Smack**Smack**Smack
I woke up to Yao Po lightly tapping me on my face. I tried to shoot up to my feet immediately, but I could barely move my body.
She sighed in relief, "You're awake. Good." She put both her hands on her hips. "Didn't I tell you to come here often? Every day?"
'To be honest? I didn't remember.' But I was glad I had been able to get here in time.
"What happened?"
She responded, "What happened? You came here and fainted in my hut!"
She bent down to pick up the bucket of warm water by my side, "You've been poisoned. I don't know how I missed it the first time, but for this, we'll need more of the healing elixir."
I visibly cringed, didn't even know where I got the energy from.
"I don't have the money for that."
She scoffed, 'Hmph', "Serves you right for going to hunt down a spirit beast. Especially after I told you not to"
She took the healing elixir from the table and brought it next to me. "Drink."
I pursed my lips tightly and shook my head.
She sighed, "Don't worry, you can pay me back when you get the money, I'm a healer after all, seeing my patients better matters more than the silver to me."
I must have looked unconvinced because she took her hands and held my mouth open as she poured the elixir down my throat. I struggled against her strength and my weakness, but I couldn't win.
The elixir was hot. Like harsh alcohol, the first time you drank it, burning my throat as it went down, the heat gradually infusing the rest of my body.
Within a minute, a second wave of heat hit me. This time it only mimicked the heat, soaring through my body, like water in a desert.
I felt…alive.
Like I had been living in gray this whole time and was finally seeing color.
…Was this, qi?
Yao Po nodded, "Mmmm, its working," She cocked an eyebrow, "You feel that?"
I nodded.
"That's dreg qi, many adventurers and cultivators can't get enough of it, they keep getting themselves hurt, fighting beasts, cultivators…themselves."
I was still confused, so she explained, "You see the elixir," she put it right in front of my face, "it's not an actual healing elixir. When the alchemists finish making whatever they want to make, there are usually dregs. Sediments, remains from failed tries of the product, they package this up and sell it to low-class cultivators, or sometimes…mortals."
I was starting to see it now. "So, the reason they sell it to us is because it's addictive?"
A cold sweat broke out down my spine.
How close was I to becoming one of them? One more idiot, bleeding and laughing and chasing shadows?
I clenched my fists under the blanket. 'Never. I wouldn't fall like that.'
Yao Po chuckled darkly. "Right on. Low-class cultivators—the ones who won't go far in their cultivation, are very danger hungry, it's the only way they might advance, maybe they one day stumble on a treasure, or some legacy, then they can soar into the skies…"
"So that doesn't usually happen?"
She shook her head. "They just become addicts. They hurt themselves chasing a dream and heal themselves with what they can afford."
She got up, looking at the potion in the glass like she was holding a magical specimen, "The only problem is that it's not a healing potion."
"What? But it—"
"Let me finish. You should be resting." She proceeded to pour a few more drops into my mouth, making sure to wash them down with some water. Not a bit escaped her eyes.
"It heals you- Yes, but it's not normal qi that's inside, even the cultivators don't know what it is, it just appears after they make any elixir, the first few tries, they heal you, but for a price."
She removed the potion bottle from my mouth. "That's enough." She walked back to the table where she kept the elixir and locked it in a hidden drawer, out of the corner of my eye.
"The potion creates a little want—a little need, in the user. At first, it's barely noticeable, they don't know what they are feeling. They think it's bloodlust, or some sort of fate guiding them to find something–a treasure, an opportunity, it doesn't matter, so they go out again, and they hunt, or they fight, or search, " She gave me a meaningful look.
I couldn't look away.
"They get hurt, and so they come back. Buying the elixir from whichever bastard cultivator chooses to sell it to them." She spat out the words.
"And the need intensifies, and they don't know what it is. So they repeat the cycle, and repeat it, till they are doing whatever they can to hurt themselves. They want that feeling again. And only the elixir can give it"
I interrupted, "Wouldn't it make more sense to just drink the elixir?"
She shook her head, "No, the elixir doesn't have the desired effect unless you are hurt. It would be like trying to breathe in more air when you've already sucked in multiple deep breaths."
