Dao of the Deal

Chapter 3: Spirit Rice (1)

Muchen turned back just in time to see a curly head of hair pop up from between a pair of burlap sacks. He'd been worried that some sort of murderous crime against nature had smuggled its way onto his cart, so it was a relief to see a young woman clambering her way out from under his cargo. Although, to be fair, in the Qianzhan Continent there were plenty of dangerous beasts that could adopt an innocent appearance.

She didn't look particularly murderous, at least, as she stood triumphantly atop the pile of rice sacks. She was slender, clad in a green dress that was marked by a swirling pattern of browns and darker greens. Muchen might have taken her for a peaceful flower child type of person if not for the slightly manic glint in her eye.

"Free! I'm finally free!" she said, resting her hands on her hips and laughing out loud. "Those old bastards will rue the day they thought to capture Gui Xinyi!"

She leapt away from the cart. For a moment she hovered in midair. Her body tilted forward as her eyes widened in alarm. Then there was a popping sound and she fell straight down. She hit the ground in an explosion of dust and a flash of light.

When he could finally see clearly, Muchen found himself locked in a staredown with an angry turtle.

"Are you all right?" he asked. Even if this stowaway wasn't in top form, she was supernatural in one way or another. Caution and courtesy was the order of the day.

As a turtle, Xinyi's shell was a little larger than a human head. It was a deep green, marked by brown swirls much like the patterns he'd seen on her dress. There was no obvious sign that she was anything but an ordinary turtle, other than the all too human emotion in her eyes. As he watched, she shifted from a look of anger to something more like grief.

"How can I be all right, after what those bastards have done to my foundation?" she asked, before standing up on her hind legs to shake an angry flipper in the direction of the sect grounds. "For this unforgivable crime, I will have my revenge!"

She calmed down after a moment, falling down to all fours before hopping up onto his cart with very un-turtle-like grace. She took up a position off to the side of the driver's seat before lying down and retracting her limbs inside her shell. After a brief pause, she stuck her head back out.

"I shouldn't need more than forty or fifty years to repair the damage. I trust you can find something to do to keep yourself occupied."

She withdrew back into her shell and stayed there, done with the conversation. Muchen rubbed the bridge of his nose, not sure whether to laugh or cry.

It would be foolish to try to kick her out of his campsite. The last thing he needed to do was to offend somebody strong enough to nurse a grudge against the Cloudy Peaks Sect. Trying to somehow report her or drag her back to the sect would be an even worse idea. Muchen didn't want to pick any kind of fight with a cultivator relying only on his merely mortal strength to back him up. Not to mention the fact that the Cloudy Peak Sect would hardly shower him with rewards even if he did succeed. If anything, they could very well kill him just because he'd learned something embarrassing to the sect.

"Forty years?" he asked. "I hope you won't mind if I use my cart in the meantime."

There was no reply. Muchen decided to take that as a positive reply. Surely a high level cultivator was capable of continuing to meditate while he went about his business.

He tried to look on the bright side. There would be some benefits to having a powerful cultivator tagging along with him. At the very least, she would act as a protective talisman, capable of dealing with any bandit groups who dared to disturb her meditation. Not that Muchen expected any bandits to bother with a single mule cart, but it was nice to have the insurance. If he was really lucky, she might toss him the high level cultivator's equivalent of pocket change out of a sense of gratitude before they split up.

Or maybe the Cloudy Peaks Sect would track them down in the middle of the night and kill them in their sleep. Muchen sighed. He'd known since he'd arrived on Qianzhan Continent that he lived at the sufferance of the powerful cultivators who ruled this place. This was just a more direct reminder of that fact.

The only way he'd be able to stand up for himself was by building up his own power. He'd taken the first steps down that road already by working to build up his fortune.

Muchen headed back to the cart with some trepidation. He kept a wary eye on the turtle shell. It showed no sign of reaction as he approached. Nor did it do anything as he pulled his knife from where it had been stowed. He would have called it a machete back on Earth, but here people just called it a big knife.

He didn't intend to attack Xinyi, of course. That would be crazy. He needed the knife to gather kindling so he could make a fire.

Thankfully, his body moved with the ease of long practice, even if he didn't have any personal experience making camp. He pulled one of the sacks of rice from the pile and marked it for his personal use before cutting it open and making himself dinner.

It was delicious. Muchen would be the first to admit that his cooking skills were nothing special, but the ingredients more than made up for it. The simple bowl of rice was a culinary experience that rivaled anything he remembered from the modern world.

It also left him with a warm feeling in his stomach. He took a moment to tidy up before settling in for a spot of meditation.

He couldn't expect to ascend to the sky in one leap. On the other hand, he wouldn't get anywhere if he didn't put in the time and effort.

