Chương 12: Preparations

Silverstream was not what Wei Chen had expected. He had imagined a larger version of the trading posts his father had visited—dirt roads, wooden stalls, maybe a permanent building or two. What he found was a town of stone and timber, with a central square and streets wide enough for carts to pass in both directions. The buildings were two and three stories tall, their lower floors dedicated to commerce, their upper floors to residences.

Signs hung above doorways, painted with symbols that his inherited knowledge could mostly interpret: a mortar and pestle for apothecaries, a crossed hammer and tongs for smiths, a sheaf of wheat for grain merchants. The legacy's language archive, ten thousand years out of date, supplied archaic meanings that sometimes matched modern usage and sometimes diverged. But the town was familiar in ways that transcended its scale.

Wei Chen had been here before, years ago, trailing behind his father on one of the annual trips to sell goods. He remembered the baker who gave children free sweet rolls, the blacksmith's forge radiating heat into the street even in winter, the herbalist's shop with its smell of dried plants. Those memories were his anchor, keeping him from being overwhelmed by the town's bustle after six days of jungle solitude. His first stop was the herbalist's shop.

The same herbalist still operated from the same location—a woman named Mistress Yao, her hair graying, her eyes sharp behind spectacles. She recognized him. Or rather, she recognized something in him.

"Wei Chen," she said, before he could introduce himself.

"Village boy. Your father brought you here, what, six years ago? You ate three of my candied ginger pieces and spent the afternoon throwing up behind the stable." Wei Chen felt heat rise to his face.

"I remember the ginger. I remember the stable less clearly." Mistress Yao laughed.

"You've grown. And changed." Her eyes narrowed, taking in his posture and the faint aura of qi he was still learning to suppress.

"Your father taught you cultivation?"

"Something like that."

"Hmm." She did not press the question, which Wei Chen appreciated. Instead, she gestured to the counter.

"What do you have for me?" He laid out his gathered herbs on a clean cloth, arranging them as the legacy suggested: most valuable first, least valuable last. Mistress Yao's eyebrows rose as she examined the first specimen.

"Azure Soulroot," she said, using a name that made Wei Chen's heart skip—she had called it by the legacy's name, not the modern equivalent.

"Where did you find this? It doesn't grow within fifty li of here."

"The deep jungle. Near the Endless Jungle's heart."

"You went that far alone?" She shook her head.

"Foolish. Lucky. Both, probably." She continued her examination, naming each herb with an expertise he filed away for future reference. The Ghost Orchid was Spirit's Breath in modern terminology. The Moonpetal Mushrooms were Lunar Caps. The qi-bearing clay was cultivator's earth, too crude for serious use but valuable to beginners. The beast cores caused more excitement. The Jungle Tyrant's core made Mistress Yao's hands tremble slightly as she held it up to the light.

"This is... extraordinary. Grade-four spirit beast, possibly grade-five. The qi density is remarkable. Where did you—no, don't tell me. I don't want to know." This book is hosted on another platform. Read the official version and support the author's work. She named prices. The Azure Soulroot fetched three silver coins. The Ghost Orchid, two. The Tyrant's core—she offered forty silver, then fifty when Wei Chen's expression did not change, then sixty when he remained silent.

"Seventy," he said finally, using a negotiation technique the legacy supplied.

"And you'll identify the herbs I couldn't name, plus tell me where to find a merchant caravan heading to Dragon's Rest." Mistress Yao studied him. Then she smiled.

"Your father was a terrible negotiator. Always accepted my first offer. You, apparently, are not your father." She extended her hand.

"Sixty-five, the identifications, and I'll introduce you to Caravan Master Bo, who leaves for the capital in three days."

"Done." They shook. The transaction took twenty minutes—Wei Chen's first experience with formal commerce beyond village barter. Mistress Yao weighed the items and counted out coins from a strongbox beneath the counter. The silver was heavy in his palm, stamped with the royal mint, each coin worth a hundred coppers. Sixty-five silver. More money than his family had earned in a year of farming.

"The herbs you couldn't identify," Mistress Yao said, sliding three specimens across the counter.

"This is Widow's Lace—useful for binding agents, not particularly valuable. This is Dragon's Sinew Grass—used in body cultivation supplements. And this—" she held up the third, a pale flower with too many petals, "—this I don't recognize. Where did you find it?"

"Near a stream. It was growing on the north bank, in shadow."

"Hmm." She turned it.

"I'll research it. Come back before you leave, and I'll tell you what I've found." Wei Chen nodded, tucking the coins into his pack. He purchased supplies—dried meat, travel biscuits, a better waterskin, a cloak that repelled light rain. The legacy identified the cloak's material as spider-silk blend, a modern innovation absent from his ancient knowledge. His second stop was the blacksmith's forge, where he sold the Tyrant's scales for an additional twenty silver.

The blacksmith examined them with professional interest and offered to craft them into armor if Wei Chen could wait a week.

"I cannot wait," Wei Chen said.

"But I may return, if my travels bring me back this way."

"They rarely do. Travelers who leave Silverstream for the capital usually don't come back. The capital swallows them, or spits them out eastward."

"Then I'll consider the armor a promise for a future that may never come." The blacksmith laughed.

"Philosophical, for a village boy. Your father teach you that too?"

"No. The jungle taught me that." His third stop was the stable, where Mistress Yao's introduction secured him an audience with Caravan Master Bo. The man was ancient, weathered by decades on the road, his eyes pale and calculating. He examined Wei Chen with the same professional assessment he might apply to a horse or cargo.

"You're small," Bo said.

"Fourteen? Fifteen?"

"Fourteen."

"And you want to guard my caravan to Dragon's Rest. Do you know how far that is?"

"Three weeks' travel, depending on weather and road conditions. Through Thornwood, past the Serpent River, through Millbrook and Misthollow, then the Stoneback Pass into the capital valley." Bo's eyebrows rose.

"You've done your research."

"I had a good teacher."

"Hmph." The old man spat into the dust.

"I don't hire children. My guards are adults, trained, experienced. They know how to handle bandits and beasts."

"I don't need to be trained," Wei Chen said quietly.

"I need experience. And you need guards who can handle more than bandits." He held out the Tyrant's core. Bo stared at it. Then he looked at Wei Chen differently.

"Where did you get that?"

"I killed the beast it came from."

"Alone?"

"Alone." The silence stretched.

"Be here at dawn, three days from now," Bo said finally.

"Bring your own supplies. I feed my guards, but I don't equip them. And boy—""Yes?"

"—if you die on the road, I don't stop to bury you. The jungle gets what the jungle wants."

"I understand." Wei Chen walked back through Silverstream's streets, his pack heavier with supplies and coin. He had resources, passage, and a direction. But as the sun set behind the town's western buildings, he touched the jade pendant beneath his tunic and reminded himself that every step forward was also a step deeper into danger. The empire was waiting. The sects were watching.

He found lodging in a cheap inn, paid for three nights with copper coins, and spent the evening cycling qi and reviewing the legacy's knowledge of the road ahead. Tomorrow, he would gather more information. The day after, he would prepare. And three days from now, he would leave Silverstream behind and begin the journey that would span kingdoms.