Raika unrolls a long rug, its base thick and woven tightly to keep out the dirt. All around, dozens of people pass by, walking about, though some of them are clearly walking together and waiting in line. Jin is a lot more uneasy, slinking near the alley behind where she set up (a little ways away from where she usually sets up, specifically so that he’d have the shadows to hide in), and she keeps an eye on him. The scent of his Qi has shifted, even in just the last day, and she’s not entirely sure what the scent is. Still bitter tea in a cold room, but the impression of someone laughing in the dark is… weirder. Like it’s less present, but that the dark it was in is scented now, hazy with fog. Better to keep him close for now, and lucky for her, the kid doesn’t seem inclined to run away yet.

Patting the rug down until it’s flat and organized, she unravels a bundle she carried with it, unveiling about two dozen pale, white trinkets. Each one she sets out adds to the small crowd gathering, five or six people humming appreciatively and waiting patiently. They look like driftwood at a glance, but closer examination starts to show that they’re made of bone, not wood. Dense, thick bone, much heavier than its appearance would indicate, and shaped, seemingly by no knife or blade, into myriad shapes, close and artistic. Some of them are vague, like seashells or bits of coral, their formations seeming to indicate something organic and alien, while others are so detailed they seem almost like sculptures, imitating animals, horns, eyes and more. One of them, which Raika puts in a place of prominence, is almost mesmerizing, a sort of square piece that, while rounded enough to look natural, still has deeply alien formations shaped like fractals decorating it.

Testing bone patterning and new ideas is fun and all, but rather than waste her failed experiments or potential ideas, Raika elected to keep them. When neither Li Shu nor Qen Hou had any fucking clue how to make money (and Hao Nera’s idea revolved primarily around scams on the local populace), she came up with the idea to sell some as trinkets for grocery money. As cultivators, they’ll be fine living out in the tamer wilds for a while, as their homemade cabin emphasizes. Plenty of things to hunt and resources to gather, especially with what’s been planted in the pond, but there’s just ever so much that requires civilization, industry or specialized skills to create, like salt and spices, thread, books, and basic things like cookware and clothing. Not enough to need them to pursue quests or full-time jobs, especially seeing as they’re in hiding, but certainly good motivation to get a little side hustle going.

When she’s done and ready, sitting on her rug, her left arm wrapped in her robes and out of sight, all her pieces arranged carefully in front of her, she takes a seat and packs her pipe, nice and slow. She’s been coming here once a week for a few weeks now, and her regulars have absolutely learned not to interrupt her before she’s got her pipe ready.

It tastes worse without lighting it with True Flame, the taste of sulphur in the matches lingering to Raika’s senses, but she lights it more traditionally anyways, and blows out a long, slow cloud of blue-grey smoke.

“Alright. Come and get em.”

Most of her regulars come forward eagerly, with more than one crouching down to examine the goods. Raika recognizes them one by one: the little old woman who smells of bread and young children, the young man whose Qi is tinged with something bright and bubbly and smells like cut lumber, the two women who are clearly sisters and smell similarly of leatherwork and Qi like smooth stones. There’s a newer one, a man, smelling mostly of peppers and some kind of kitchen work, who she’s pretty sure is looking for bones to use in a stock rather than for decoration. She’s… pretty sure it’ll be a good thing. Li Shu’s been pretty clear that her body’s penchant for being Qi-saturated as hell is a positive, and at worst turns her body parts into low and mid tier alchemical possibilities, so… probably fine if he does. Not really any business of hers if he elects to put bones he bought at a street market into a stew either.

She haggles out a few coins from each of them, tending towards the cheaper side. Between being a cripple, then being in a sect and then in Palaces, her sense of money is pretty damn skewed, but fifteen to thirty coppers is what she sells for the pieces that look organic and strange, thirty to fifty for the ones that look like sculptures or animals, and if anyone asks about the cube or the stranger pieces she keeps closer to herself, she’ll sell for… eh. Probably a silver.

It’s a little weird. She’s used to it by now, but in the Hungering Roots sect, she dealt with tokens and Qi stones, but seeing the Imperial stamps and icons on every coin she touches as she’s actively in hiding from them is actually kinda funny. Compared to begging, she makes maybe seven or eight times as much in a day as she used to, and she uses it for supplies. It’s a fine deal.

Eventually her regulars are all paid up and have moved on, even the newer chef (whose interest in the cube was clear, though he didn’t press her when she told him the price), and Jin comes out from the alley behind her to come a little closer. He coughs a bit at the smoke from her pipe, and she makes sure her next pull leaves more of it in her lungs than comes back out.

“You made these?” he asks.

“Yep.”

“Seen em around. Didn’t know it was you.”

