Unable to sell
At Tong Ou shop, Fang Yuan sells an elderly clerk fifty six bone spear Gu, twenty spiral bone spear Gu and one bone spike Gu, haggling every price upward before he settles. The bone spear Gu rise from three hundred ten primeval stones to three hundred twenty each, the spiral bone spear Gu to eight hundred each, and the bone spike Gu to six thousand seven hundred, for forty thousand six hundred and twenty primeval stones in total. ch. 262
Struck that the Gu form one advancing family, the elderly asks whether a recipe for them exists and opens at two hundred thousand primeval stones for it. His counter climbs to three hundred thousand, then, after Fang Yuan turns silently to leave, to five hundred thousand, which he calls the limit of his authority. Fang Yuan sets a floor of at least six hundred and fifty thousand and will not go lower. When the elderly warns that most shops in Shang clan city answer to his young master, so nowhere else will buy from them either, Fang Yuan keeps his Gu and walks out. ch. 262
After the pair leave, the elderly summons a Gu that carries his report through a bronze mirror to Shang Ya Zi, an eighteen year old young master whose heavy drinking has left him gaunt and pale. Shang Ya Zi resolves to secure the inheritance himself, since this year’s evaluation depends on it, and gives the order to shut the sale out of every shop he can reach. ch. 262
Three more shops turn Fang Yuan away, each citing instructions from above. Bai Ning Bing needles him for finally meeting his match. Fang Yuan explains why: Shang clan leader Shang Yan Fei has many children but only one young clan leader seat and ten young master seats, and an annual evaluation drops whoever performs worst. Bai Ning Bing reasons that the young master harassing them must be defending his own seat or reaching for the clan leader’s. Since the third inner city forbids fighting even against the Bai clan, Fang Yuan chooses to wait him out rather than force a sale. ch. 262
In the first inner city, Shang Yan Fei asks external clan elder Wei Yang whether the girl’s identity has been confirmed. Wei Yang reports that she is truly his daughter and her soul is untouched, but that no one can be found who travelled with her caravan to Shang Liang mountain. Shang Yan Fei tells himself silently that he has already failed one woman, and will not fail this daughter too. ch. 262
Shang Xin Ci sits over her cooling tea, having learned her father’s identity from Xiao Die’s talk. She wonders why he never searched for her mother, then works out the reason herself, and her mother’s dying devotion to him leaves her with pain, hatred, and mostly emptiness. A knock comes at the door: Shang Yan Fei, asking if he may come in, calling her by the pet name Ci Er. ch. 262
