Feiruhn nodded to TC. “Send that one away, and we can talk.”

Zihan waved a hand in TC’s direction.

TC hesitated, then scowled as the guard behind Feiruhn stepped forward. He glanced over his shoulder several times as he allowed the burly guard to lead him out, but no one spoke until he was gone.

Feiruhn took a long pull on the tobacco in his hand then looked at it as he let the smoke curl between his lips. He stuffed the stick back into his mouth and looked at Zihan. The Young Master sat smiling at him through the curtain of smoke that hung between them.

“I don’t know why you’s associates with a man like him.”

Zihan waved a negligent hand. “He’s useful.”

“He’s an informant.” Feiruhn replied. “The kind that brokers information the normal brokers can’t gather, or can’t afford to gather legally without risk of getting into trouble. Sold us a couple of secrets over the seasons. Sold a couple of ours too. Not someone I would choose to trust.”

Zihan blew smoke and waved away the thin veil of haze. “I don’t trust him.” Zihan replied. “Never trust. Only person I trust farther than I can burn them is Yi Cao.” He nodded back towards Yi Cao standing behind him.

“Is that so?” Feiruhn turned the full intensity of his attention on Yi Cao for a moment, square face framing lidded eyes that did little to disguise how deeply that gaze penetrated. He tapped the ash from his stick and popped it back into his mouth. “How interesting.” He said.

He looked back at Zihan. “Should I be dealing with you, then? Or with him?”

“We have a soul oath.” Zihan replied.

Feiruhn raised an eyebrow. “I see.” He pulled his tobacco out of his mouth to take a drink then spat into a bronze jar at his feet. “Shoulds be careful with those oaths.” He said as he stuck the stick back in his mouth. “Was a time I hads one me’self. Heavens decided I was in the wrong when I killed the cheating bitch I swore it to. Lucky to survive.”

Zihan nodded, and absently lifted an intricate steel box from the table between them. He spun it while the man across from him noticeably went on edge.

“Then these sources must not be for you.” Zihan noted.

Feiruhn pulled on his tobacco then blew it out. He smiled thinly at Zihan. “Just makes the air cleaner.” He replied. “Creature comfort, as it were.”

Zihan tossed the cube and caught it in one hand then the ornate box back onto the table.

The music stopped in the silence that followed and the woman seated in an alcove facing away from them paused to take a drink before her fingers began plucking at the strings again.

The two sat smoking in silence until the woman began to sing. Feihrun took a last hit from his tobacco stick then dropped it into the jug at his feet and leaned forward.

“I was speaking of TC,” he said, “and, speaking of TC, TC says you’s is looking to rob the guild’s treasure ship. Says yous has an interesting story. Says I ought to hear you out, or dissuade yous for my own sake. The sake of our kind, least ways. No need for crackdowns looking for cultivators when they’re Ki blind and dumb enough to check everyone with our lineage on the station. Inconvenient, particularly for someone like me, in my position.”

“And what position would that be, precisely?” Zihan asked, waving his fume stick in lines of smoke.

“Just a concerned citizen.” Feihrun replied. “You knows it can’t be done I hope.”

“Not on our own.” Zihan replied.

Feihrun studied him across the Goh board, black and white pieces arrayed between them like a battle neither chose to engage in.

“Bad ideas, advertising your intentions in a dinky place like this.” He waved as though to indicate the rock. “Might seem like a big place, but word moves fast, faster, when yous has someone like TC on the payroll. Place relies on the guild. Liable to make the Governor nervous if it thinks you’re going for one of their ships. Might choose taking action over reacting the way it normally does. Hire extra security, maybe people you know, maybe even people you tried pulling in on the job.”

Zihan finished his own tobacco stick and rolled it between his fingers until it turned to dust. “How do you propose that we rob it then?” He asked.

Feiruhn raised a brow in surprise. “Whose to say that I am?”

“Hypothetically then.” Zihan replied.

“Hypothetically. Sure. Hypothetically I see no reason I’d want to antagonize the guild. They’s like the immortals out here. Are immortal, in fact. They split this stone in two, that’s something the immortals could never do.”

“Do you know what’s on that ship?” Zihan asked.

This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

Feiruhn waved a hand dismissively. “Everyone knows what they ship around here.”

“Living material.” Zihan said. “Metal that moves in your hand. Water that speaks. Stones that can turn on their own.”

Feiruhn crossed his arms. “Fascinating stuff, I’m sure.” He replied. “Useful if you’re a technomancer, but less than useful for you or me.”

Zihan snorted. “I don’t need the material.” He replied. “What I need lives in a particular immortal back home, and what I need to get that is lots and lots of money.”

“That’s a guild ship you’re talking about robbing.” Feiruhn replied. “Rob that, and there won’t be no hiding on the homeworld.”

Zihan shrugged. “That’s my concern.” He replied. “Inner worlds are hard to search, if you can convince a ruler to let you in.”

“I see.” Feihrun crossed his arms over his chest and tapped his fingers across his ribs while he studied Zihan.

“Which immortal?” He asked. “Most don’t have a use for silver.”

“That’s not true at all.” Zihan replied. “Every immortal loves money. They just love cultivation resources more.”

Feiruhn raised an eyebrow and Zihan smirked.

“Not interested in a bidding war.” Zihan replied. He tapped his chest. “My secret.”

Feiruhn glanced to the side, then lifted a hand and flicked his finger as though conceding the point. “Can’t cultivate. Remember? Doesn’t matter to me.”