“Used to spend a lot of time in town? Or out in that campsite?”

“...mostly the campsite. Easier to feel safe out there. No chance someone’s gonna find me and kick me or try to take my stuff.”

She nods. “Better your life than your things, no?”

He shrugs. “Spirit beasts don’t really come super close to that side of town. They mostly come from the farming side, and I stick pretty close to the walls. I’m smart about it.”

She shrugs. “Fair enough, kid.”

They sit in silence for a while, watching the town pass by slowly. Sometimes families come through, but for the most part the next rush only comes when people start coming out for lunch from their places of work, or are walking between business doing their daily shopping.

“So… you just sit here?” Jin asks.

“Yep.”

“All day?”

“Until I get bored. Mostly I just sit here and think or practice something. When i’m out of bones or I decide it’s time to leave, I go home.”

“...did you make them? Or find them?”

“I mean… I carve some of them. But no, mostly I grow them.”

“Out of you?”

She looks at him, quirking an eyebrow. “What’s it to ya, kid?”

She can feel his adrenaline spike and chides herself, the joke landing flat with how nervous the kid is. She sighs, shaking her head. “Yeah, kid, I grow em. Sorry. If you have questions, ask. Not trying to scare you.”

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Her saying so doesn’t actually help him, but the lack of aggression puts him less on edge. He looks less like he’s about to skitter away into the alley compared to before, at least.

“...why?”

“Ok, so when I said you should ask questions, I meant, like… specific ones.”

This time he sighs, halfway testing her reaction to his annoyance and half his attitude finally peeking through. “Why do you grow them? And then why sell them? You’re like, super strong. You did all that weird stuff in the woods, and you fought that ghost, and-”

“Well, for one thing, there’s more kinds of strength than just being able to eat ghosts. One type of strength is, you know, money. Since I’m-”

“Wait, you eat them?”

“I mean… I did eat them. They don’t taste very good. Sorta… ashy. Chalky. Anyways, I’m doing some training and stuff with my bones, and sometimes I have extra, and stuff to make life easier usually costs money. So… free bones. Bones for sale. Tadaaaa.”

Jin gives her a long look, like he’s trying to figure out if she’s crazy. She puffs once on her pipe and blows a wisp of smoke at him, which he waves away with a cough, now looking more annoyed.

“Smoking is bad for you,” he says. “They say that near school.”

“They’re right. Don’t smoke. It does bad stuff to your lungs.”

“Then why are you smoking?”

“My lungs are cooler than yours.”

“Is that a cultivator thing? You’re a cultivator, right?”

“Eh. Sorta. Yes, cultivation makes your lungs better, but mine are just cool. Besides, I’m an adult. When you’re an adult, you get to make as many bad choices as you like.”

“Wait, so kids can’t?”

“...ok, fair point. In fact, great point, you should make a shitload of small bad choices now so that you don’t make big ones later. Good call.”

He gives her that same look again, though this time he successfully dodges when she blows a wisp of smoke at him. “That sounds stupid.”

“Maybe it is. I’m like, barely a tiny bit strong, I never claimed to be wise. That one’s a work in progress. Though, in my experience, when you make stupid choices you learn to wise up real fast, one way or another.”

“...yeah. That makes sense.”

“You were smart, by the way.”

He looks at her again, curious. He still hasn’t come close enough to be in arms reach, even with Raika’s massive wingspan, but his heartbeat is calming as they talk.

“It was a big risk, going to stay out in the woods. But it was smart. No one’s gonna try to rob you out there. Anything bad happens it’ll be much worse, but it’s less likely. It’s a smart gamble, even if it’s gambling.”

“Isn’t gambling bad for you?” he asks.

She shrugs. “Life is a gamble. Every vice has its flaws, so like, don’t get too obsessed with throwing dice or anything, but if you’re going to stay alive and make choices, you need to know that those choices are a gamble to at least some extent.”

He goes quiet for a little while, and she takes a little while to enjoy the cool air, the bright sun, and the taste of sulphur, moss and tea-smoke in her pipe.

And then she perks up.

Of course, on the day she’s got the kid with her, this asshole shows up.

His Qi saturates the road compared to everyone else in town, the smell overpowering in a gauche sort of way. While nearly every adult in town is in the Qi-Gathering stage already, most won’t make it even to mid-realm by their time of death, so their Qi is a hint, like a mild perfume at best. This scent, despite how shallow it is, wafts out like someone burning incense sticks at all times. She sighs, long and slow.

“Get in the alley, kid. Someone annoying is coming.”

She leaves her pipe between her teeth, fingers toying with her tuning fork as Jin obeys without question. Say what you will about their nascent relationship, his self-preservation instincts remain his priority.

He comes around the corner like a peacock.

