Per the messenger that arrived at the inn the next afternoon, the warehouse was ready on schedule, and Benton led the siblings there. As they neared the structure, his attention was caught by a young boy lounging in the shade of an alley.
Even though Su’s memories advised about exactly what to be on the lookout for, the kid looked so much like he belonged exactly where he was that Benton almost overlooked him. He scanned the kid with his senses.
Age: 13 Affiliation: Unnamed Mortal Gang Cultivation: None Techniques: None Spiritual Roots: D- Qi Aspect: Moonlit dew shadowed by the cover of clouds and overhanging tree branches
Nice. Not only was the kid talented enough to be accepted into a traditional sect, but he had a rare shadow qi aspect, perfect for assassins. Not that Benton felt he had the need to include anyone pursuing that particular career path in his sect, but stealth was really good for espionage and scouting as well. No organization could ever have enough skilled people in the information gathering field.
Benton almost called out to the boy immediately but hesitated. The gangs paying him to keep a lookout would want more than just a report of three people entering the warehouse, meaning the boy would need to get a much closer look. Better to wait to catch him in the act in order to gain more leverage.
The inside of the warehouse had indeed been cleaned. All the dust and cobwebs that had been present were conspicuously absent. It wasn’t exactly a place that Evelyn would have found homey and welcoming, but compared to rough camping in the woods, it would do just fine.
The three tables he’d requested had been set up as well.
“This is acceptable,” he told the messenger, who quickly departed.
“Senior Brother, I have a question,” Yang Xiu said. “Why did you sign a three-month contract? You told Mistress Zhong you’d be back in about in about that long.”
“Why do you think?”
“I honestly don’t know. I don’t think Senior Brother would be untruthful to Mistress Zhong and the children, but I also don’t know what might have changed since that conversation. I thought we made decent time getting here based on what you told us.”
“What if I didn’t lie to Mistress Zhong, but nothing changed, either?”
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“Then I’m confused, Senior Brother. That would mean…” The light of understanding dawned in her eyes.
“Keep going,” he said.
“That means that Senior Brother has no intention of staying three months.”
“Exactly. Cities like this have many, many factions. Sects, city government, merchants, guilds, gangs, you name it. Before we’re done, I bet we have more than half a dozen people watching our every move rather than the one we have now. It’s easier to disappear at the end of a month if everyone thinks you’ll still be around for another two.
“Now, enough of that. Time to get to work.”
Benton dumped a pile of a dozen or so rank one spirit beasts on each of the three tables and handed each of the siblings a set of knives. “This is a skinning knife,” he began, holding up the appropriate knife. He took a good half hour meticulously and slowly demonstrating how to dress, skin, de-core, and debone a squirrel, before watching each of the siblings do the same.
“Good. We’re going to be doing this until our entire stash of rank one and two spirit beasts have been processed. We’ll keep almost all the cores and a lot of the meat, but we have no immediate use for the skin and claws and such. Those won’t be hugely valuable for rank ones.” He held up one of the squirrel skins. “This goes for only about a single tael. The rank twos, however, are much more lucrative, from ten to up to a hundred times that much. Some claws go for more than a hundred just by themselves.”
That was what they spent the next several hours doing. After each table had been completely processed, he separated all the different parts into easy piles and stored them in his spatial ring before adding a new stack of a dozen to be processed.
In the middle of skinning a beaver, he stopped, his ears alert as he manipulated his internal qi to enhance his hearing. Something, or rather someone, was quietly climbing the outside of the warehouse.
“Senior Brother…” Yang Xiu started.
“Don’t worry about it. I expected this.” Benton quickly stowed away all the spirit beast parts and tidied up their workstations. “You two cultivate or at least pretend to.”
Benton was actually kind of impressed as he tracked the boy’s progress. The outside of the warehouse hadn’t seemed all that climbable, but the boy didn’t seem to be having any trouble. It did not surprise Benton at all, though, when the boy gained entry to the inside via a window, one that didn’t squeak at all when he opened it.
He was good at his job. Too bad for him that Benton was even better at his.
Benton slowly and quietly moved one of the tables under the spot he expected the boy to appear. Once in place, he hopped up on top, standing and waiting. At just the right moment, he bent his knees, manipulated his qi to give him a huge boost, and jumped.
The next second he was soaring high into the air.
The warehouse had a good ten thousand feet of free space inside and rose more than three stories. Benton easily cleared that height in a jump, reaching his apex just as the boy’s startled face appeared.
Benton grabbed him by the shoulders and tugged.
He didn’t let the boy fall, obviously. There was no reason to kill a little kid, even if his actions were a bit annoying. No, he held on tight and cushioned the impact with is internal qi as both of them fell back to the ground.
The kid looked around, seeing two figures in battle robes cultivating, and figuring out that another one had just grabbed him from more than forty feet in the air. His wide eyes said that he knew he was in trouble.
“What’s your name, kid?” Benton said.
He cupped his hands and bowed low. “Zou Tian, Esteemed Master Cultivator.”
“Yes. Cultivator. You are correct. Which begs the question of how come you’re stupid enough to try breaking into my warehouse.”
“This lowly one didn’t know you could do…” He gestured up and down with his arm, indicating the huge height of the warehouse. “That!”
Benton almost chuckled, but that would have ruined the air of menace he was working hard to develop. “Well, Zou Tian, it looks like you’ve got yourself a choice—work for me or work for no one ever again.”