place because of his family ties. Because unlike the other desperate prospects trying to secure a future through the alchemy trials, he had connections that led outside the Sect. Connections that Zheng Bai hoped to twist and manipulate once she got ahold of him.

Valley Tiger…

The Sect has no binding oath to protect the city or its inhabitants from petty criminals like Zheng Bai. They only care about disruptions that threaten their power structure. In that way, I was a fool to ask the Sect for justice at all – it was never going to happen. Not unless they deemed Zheng Bai was now a danger to their order and control.

But Valley Tiger is a guard captain for the city guard. This kind of disaster falls directly under his supervision.

And I know where he’ll be today.

As he pieced the puzzle together, Booker felt the weight on his soul recede, like the strength of having a direction and a plan was a cure for what he’d expended. The feeling was like sun on your face after a warm day. Not a physical resource, like a well that ran dry when too much water was taken, but an endless spring that simply asked he never take too much at one time.

He turned as he reached the next intersection, where carts and horses were tangled together in a long traffic jam of farmers leading up to the Sect’s storehouses to supply them with grain. The man was still trailing behind him, but Booker paid him no attention – in fact, he wanted the thug to follow him all the way to the Golden Moon Auction House.

How else can I put bait on this hook?

The auction house was already busy by the time he arrived, drifting into the crowd of people hustling and jostling to get ahead and make it into one of the few seats the poor could hope for close to the stage. The box seats above were reserved for the rich, the true patrons of a night like this. As for the rabble, they came for entertainment, paying a silver fee to enjoy a night where inconceivable sums of money would be paid for mystic treasures. It wasn’t just the allure of the actual treasures, or the money spent, but the squabbling of the upper classes that entertained them.

Stolen story; please report.

To those outside the game of cultivation, there was always amusement in watching the god-kings of the world argue. If you were lucky, there might even be a duel.

As Booker paid his fee, he cast an eye back to see the thug making his way through the crowd behind him, muscling others aside. There was definitely more urgency in his movements now – he knew Booker was close to making contact.

And Booker, although he couldn’t run or give any outward sign he knew he was being watched, was beginning to feel the pressure. At this point…

Scaring him likely wasn’t on the man’s mind. If that was the case, Booker imagined he would have made his pursuit more obvious, and made the threat implicit by now.

He doesn’t look like a cultivator, but then, I have no real ability to judge who might be concealing themselves.

As soon as he was released past the entrance and into the main hall, Booker began heading for the stairs. A young man dressed in the ornate robes of the Golden Moon stood nearby, holding a ceremonial spear and openly ogling young women in the crowd. As he stepped past, Booker stopped for a moment and whispered into his ear. "Listen to me. In a moment or two, a man might try to bribe or threaten his way past you. A man with tattoos from a certain gang. Whatever he tries, let it work. I want him following me up."

The boy looked at him, and reading the mark on his face rather than listening to the words, replied, "Sounds awfully like you want me to forget my one job."

Booker’s jaw tightened.

Ever since he’d arrived here, Booker had held his cards to his chest, trying to give off as little of the appearance of strength as he could. But all the while he’d seen arrogant, powerful people breezing through life among them. Now he borrowed the cold way they looked at people, the threatening tone in their voice, the callous sneer….

"I am Captain Valley Tiger's nephew, and this concerns the law of the city. I'd remember that you are guests here. You don't look like you belong to the Golden Moon clan, so you should just be a hired guard, no? I'd imagine you want nothing but good relations with the city's guard."

The guard looked unsure for a moment as he ran the mental math of how truly endangered he’d be in that situation, and then he nodded. "Alright, I'll let him follow. Just remember this is neutral ground. You can't spill blood here without Golden Moon permission.

Booker headed up the darkened stairs, each step along the narrow stairwell creaking as he ascended. At the top, the decor was a model of tasteful privacy, large glass vases full of fluttering blue-winged and luminous insects shedding a faint light over richly-framed portraits and banners hung along the walls. Along the eastern side was a row of doors leading to the boxes. Booker made his way forward slowly, reaching into his bag and taking out Froggie to hide him behind a vase.

“When you see a tattooed man come up the stairs, croak once. When he’s at our doorway, croak twice.”