The very basics of cultivation weren't a secret. If anything, the major sects made sure that the fundamental principles were spread far and wide. It made it easier for the sects to pick out talented seedlings when they could see the results of their attempts to apply those basic principles.

The original Muchen had spent weeks working on the basic exercises as soon as he turned eleven and was old enough to begin cultivation. It was all for naught, as he saw no progress no matter how hard he worked. Old Wangpai had even been generous enough to pay to have his potential tested, but the results had only confirmed what he already feared: while Muchen was technically able to cultivate, his aptitude was beyond terrible. He would have to struggle for years to accomplish what others could manage in weeks.

The only way he'd be able to progress at a normal pace would be if a sect went against all reason and stuffed him with cultivation supplements at a rate usually reserved for once in a generation geniuses. After his adoptive father died, the original Muchen had decided to stake everything on gaining entry to the Cloudy Peaks Sect and hope for a miracle once he was in.

Muchen was more interested now in accumulating resources for his own use. Such things weren't as abundant outside of the sect, but at least in the mortal world any lucky encounter wouldn't be snatched away by senior disciples.

All of that was something to worry about in the future. For now, before he could accumulate any major resources, he at least needed to accumulate effort. If he could only walk while others ran, he needed to put in the time every day to plod forward.

Muchen cleared his mind and focused on his breathing. There was supposed to be a rhythm to this, a method to the process that would draw in spiritual energy from the outside world. Once enough energy was built up, a young cultivator was supposed to make a connection to the Great Dao. That, in turn, allowed for more control over spiritual energy so that he could begin the process of clearing his meridians.

Unfortunately, Muchen had never been able to sense the slightest bit of spiritual energy. That was true in the memories of the original owner, and it remained true despite the foreign soul occupying his body. The pleasant warmth in his stomach spread throughout his body, but that could have been the ordinary result of digesting a meal of spirit rice.

Muchen frowned. When he'd woken up in a new world, he'd developed some expectations. He was grateful for the second chance of life, and he didn't mean to complainnot that there was anybody he could complain tobut it would have been nice if his transmigration had bumped this body up to an average talent.

Well, it was better to be low key anyways. Muchen put aside his thoughts and focused on his breathing. Even if he couldn't cultivate well enough to gain any superhuman abilities, it ought to at least be good for his health. He stuck with it until fatigue started to drag at his thoughts, then rolled himself into his blankets and called it a night.

The next day dawned fresh and clear, the sun shining down from a beautiful blue sky. He sprung up out of bed and shook the dew from his blankets. So far the main benefit he'd enjoyed from his trip between worlds was that the original Muchen had never developed an addiction to caffeine. Not only that, but he was used to rising with the sun. Against all the odds, after his rebirth in a new life Muchen had become a morning person.

He didn't even have any aches and pains from sleeping out in the wild. Still, he was looking forward to staying at an inn with a real bed sometime soon. Another day of travel would see them past the lands that the sect kept free from mortal occupation. The path through the wilderness wasn't actually dangerous, but it was inconvenient enough to keep the sect just that much more isolated from the outside world.

Muchen didn't mind going through a little inconvenience, especially when it would help him reap more profit once it came time to sell his spirit rice.

He packed away his bedroll, sparing a glance at his passenger. She hadn't spoken since she'd retreated into her shell to meditate. She didn't react as he hitched Huichen to the cart and drove them out onto the road. None of the rattles or bumps along the way were enough to prompt a reaction. Muchen was eating some dried rations around noon and just starting to contemplate what he would do if she really did plan to hole up in her shell for decades on end when she finally poked her head out to take a look around.

"You're taking us further away from the Cloudy Peak Sect," she said.

He nodded. "Will they chase after you?"

She shook her head. "By now they've long forgotten that they had me sealed away."

Her voice was tinged with a note of frustration. For his part, Muchen only felt relief. He didn't want any part of a battle with the Cloudy Peaks Sect.

At the same time, he bumped upwards his personal estimate of Xinyi's cultivation level. Cultivator's lifespans increased along with their personal power. Muchen was fuzzy on the specifics, but anybody who could live long enough for their deeds to fade away in the mists of history was formidable indeed.

"All I had to do was get past the tripwire formation," she continued. "Hiding away on your trash cart was enough to mask my spiritual energy."

"Trash cart?" Muchen asked.

She extended her flippers out of her shell then, going up on two legs and then hopping up unnaturally high to get a good look at his cargo. "You're transporting refuse barely fit for consumption by initiates at the meridian cleansing realm. Did somebody tell you otherwise?"

Muchen chuckled. He had mixed feelings at her disdain for the most valuable cargo he'd ever carried, but he did appreciate the protective note in her voice at the thought that he'd been scammed. "I'm going to sell it to ordinary people. For them, it's a delicacy."

"Sell to mortals?" she asked. "For silver?"