That’s not to say he’s insanely ostentatious, or gorgeous, anything particularly impressive. More that what he does have, he’s doing his best to flaunt. The cultivator, in robes of red and green, is wearing a necklace with a tiny sliver of Jade prominent, rings on his fingers, a fancy belt. None of it’s exorbitant, but for a little nowhere town that sustains itself by farming, it’s enough to make him look absolutely out of place (and absolutely like an ass).

He smiles as he comes to the front of her rug, bowing to a seventy degree angle (too shallow to be properly respectful, too deep to be an insult). She doesn’t care, necessarily, but he clearly does, enough to bow to a specific depth every time he sees her.

“Honored trader,” he says, “once more, this humble cultivator Ru Lou comes forth, asking for your consideration. I’m hoping that common sense can prevail, and that you are more willing to listen today than you were last week?”

She can’t help but smile at the note of annoyance in his voice. “Common sense is rarely common, is it? I’m a busy lady. If you’ve got something to say, go on and say it.”

He frowns, but stops himself from being too dramatic in his reaction. “It is a rare find to encounter such small treasures in a town like this. I know you can’t possibly have slain whatever beast you’re carving these bones from, and while your skill is commendable it’s clear that you have no Qi of your own to have empowered them so. I ask again, respectfully, that you tell me where these bones can be found. If they’re of the same quality as those you make here, I can make sure that the sect rewards you for the location.”

She smiles again, letting out a lot of the smoke she’d been inhaling and holding and making sure it blows towards “Ru Lou”’s face. She knows the game. “If” they’re of the same quality. If he finds some hidden trove or rare beast treature at the site of wherever he thinks she found these bones, he’ll claim they weren’t that special, will offer some pittance, and will make entirely sure to take them with him. Of course, he doesn’t know that she didn’t exactly dig them up out of the dirt.

“My response now is the same as before, cultivator. If you want to buy some of my fine trinkets, you are free to pay me in copper or silver. Otherwise, you’re free to leave. You’re stinking up my stall.”

This time he doesn’t hold himself back, his eyes narrowing as he growls. “Do you not know who I am? I’m a cultivator. My sect is an honorable one that has lasted for millenia in alliance with the Empire itself. I’ve got more money and power than this entire town put together, and if I wanted to, I could lay claim to anything I wanted here. It is only my honor and generosity that keep me from taking your secrets from you.”

“Oh? And would your Empire allow that? A cute little cultivator, coming in to an Imperial village and killing or torturing someone? This isn’t the fourth ring, is it? I haven’t gotten lost that badly I’m sure.”

At this, the cultivator steps back, eyes wide… and then laughs. “Ok, that’s funny. Don’t act like you understand how the world works, mortal. I’m a cultivator. The laws are there to protect society, not random bone-carvers. If anyone does ask, what do you think it will take for them to understand? I can just tell them you were the spy of another sect, or hiding a secret, and the Empire will give my sect an extra few coins for our diligence.”

She frowns, nodding pensively. “I see. Yeah, that’s smart. Power being good to power, right?”

“The stronger you are, the more the righteousness of the world is on your side, bone carver. Now tell me where I can find the place you’re stealing bones from.”

She smiles at that. Already shaping the narrative, now she hasn’t found anything, she’s stolen it. She feels part of her body rumbling, adrenaline shifting in her brain, happy chemicals starting to pop in and out alongside the annoyance.

“So what you’re saying is, if I’m stronger than you, that means I’m righteous?”

He laughs, a harsh snort that seems more like an insult than anything mirthful. “Please. Just because you have some giant ancestry doesn’t mean you can fight a true cultivator, mortal. Bullying your lessers doesn’t prepare you for a true fight now does it?”

She nods, coming to a happy decision.

“You know what? I couldn’t agree more. How about this, if you buy my merchandise for today, I’ll pack everything up and take you right to where I get the bones from, how’s that?”

He scoffs. “Ever the greedy one, aren’t you? Is my word not good enough?”

She smiles up at him, tapping some ash out of her pipe. “Nope!”

He actually colors at that, his cheeks reddening in rage. In a burst of annoyance, he takes out a gold coin and throws it onto her rug, scattering some of the smaller remaining figurines.

“There. Done. Now move.”

She smiles up at him. “Of course, honored cultivator. I’d hate to keep you waiting on the things coming your way.” She gets up, wrapping rug and bundle both in one well-practiced scoop so that all the trinkets simply fall into a neat little jumble, too solid to break. The cultivator takes a step back at the clattering, but recovers himself easily enough, glowering at her.

“Hey Jin!” she yells back into the alley. “Come along. We’re gonna take the nice cultivator for a walk. We’ll get groceries tomorrow, this’ll be way more fun.”