Leaving behind Froggie to watch the stairs, he opened the door to Valley Tiger’s balcony. The man was sitting casually slouched in his chair, one leg up over the other and the sole of his boot balanced on the railing of the balcony. But even as Booker’s hand turned the doorknob, Valley Tiger spoke –

“I thought I’d be free of you for at least a year.” And then, after a pause. “Don’t think I’ll lift a hand to help you with whatever consequence the Sect brings down. You’ve shown your respect for their rules.”

“Rules are one thing. This is about… what we spoke about last.” Booker said carefully. “There’s been a poisoning in the lower city. Something bad in the drug supply. About twenty to thirty victims all in a day, and probably more we haven’t found who’ve just… died quietly in a corner somewhere.”

Valley Tiger turned, his sword-like eyebrows narrowing. “And how did you become involved?”

“The hospital in the Estuary District called me for aid. We have the incident under control now, with the Sect’s help, but… the Sect is going to bury this.”

Valley Tiger’s jaw flexed as he considered the information, and he stretched his neck, looking – more thoughtful than Booker had seen before.

Maybe I misjudged Valley Tiger. There’s something calculating in his nature I didn’t count on at first, and Rain maybe never saw. He’s a violent man, yes, but he’s learned to play the political game – and make brute intimidation part of his strategy. If you make a name for violence instead of cunning, not only do you win respect from the brutes, but you’re disregarded by the people who think they play a more complex strategy than you. It opens space for you to maneuver.

After a long pause – a ribbit sounded from the hall.

The sound made Valley Tiger’s eyes narrow, but it also seemed to break him out of his own thoughts

“Give me a name.” He said..

“Zheng Bai.”

A second ribbit, and Booker could almost feel the invisible presence of the man behind the door. They were being overhead now, for sure…

And he had a chance to poison Zheng Bai’s information.

Valley Tiger snorted. “Then the matter is already settled. Her ties are too deep. The Sect will sweep things under the rug, as you’ve said.”

“She’s afraid of you.” Booker protested.

“She should be. Someday she’ll give me the excuse I need, but this? This will let me crack heads and disrupt her operations for a month, sure. It'll hurt her bottom line, not cut her throat.” The captain said, flicking his hand dismissively. “Just wanting to rip her organization up by the roots doesn’t mean I have free reign to do so. You want my advice? Go back to the Sect. Take whatever punishment they give you – and beg forgiveness for thinking you knew better. There’s nothing you can achieve here.”

“There is one thing.”

Valley Tiger snorted, but didn’t cut him off.

“I have about five thousand liang. I brought it to make things right – I never should have sold our family’s precious amulet and risked our foundation. If I still had it, things would be different.” Booker said.

There was a faint sound from behind the door, a shifting of weight that made a board creak underfoot.

And Valley Tiger’s martial intent expanded like the howl of a beast.

Instantly, Booker felt iron pressure clamp down on his limbs, a shaking weakness afflicting his bones and muscles as the pure fear of death coursed through his veins. It was like a mountain, simultaneously crushing down from atop his shoulders and weighing down the pit of his stomach. A pressure inside and out dragging him towards the floor. He stumbled but held his ground, gritting his teeth as instant sweat blossomed on his skin.

The man outside the door stumbled back, his footsteps clumsy and obvious as he fell back into the hallway.

Valley Tiger’s head instantly tracked onto the noise, his eyes flashing like they could see through the walls. He was out of his chair in a split-second, striding towards the door–

With great difficulty – moving in this much martial intent was akin to wading in waist-deep water – Booker stepped into his path to block him.

“What…” Valley Tiger hissed. “Are you doing now?”

In the hallway behind him, he heard the thug’s retreating footsteps.

Valley Tiger scowled furiously and lunged for the door, but Booker stepped back, using his body to block the way.

“Let him go. He only heard what I wanted him to hear.”

“You told him about our family’s inheritance!” Valley Tiger was starting to threaten a true rage now, his breathing tightly controlled to keep from simply going volcanic, each exhalation seething through gritted teeth. “You practically begged Zheng Bai to strike while we’re still recovering from your mistake!”

Booker didn’t drop his gaze, although the feeling of being slowly flattened body and soul by the man’s killing intent was as brutal as it had ever been. “I know. That’s what I want. Like you said, someday she’ll give us the excuse, right? Today can be that day – we just need to draw her into a fight.”