She stared at me. Harder this time. Decades of her life infused in that one stare. "Do you understand?"
I nodded.
"Stay here for the night, you won't be able to move for a while."
"But I have to go buy a ho-"
"Khan, did you learn nothing from the story?"
"I'm not hunting, I just want to go buy a house?"
She laughed, "A house? What for?"
I told her what had happened.
"You won't be able to escape him. He's a crook, but he has friends everywhere."
"Do you know any good places? I don't have enough money to move to the Silverscale district, but I have enough to let us live at just the edge."
"Hmmm, I know some people, but they'll charge you through the nose. Even if it's just the edge of the mudfoot district, living anywhere close to the silverscale district is expensive."
"No problem, how much do you think they'll charge me?"
"At least a hundred silver, and that's because I'm recommending you."
"A hundred?" I sighed, "Fine." In just a few short days, I was at the end of my purse.
I'd have to work harder.
I tried to get up again.
She rushed to stop me, succeeding without much effort, "Where do you think you're going?"
"I just want their names and locations, I can handle the rest."
"Are you mad?... Foolish children." She pushed me onto my butt, I'll have someone go talk to them, give me some time."
She called a young boy about 12 years of age from outside, on the street, giving him a few coppers. Not an hour later, he was back with a message, panting and breathing heavily.
After talking to Yao Po, she gave him a few more coppers and a piece of bread, and he left excitedly, probably running home.
"Haaaah," she laid the back of her hand onto her forehead, "I had him go talk to the people I know, six of them said no when they heard your name, only one said yes. He's charging 120 silvers."
"120! I thought it would be around a hundred."
"Calm down, Khan, it's my fault, I thought I'd be able to help you out, word has gotten out already. Overseer Liang has said no one should work with you. Anyone who is still willing to do that would be people who already have enmity with him or who are powerful enough to ignore him."
She sighed again, "Not many are like that… what will you do?"
I shook my head, "I'll have to go with him then, I doubt I have any chance with someone random."
She nodded, "Do you want to see the house first?"
"No," I rasped, barely keeping my eyes open. "If you trust him, that's fine."
'And if she didn't, what could I do? I was at the mercy of her goodwill; let's hope I was right.
I spent the hours staring at the cracked ceiling, drifting in and out of sleep, the weight of 120 silvers pressing down on my chest like a stone.
It was three hours later, the seller of the house had finally come, and I was still at the apothecary, looking like a man who had lost his faculties.
He was a gruff man, thin, thinner than those who lived around here, especially for someone who owned a place so close to the silverscale district.
He constantly scratched his skin, like there was something crawling beneath it.
He had a long nose and a full head of hair, with lice falling off it every so often. His eyes were beady, like from years of looking around in fear.
"Po, is this the man?"
"Yes," she answered.
'Why was his voice so oily?'
He looked at me, once over, a small smirk coming on his face, hidden from Yao Po behind him, "It will be 130 silvers for the house."
Yao Po hollered, "Xin Bai, you owe me."
"If he can't pay, then I can't do anything about that."
She glared at him with a look that would have killed if she were a cultivator.
I glared, too, but I wasn't angry at him; I was angry at me. Look at this weakness, I knew why he was doing this.
I'd pay him back one day, but till then, this was just how the dough rises.
"I can give you 120. Right now. All silver."
He looked at me, considering, then a small chuckle. "125 and it's a deal."
I gritted my teeth…
But then agreed.
This man reeked of bad deals and worse.
But I forced my hands steady. Forced my voice level.
I would not show weakness. Not here. Not now.
I clenched my hands around my pouch of silver until I felt blood—and handed over the silver.
I had to hurry and move with Huo Qianlei and the girls.
'Damn it. All this because I had angered one man.'
I grit my teeth so hard they cut into my gums.
A house bought with poison and shame.
125 silvers to live like a rat on the edge of the slums.
Fine.
Let them laugh now. Let them look down.
I would carve my way out of this mud with bloodied hands if I had to.
I paid it without a word.
There'd be plenty of time for words later...
when I came to collect.