Zhao was in high spirits as the crowd thickened around them like insects swarming a sugary treat.

The past few days both Che Fang and Gu Hong had advanced their cultivation by leaps and bounds while Zhao handled paperwork.

When his prescheduled time off rolled around, Zhao had brought them to a local monthly ritual in the Misty Cradle village. Mortal and immortal merchants alike coalesced around an unassuming marketplace in the center of town to hawk their wares in a display of colors, aromas, and sounds that overwhelmed the senses.

Stalls were opened, tables set up, carts parked, and blankets laid on the ground in an anarchy that worked just well enough to allow free passage through the mayhem.

The wealthier vendors flew flags dyed with expensive reagents over their stalls, each embroidered with the unique logo of a reputable dealer.

Others relied on their exotic goods to sell themselves as passersby were enthralled by the scent of spices or a unique sight.

Of course, the most desperate harassed every potential customer while boasting of their wares.

A shouting match caught Zhao’s attention before being dismissed, as nearby a vendor and customer bickered passionately over a price. Around them the din of bartering, yelling, and personal conversations trying to cut through the noise created an ever present buzz.

Before coming, Zhao had briefed his two lucky charms on what they were looking for; anything that caught their eye, but especially items that seemed mundane but were oddly attractive.

Each had given him an odd look at those instructions, oblivious to the fortune they wielded.

Not caring whether he came across as eccentric, Zhao shepherded them between the stalls energetically.

Neither the sheltered childhood of Che Fang nor the country upbringing of Gu Hong lent themselves to skilled negotiation. To ward off the risk of their being taken advantage of, Zhao approached a kabob vendor and demonstrated how to barter for the clueless duo.

“How much for a skewer?” he called out over the bustle of the squeeze of bodies.

“Ten bronze tael!” the woman responded, earning a dubious stare from Zhao. “Read the sign, its spirit beast meat!” she defended, pointing to the barely legible calligraphy painted on the wood of her cart.

Indeed, Zhao had selected her because there was the slightest trace of Qi in the meat. Not that he was going to let that slip to the seller. “Even if I take your word for it, your mystery meat is worth half that if not less.”

“My mysterious meat,” the woman corrected, “is too good for you. You’re a frog lusting after swan flesh, and it's a charity for me to sell it to you for seven teals. If you don’t think so, get the hell out of here!”

With a grin, Zhao withdrew eighteen bronze tael from his robes. “I’ll give you six teals each for three skewers.”

With an impressive harumph three generous servings of meat were exchanged for the currency. “Tell everyone you know of the great deal I gave you!” reminded the merchant as the trio walked off.

Zhao’s companions looked like their heads were spinning, but he didn’t fault them for it. Life on Earth hadn’t prepared him for such discord, so he empathized. “Don’t worry,” he assured, “you’ll get the hang of it.”

With that Zhao had them split up, the remains of what had become communal spirit stones in their pockets for transacting.

Hopefully, they would get out with rare items, good prices, and enough spirit stones for their continued cultivation.

With only a handful of months left until his duel with Li Tingfey, Zhao was willing to forgo what meager progress he could achieve by burning spirit stones if it meant obtaining a weapon that could give him an instantaneous boost in power.

As he walked through the marketplace by himself he made sure to stop and ask for the prices of multiple items. It was a habitual tactic developed over his many trips to throw off anyone watching for genuine interest.

Luckily it wasn’t actually necessary to feign interest, as many items were foreign to Zhao.

Cobalt colored stones that could be expended to empower Water Style spiritual arts, a flute that if blown would supposedly summon every nearby rat, and a bird that had been trained to sing traditional poems and epics were amongst the items he stopped to inquire about.

Zhao had been perusing items for perhaps an hour when Gu Hong ran up and pulled at his sleeve, to which he bent his ear down to hear the shorter boy clearly. “I found something interesting!” he said. “A sword handle without a blade.”

That sounded like a classic fantasy item to Zhao, so after finding Che Fang on the other side of the bazaar they meandered together back towards Gu Hong’s find.

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Maintaining their pattern of behavior, Zhao stopped them frequently to enquire about items along their path.

A mere two stalls from their destination Che Fang put his hand on Zhao’s shoulder. "I… feel a connection to an item,” he whispered. “I think it’s at the same merchant Gu Hong found.” As he said so, Che Fang caressed the ebony band vibrating faintly on his finger.

Zhao nodded and pretended that the whisper had been about purchasing the golden tooth he had been asking about before storming off as if the price were too high.

In only a few steps they reached their target and Zhao slowed as he finally took more than a glancing look at the man in question.

Whereas most of the market goers and their interlocutors wore robes in the styles of classical Asian cultures, the figure before them was wearing a pair of well-worn jeans with a complimentary jean jacket serving as his seat in the afternoon sun.

Blinking owlishly at the familiarly dressed fellow in a cultivation world, Zhao stepped towards him. “I’m curious, how far away do you have to go to obtain jeans?”

