The shop smelled like old wood and stale incense. Trinkets were most immediately obvious, being placed carefully on tables near the cloth covered entry-way. They were things like little drums, carved wooden horses on small wheels, small empty glazed pots (half off!). Actual jewelry was represented by skillfully made pictures. He assumed that the real ones were kept hidden until asked for. Books sat further back, illuminated by a strange delicate looking lantern made of coarse red and blue material that he found himself staring at. The light from it was strong enough to illuminate the titles of the books, and as he looked closer he noticed a small porcelain dish that a stout green candle sat in. Deep inside he felt a strange sense of disappointment and nostalgia... and hunger.
“Hello! Are you looking for talismans by chance?” A voice croaked.
Rui Yifu turned his head to look at an old man with a nodding head. He was skinny and his face was folded with deep wrinkles. “Not particularly,” Rui Yifu said and he watched the old man’s eyebrows raise high. Rui remembered once that someone had compared his voice to ‘a bull stuck in the bottom of a very deep well’. “The sign outside said you sell jewelry and trinkets, not much on talismans or books.”
The shop owner seemed to recover from his surprise, “well I’ve long considered this a shop of many things. My brother originally ran it, he was inspired by some of the shops down in the Southern Kingdom. After he moved and gave it to me, I expanded its inventory.”
“I understand,” Rui Yifu said, “what kind of talismans do you have?”
“Right now ones for protection against evil spirits are the most common,” the shop owner said. “There’s been, for the past oh I’d say month and a half, murders and disappearances of women here.”
“How terrible.”
The shopowner nodded, “it’s an awful business. It reminds me of another string that happened a year ago. Of course that was all of field labourers and workers who follow the rain, so nobody was concerned then unfortunately. A demon of some sort is suspected. If you believe the legends, we live near some mountains where a man-eating demon called the Lady of Seven Caves lives.”
Rui Yifu put a hand to his chin. “I’ve heard of her. But she targets children and pregnant women.”
“Ah? I don’t recall any of the victims being pregnant, to be honest. I am guessing with a name like ‘Lady of Seven Caves’ she likely wouldn’t move much from her mountains,” the old man said idly. “Honestly while this is a tragedy, I’m not much involved with it. My daughters moved with their husbands and my wife passed peacefully years ago. Are you... married?”
"I was once," Rui Yifu replied. He could only remember the face twisted with anger and tears. "We parted due to circumstances."
"Oh I'm very sorry about that Mister...?"
"Bai Juyi, but I'm not frequently addressed by name." Rui Yifu reached down to one of the books, the title catching his eye; ‘Annotated List of the Lost Ghosts’ by Chen Zihua, which sat above ‘Record of the General of One Thousand Victories’ by a name that had unfortunately been smudged. Both books showed great wear and beneath them were other titles from qi cultivation to rabbit farming that showed equal amount of use. Still he smiled slightly as his hands flipped through the pages of familiar writing.
“A scholar are you? I have more on Chen Zihua, unfortunately most of them are commentaries on his work by other people. I also have some editions of the Bridgewater Sage’s book, and medical books by Lady Gu.”
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“I used to be an official in the North, I’m familiar with many of Chen’s works,” Rui Yifu answered. “These books have probably seen better times though.”
The old shop owner nodded regretfully, “I buy books from others, as well as other items. These ones came from Lu Gongqi, he’s one of the wealthier men in the city but tragic. He got tangled up with a fortune teller a while ago, a bit after he had donated money to the Temple of the Headless God. She either bled him dry or told him to sell these,” the shop owner’s frown deepened. “He’s back on his feet financially though, but he never came back for his books.”
Rui’s brow furrowed. That name was familiar to him but he could not place where. “By tragic what do you mean?”
The shop owner shrugged, “I don’t get into other people’s business. He just sold me many of his books and bought some Northern books on architecture I had, he said he had a new business partner and that he didn’t understand a single thing he was saying.”