He nodded. She sighed, before laying back down on her stomach to stare silently at the road ahead.

"This cartload is just the start," he said. "Someday I'll pile up enough silver that Huichen here won't be strong enough to haul it all."

She gave him a skeptical look out of the corner of her eye, then shrugged. Neither action was something Muchen ever thought he would see from a turtle, and yet her sentiment came through loud and clear nonetheless.

At least she seemed to find him amusingly eccentric rather than truly offensive.

"I suppose I owe you a favor for helping me escape," she said, using her head to point towards a cloud of dust off in the distance. "Shall I kill the guards manning that caravan? They're hauling some nice stuff."

Muchen just about dropped the reins in shock. "Now, now, no need for that."

He took a moment to collect himself, biting back a sigh of relief when Xinyi didn't do anything immediately murderous. "How can you owe me a favor? I just went about my business. Any benefit you enjoyed was merely good fortune."

"Good fortune is a form of fate," she replied. "It wouldn't be any trouble. None of the guards have even established their foundations."

Muchen swallowed. The next step after clearing the twelve primary meridians was for a cultivator to work on building his foundation. It was an arduous process. Some said that only once the foundation was complete could one really be called a cultivator. Even so, cultivators still in the process of building their foundation were more than capable of taking on a dozen mortal soldiers in battle with every expectation of a crushing victory.

A caravan boasting several guards in the foundation building stage was not just well guarded. It wouldn't be an exaggeration to say that it was protected by a small army. Even if Xinyi could defeat the guards, showing up in town selling off the stolen goods would no doubt bring the wrath of a notable sect upon them.

Of course, if he just said that outright, Xinyi might take it as a challenge.

"Really, there is no need," he said. "I plan to strike it rich as an honest businessman."

"An honest businessman?" she asked. "Selling that garbage?"

"Now, now," he replied, "beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Low grade spirit rice might be beneath your notice, but it's a fair sight better than anything most people ever eat. All I have to do is be honest in describing my product and I can make money with a clean conscience."

She shook her head. "Even so, how can you get rich moving goods from one place to another without swindling people on both sides?"

Muchen scratched the back of his head. He'd heard the expression that at the root of every great fortune is a great crime, but this was the first time he'd encountered somebody who embraced that philosophy and thought becoming a great criminal was a good idea. He knew that the Qianzhan Continent was a place where might makes right, but to him the idea that the only way to gather wealth was by stealing it from others was too limiting.

"People naturally put different values on the same thing," Muchen said, drawing on dim memories of the course on economics that his college had forced on him. "An ordinary farmer might not be willing to pay more than twenty wen for a meal, no matter how grand, while a rich official will happily spend dozens of taels for sumptuous cuisine crafted by a master chef. Neither one of them is wrong, really. It's just a matter of personal preference."

"By the same token, a farmer might be willing to pay quite a bit for a high quality plow, since he can use it to increase his productivity, while a blacksmith wouldn't think it was anything special," Muchen continued. "In every exchange, if there's no force involved, both sides wind up better off. Otherwise they wouldn't make the deal."

He had managed to drag out the conversation long enough that they had closed in on the other caravan. Muchen cursed in his heart now that he could finally see it with his own eyes. What about this was a caravan? It was clearly a small army. Whatever valuables they were transporting, it was hidden away in the center of the formation. He barely caught a glimpse of the iron-barred treasure wagon as they passed by.

Part of him wondered if Xinyi would regret her boasting now that she was getting a closer look at the target. Either way, stealing those goods would lead to his death whether or not she could deal with the nearby guards.

"Over the long run, there's no limit to how rich everybody can get through market transactions," Muchen said, racking his brain to try to remember those long ago lectures. If he'd known he'd be forced to try and talk a cultivator into a life of peaceful coexistence, he wouldn't have stopped after just the one class on microeconomics. "If all everybody does is rob from each other, there's no wealth but what you start with. And even that could get damaged with all the fighting."

She was silent for a moment, just long enough for Muchen to start to think that he had persuaded her to his way of thinking. Then they passed out of earshot of the caravan, and she let out a snort.

"Why is the Cloudy Peaks Sect so rich, then?" she asked. "Those old men never saw a treasure they wouldn't kill to put their hands on."

Muchen nodded. It was true enough. Making money in business relied on both skill and luck. It was more reliable to let other people do all the work and take all the risk before muscling in to take a cut. Of course, that was on the condition that you could pull it off.

"Taking money by force is the kingly way," Muchen admitted. "But it only really works if you can set yourself up as the government. Otherwise you're just acting as a bandit. Then you're only piling up money until the official troops come and take it back."

Xinyi shrugged. "Anybody who gathers wealth is only holding it until someone stronger comes along."

The heat was gone from her tone, so at least she wasn't chomping at the bit to embark on a life of crime. Muchen would take what he could get.