“What am I to do? Duel her when she snatches the amulet away? At best she’d send a champion in her place, and more likely she’d laugh in my face – the right to refuse is hers. Stealing away a win at the auction house doesn’t give me the right to demand a duel.” Valley Tiger snorted, shaking his head. “You’ve done nothing but imperil us for your pride.”

“My pride isn’t the nothing you seem to think.” Booker responded coldly. “And I never said that you would duel her.”

For a moment Valley Tiger actually seemed – first dumbstruck, then angry, and finally amused as he realized what Booker’s true plan was. The emotions cycled plainly over his face, and he let out a scoffing laugh.

Then his aura surged. The pressure intensified, becoming not a mountain above and within but a sea on all sides, a crushing abyssal weight that made the light dim, the candles along the walls guttering out as Booker struggled to keep his legs from locking and crumbling underneath him. It was all he could do to survive that hateful power, sweat tracing down his face.

“You…” Valley Tiger’s first insult simply collapsed under the weight of his disdain, trailing of into a wordless growl. He shook his head. “All your life you’ve been a talentless drain of resources, leeching from your sister and your family. Too cowardly to be a warrior, too proud to accept that you’d never be one. A would-be cultivator dreaming he’s the gods gift to us all.”

“Then fuck pride and fuck fear.” Booker choked out. “If I win, the amulet’s safe. If I die, the amulet and my blood is an excuse to go after Zheng Bai.”

For a moment the man stared down at him, unsure whether he was hearing bravery or idiocy. Then Valley Tiger turned away. “If you want to throw away your life, there are easier ways.” He said, which Booker accepted as the closest he would come to agreeing on this plan. The oppressive killing intent dimmed slightly.

“Believe me, I’ve tried them.” Booker spat back.

There was a knock at the door now, and a female voice calling through – “Valley Tiger! Restrain your killing intent at once! Unless you’re under a direct attack, there’s no excuse to call up such a fearsome aura in a peaceful house such as this.”

Valley Tiger’s aura sank back into his skin. For a moment, there was a bronze glow around his bare arms. “Apologies." He said to the woman behind the door. "I was chasing away an eavesdropping pest.”

Booker grabbed a slip of paper from the round table in the center of the balcony box, scratching a frantic message to Wei Qi onto it.

Wei Qi. There’s something arriving for me at the lab. As soon as it arrives, I need you to bring it to the Golden Moon Auction House.

Not sparing a glance back at Valley Tiger, Booker opened the door. A group of Golden Moon guards and one of the owner’s daughters were gathered around the hallway outside.

“Excuse me. Could you send someone to deliver this to the Sect?” He asked, wiping sweat from his face.

You know, as angry as that made him? I think I got my point across.

— — —

Booker made his way down to the general seats. By now there was only standing room at the back of the amphitheater surrounding the bidding stage, and Booker was packed in tight alongside other auction-goers, smelling the alcohol on their breath.

It was a moment where it was incredibly easy to get swept along in the excitement of the crowd, especially knowing his own fate swung on the events of the auction. The crowd had a rhythm to its movements, a pulse to its exclamations, a shared fever…

They ooo’d and aaa’d as the stage’s curtains rose up, revealing seven enormous paintings framed in brass, each one depicting a different mountain cast in the light of a moon that changed its face from one portrait to the next. In some it was depicted as a golden wheel, in others as a woman in a golden dress, then a gold-furred hare, or a waterfall of golden coins scattering from the sky. Booker felt an immediate presence from them, a subtle stirring of power.

A young woman stepped onto stage. She was dressed in ceremonial robes, wearing her hair lifted up into ornate horns held in place by a scaffolding of fine bone pins. Booker barely recognized her through the white-black makeup as Yi Daiyu, the daughter of the Golden Moon he’d met before. Presented like this, her already formidable beauty was simply scary. She looked like she belonged on another world. Her facepaints were not merely meant to accentuate beauty, but to make her seem strange and alien, an impressionistic art piece.