The trader smiled warmly at him and offered an enigmatic answer. “Far,” he said simply while waving his hand over his offerings. “Surely a man that knows of jeans will recognize the value of my merchandise…”

Raising an eyebrow, Zhao picked up a feather that seemed to be crafted of metal. Rubbing his hands hopefully the merchant offered the item’s background. “Crafted from artisans that live high on floating isles, this feather will turn the coat of any avian to metal for roughly 10 breaths without impeding their flight.”

Next was a pill inscribed with a blooming flower. “Ah, a good choice friend. Consuming this pill will let you talk with plants. I obtained it from a hunter who operates out of the Choking Spore Forest.”

On and on the game went, passing by the blade handle that Gu Hong wanted and then back again. “So it lets you use sword Qi to make a blade, but you don’t know how?” Zhao said paraphrasing a long winded explanation. “How about you give me a spirit stone and I’ll take it off your hands so you don’t have to pay to lug it around anymore,” he finished in jest.

The seller laughed. “It shouldn’t be too difficult for cultivators of your caliber to figure out!”

After snorting at the praise Zhao gave an offer, “How about five spirit stones for it?”

Their exchange went back and forth until the price of the blade handle had been established at a dozen spirit stones, at which point Zhao stole a glance at Che Fang. “Fine, twelve spirit stones and my friend here will pick another minor item of his choosing.”

The dealer smiled. “An item from this section of the table, yes?” he said while indicating the leftmost corner of his pile of goods.

Che Fang nodded, handling each item before landing on a golden figurine. He brought it close to his eyes to examine it before shaking his head and placing it back down.

He then picked up a burnt scroll, unrolled it and knit his eyes at the contents. Che Fang showed it to Zhao, who only caught the title Surging Ocean Waves before he shrugged and returned his gaze to the sword handle.

Making an admirable job of perusing the remaining items on the cheaper section of the stall, Che Fang finally seemed to settle on the scroll. “The handle and the scroll, for twelve spirit stones, yes?” Zhao said while extending his hand.

Momentary hesitation crossed the merchant's face.

“Sir,” he started, “I would like to add another condition.”

Seeing Zhao scowl, he rushed ahead anxiously. “Perhaps you would consider the request I posted to your sect a week ago, to escort me to the border with Xi’an?”

Zhao narrowed his eyes. “Sure,” he replied noncommittally. “I’ll consider it. Give me your name and I will retrieve a copy of the request after our transaction.”

Scratching his scraggly beard the man chuckled nervously. “Han Lee,” he said as he offered up the bladeless handle and damaged scroll in trade.

Zhao pondered the odd request while they made an uneventful round through the plaza after the transaction.

The furor was dying as lunchtime approached, a few stalls even shuttering as their owners searched for a meal.

Asking for disciples personally to take on a request wasn’t rare, but it was usually targeted at the powerful or famous disciples. To implore a buyer that one had just met was unusual at best and suspicious at worst.

Turning to Che Fang to gauge his opinion didn’t help Zhao as a shared uncertainty was the only response.

For his part, Gu Hong was clueless as to the strangeness of the situation. “Han Lee was the nicest merchant ever!” he proclaimed when asked his opinion on the matter.

The disciples lapsed back into silence until they reached Zhao’s cave.

Closer examination of the scroll gleaned nothing more than its title, as the rest of the text was indecipherable; written in familiar strokes jumbled together meaninglessly.

Despite sharing characteristics with ancient China, the cultivation world he had been transmigrated to held subtle differences. One such oddity was the fact that the common alphabet was not logographic.

Though not well versed in history, Zhao recalled one or another Emperor had centuries ago developed an alphabetic interpretation of the spoken tongue to bring literacy to the peasants.

The original Zhao Mi had been schooled in that method, only having started picking up the traditional scholarly characters when he was accepted into the Misty Cradle Sect.

As cultivators tended to favor the ancestral approach to writing, the mortal symbols of the scroll stood out to Zhao. His intuition told him they might have been ciphered in a manner he was familiar with.

Accordingly, Zhao determined that he would study the text thoroughly while they waited for the disembodied soul that had covertly alerted them to wake up.

Although he only had a passing knowledge of decryption, trying the most popular methods from Earth could bear fruit if the author of the technique wasn’t an expert.

While the older disciples had been contemplating the art they had collected, Gu Hong made himself busy swinging the newly purchased bladeless sword in awkward stances.

When Gu Hong tripped into the wall, Zhao couldn’t help but draw a parallel between the boy and his own brother forever lost in a different world.

The comparison caught him off guard, so he retired to his bedroom to brood. Such moments were the most difficult of his new life in Jianghu.

They were blessedly sporadic, but always strummed his heart strings painfully.

Unable to deal with the emotions, Zhao took up a meditative position with a spirit stone in hand.

He let his consciousness recede from the turmoil.

The Qi shared its bliss with him and he enjoyed it long into the night.