“Was it the fortune teller?” Rui asked somewhat absently as he set the book down to look around.
“No, it was a man. He apparently used phrases like ‘load-bearing column’.”
Rui Yifu was not sure whether to laugh or not. He suddenly had a horrible memory come back to him in a flash, of cramped cold winter nights in a solitary cell where he had to learn about things like ‘structural integrity’. He was not even trying to join that part of the bureaucracy and yet he was still expected to know about it. Some small part of him was bitter after all the years.
“Where are you from, young man?” The shopowner asked with a curious look in his eyes.
“The Northern Kingdom,” Rui answered.
“Ah, I thought there was something in your accent! Have you ever read any of Lord Song’s works? I hear he is popular up there.”
“No, I have taste,” Rui Yifu glanced around the shop again. His eyes fell upon a cloth doll that sat beside a few other toys on a shelf that looked like it was a single sneeze from falling down. “Do you get many customers?”
“Not since the murders started happening,” the old man answered.
Rui Yifu picked up the doll. It was white cloth, and someone had carefully sewn on a smiling face. The clothes it wore were amber, yellow, and red and reminded him of art of celestial maidens. “How much for this doll?”
“For that one?” The old man scratched his chin, “eeehhh, nine hundred-”
Rui Yifu frowned and reached into his sleeve to pull out two perfectly round pearls. They were a bit warm, tinged a slight soft blue color, and almost glimmered in his hand as he held it out to the shop owner. "How about these?"
The old man reached out and picked up the pearls with his eyes growing wider as he rolled them in his palm. "These are... those kind of pearls right? From the Fish People?"
"Yes," Rui Yifu answered. "They may not contain spirits anymore but they're still useful, they would probably make very pretty charms," he continued on casually. They would probably be put to better use than being attached to some lady's dress at least, certainly Li's mother wouldn't have much need for fancy clothes anymore.
"How did you get these?" The shop owner asked, his eyes narrowing warily. "I'm not going to have some fish woman show up with a knife in my room right?"
"Unless you're living next to a lake you have nothing to be concerned by," Rui Yifu lied, although he was not entirely sure himself. The souls were gone, only their detritus remained and eventually not even that. The pearls would lose their warmth, their luster would dull and the blue would be replaced by grey. Then it would crumble into dust. However that would be another person's problem and Rui Yifu would ideally be long gone, the name forgotten.
"Huh," the shop owner scratched his chin. "I think we have a deal then. These two pearls for that doll. For a child, I hope?"
Rui Yifu struggled to not roll his eyes, "yes. We just came from the Wall so I want to give her a doll as a reward for being well behaved."
The shop owner let out another heavy sigh. "Ah that place. I'm still surprised the guards are still at their posts there," then his face brightened slightly. "But it is very nice of you to do so. I think that child will quite like this doll."
Rui Yifu bowed slightly, "thank you again sir. I hope your business will soon pick up."
He left the shop and walked onto the street where young men full of life swaggered about like they owned the place and older men walked with wary eyes scanning the crowds. His eyes did the same, picking over people, animals, and shops as he remembered he was still hungry. He held the doll carefully in one hand, a hand moving to a coin-like item that hung from his sash with a caged bird inside of it. He picked it up to see where the caged bird's head was pointing and walked in that direction. Zhu'er would be there as well as his bank, the dog, and the unpleasant Liu Xie. He walked over a bridge and glanced over its side for a moment. In the turgid water he could catch hints of trash that tumbled along the flow and occasionally a darting hardy fish. The surface reflected his face back at him, and he frowned. It looked like his skin was drying out faster than usual he realized, hopefully it was just from stress. As he continued looking down at his reflection he could almost imagine that the river was a small pond, the bridge flat upon the ground and the smell of winter jasmine coming from a house he would never step foot in again. A voice called to him...
Rui Yifu tore his eyes away from his reflection and kept walking.