“Thank you everyone for gathering in our proud hall!” She called out. “For the Golden Moon Auction House, this first gathering each month is when we bring out treasures won from around the world. Things for which you will find no equal in Mantis City or the valley below. If you haven’t lived a fortunate and powerful life, these are things you can only hope to have in dreams, for they are the inheritance of the strong and the rich. No matter who wins these contests of fortune, the Golden Moon asks simply for you to have no resentment in your heart. After all... If you cannot acquire it, it was never meant to be yours. Only fools torture themselves with jealousy.”

Almost taunting us…

But why not? There’s too much pride in the balconies above not to play on it.

“Without further ado, let us look at the first treasure to be auctioned.” A thin wooden case was brought out by two stagehands, and placed on a table with a tilted dias so the crowd could see what was inside. It was a guqin – an ancient string instrument – made of soft blue wood with silver strings and silver adornments.

“This is Cloudcaller Guqin. To begin with, this instrument is without mortal equal. The sound is sophisticated and melancholic, with a habit for reminding me rainy days spent listening to the storm." She plucked a string casually, letting them all here the somber thunder of its song. "It can conjure mists, pouring rain, even vicious winds. While these are largely supportive abilities and we cannot rank the guqin as a true weapon meant for combat, it has an ability to charge itself with lightning energies, and can unleash them in a furious burst.” She explained. “It is perfect for travelers, infiltrators, and musicians. If you follow one of these walks of life, we can confidently say this is a top-tier treasure within its rank. The starting bid is one thousand.”

Booker watched as it was snapped up, the initial bids from people at the front of the crowd getting drowned out as two of the balcony boxes fell into a bidding war, spiraling the price to two thousand in a matter of moments… before grinding to a halt at three-thousand two-hundred liang.

He closed his eyes, breathing slowly, letting the exclamations of the crowd and the calls of the auctioneer tell him what he needed to know. The more Booker could rest, the more he could center himself and regain the energy of his soul… And the more prepared he’d be for the final act.

More treasures moved across the stage in short order.

A curved black saber with a snakeskin bound hilt that could unleash a phantom snake to extend its strikes.

Blood red robes armored with squares of talisman paper and scales of brass-colored metal, guaranteed to deflect any one killing strike.

A set of bone pins that could aid in body forging at the cost of incredible pain, needing to be pierced through the bones of the arm in order to stimulate the marrow below.

Squared slips of jade carved into talisman that could allow you to fling yourself wildly across space, leaping ten leagues in a random direction from the place you'd been when you crushed the talisman.

The petrified fossil of an ancient beast’s claw, containing lingering energies that manifested as glowing golden runes.

A gourd full of restrained fire spirits meant to be unleashed as a grenade weapon.

That was the red meat of the show. High quality treasures that got the rich used to bidding the poor used to being outbid. Now, for those who still had money in their pockets but had been forced out of competing inthe first round, they brought in the anomalies. These were all objects they couldn’t identify beyond a general sense of value, and were forced to offer up at discount prices – gambles where you might discover an underpriced gem, or lose anything on a mystery you'd never find the keys to unravel.

Fragments of clay tablets, tattered scrolls, strange flowers preserved in liquor, and things that looked entirely like junk.

And soon enough…

A simple amulet with a lump of unshaped, warped jade strung on a leather cord, no larger than a child’s clenched fist.

"Ladies and gentleman, this talisman is of unknown origins. It contains the energies of heaven and earth but does not obey any of the usual methods for forcing an treasure to give up its secrets. As for its past, the jade is unlike any other observed in the mountains, bearing a faint blue shade and streaks of white that give it the color of an ocean on a clear and bright day. Our methods have determined its value is not small, but we cannot in good faith begin the auction at higher tahn two hundred, as it may well be locked forever." Yi Daiyu explained to the audience.

Well, I guess I just have to hope now... Booker opened his eyes as the bidding began.

“Two hundred!” Someone called from the front.

“Four.” Another voice called.

“One thousand!” Booker shouted out, buying surprised looks from the drunks around him, and a sudden silence throughout the auction house. Bidding so aggressively for an unknown treasure was something of a taboo – it meant showing your hand and admitting it was valuable to you. Someone might well decide to snatch it away for that reasona lone.

For a moment silence held…

“Two thousand.” A familiar voice called from a balcony box.

Booker felt both the thrill of success, a plan coming together, and the tightening of his chest, the realization that he was set on a course with no way to turn back.

Zheng Bai had taken the bait.