Music filled the silence between them while Zihan stared the other man down. Eventually Feiruhn set his hand back on the table and picked up one of the black pieces again to fiddle with it as he spoke.

“It’s not easy, going home, you know.” He said after a moment. “Easy to get here. Easier than easy, but they don’t let just anyone onto a liner. They makes sure the ships cycle between destinations. Makes it hard to smuggle yourself across, unless you want a destination you didn’t plan for. I knows cause I’s had to organize it for a couple of people. Not a bad business, if you’s got the contacts and the cash to make it happen. Makes it expensive for the Governor to put a stop to.”

“Sounds to me like it won’t be any obstacle for you.” Zihan replied.

Feiruhn snorted. “Maybe.” He said. “But that’s only possible after you’s fenced the materials, and that’s only possible if you’s find a way onto the ship in the first place, and get off alive. A crateful of the living material is worth more than the whole station puts out in a day. You’s get away with whatever that ship’s got in its holds and there won’t be no fence on the station willing to sell it. Won’t be no buyer’s neither. Only people looking for the stuff out there is the system and the free captains, and you don’t see either of them around here. You’ll have to get it off the station yourself. Through one of the breaks.”

Zihan picked up a white stone then placed it carefully on the board, scooping up a black stone from its place between it and the others of its kind.

“An old smuggler like you should have no problem with such a task.” He replied. He grinned and the man eyed him, unimpressed. He placed his own stone, pulling a slew of the white pieces off in one move, then picked up another black stone to flip it in the palm of his hand.

“I’s not old.” Feiruhn told him. “You’re move.”

Zihan waved a hand and sat back in his chair. “You don’t think you can sell a couple of tons of living material?” He asked.

Feiruhn flipped the stone a couple of times. “I think I’s can find a buyer for most anythings.” The man replied. “But let’s say I was interested, hypothetically. Let’s say I’s was to put a team together, get them equipped and send them out. What’s to say I should bring you in on the project in the first place?”

“If you don’t then it will be a race to see who gets there first.” Zihan replied. “You aren’t the first I’ve spoken to, and you won’t be the last if you turn me away.”

Feiruhn raised an eyebrow. “And if I kill you instead?” He asked.

“Then you’ll die.”

The music stopped and Yi Cao’s muscles tensed. Both guards glanced inside.

The two sitting at the table began to laugh.

“I think I likes you kid.” Feiruhn said. “No complexity. I like that. Make’s it easy to thinks I can trust you.” He chuckled and pulled out his own pack of smokes as the woman in the alcove began to play again. He offered them to Zihan, thin things wrapped up in shining foil. Zihan stuck his in his mouth and lit it with a quick flick of his thumb.

Feiruhn abruptly stopped chuckling.

“A neat party trick.” Zihan said, shaking his thumb to put it out as the coal at the tip of his smoker glowed cherry red. He smirked and met Feiruhn’s eye. “That’s what TC called it.”

Feiruhn grunted and shook a stick out of his pack then stuck it into his mouth. “Fucking cultivators.” He said. He pulled out the tool to light his stick then sat studying Zihan again as the two worked their way through the tobacco in silence.

Yi Cao snorted as the clouds drifted towards him and waved the acrid smoke out of his face.

“I brought you’s here to warn you away from doing this.” Feiruhn said after a while. “I’s got enough trouble keeping our folk from getting put in camps by the slave spirit they got running this place. Don’t need you making more. If you’s got an amount you’s interested in getting for this cultivation resource, we can talk about other ways for you’s to get it, but robbing a guild ship is madness. Madness for a lot of reasons, not just cause it’ll get you killed. It ain’t worth the trouble.”

Zihan studied his fume stick while the smoke curled from it in langrous ribbons. “More than you’ll make in a century.” He said. He stuck the smoke stick into his mouth and gave it a pull. “If you live that long.”

Zihan glanced towards the woman playing music in her corner, then back to the man sitting in front of him. The man scowled as Zihan narrowed his eyes and smirked. Eventually he moved to stand up.

“We’ve had enough fun I think.” He said. He crushed the stub of his smoker on the table beside the Goh piece he’d scooped up.

“Somehow I doubt you’ll turn me in to the Governor. You have your own fair share of secrets, and I won’t keep them for you if I get caught.” He stretched. “You have the network and the expertise to make this possible. If you’re not interested I’ll go and find someone else who is. Come on.” He nodded to Yi Cao. “We’re going.”

Feiruhn put up a hand to stop him. “Wait.” He said. “Just, wait.” He waved for Zihan to sit down again and Zihan complied. Feiruhn sat smoking for a moment, lost in thought until the coal on his fume stick touched his fingers. He grimaced and tossed the smoking stub into his jar.

“I see’s no reason I should trust you.” He said, turning back to Zihan. “And I know nothing of what you can do. Big prize like that, I’d need more than a little party trick to convince me you’d be any good.”

They gazed at one another for a moment and Zihan picked up one of the white stones to juggle it between his palms. “You have some sort of test in mind?” He asked.

Feiruhn sat back with a thin smile. “I might, as it happens, have a job or two that wouldn’t hurt for a little, anonymous help. You do me good there, and maybe I’ll find it in me to start thinking about putting together some sort of team to help you with your bigger dream.”

Zihan tittered, then flipped the white stone and watched it fall to the floor. “What do you need done?”