Page 35 of The Blood Orchid
“I don’t hate you,” he said, raising an eyebrow and turning to me as if the thought had never occurred to him.
“You antagonized me at every round of the competition,” I said.
“Yes, because it was acompetition,” Zheng Sili said slowly, as if I was the one being illogical. “I would have looked pathetic if a peasant girl won instead of me, and—lo and behold—I was right. When my father heard...” He trailed off, looking toward the sun, which had now burst into sharp orange on the horizon.
“I have no home to return to,” he said quietly, the words so soft, so unguarded, that it didn’t sound like Zheng Sili at all. “I went home after I escaped from the dungeons, but my father was so ashamed of me. He was very clear. I can return as a royal alchemist or not at all.” He nodded to Wenshu. “And once you bring the prince back, you’ll get married and become the new empress, won’t you?”
“That’s the plan,” I said hesitantly.
“So you’ll need a new crop of royal alchemists, won’t you?”
I let out a sharp laugh. “You want to help me forjob security?”
“Who would you choose, if not the person who helped you bring back the prince?”
“Oh, I don’t know, maybe someone who didn’t try to rip my dress off the first time we met.”
“Are we really keeping track of petty things like that?” he said. “You knocked my tooth out.”
I sighed, tightening my grip on Wenshu’s wrist. “I’ll think about it, okay? I’m so tired I can barely see straight. I’m not making any promises of employment at the moment.”
Zheng Sili scoffed. “You’re the most impulsive person I’ve ever met, and yet you’re waffling over the easiest win-win situation that has ever been presented to you.”
Suddenly, Wenshu twitched. He gasped down a sharp inhale and wrenched himself out of our hands, falling to the mud. He rolled over at once, looking up at me and Zheng Sili with wildeyes. He turned, looking at the river and the distant horizon, then sighed deeply, hanging his head.
“You couldn’t have carried me the rest of the way to Baiyin?”
Just before nightfall, the land began to slope downhill, beginning the bridge between the desert and the mountains. Parched sand gave way to stony dirt.
The Yellow River curved through the city, the air wetter and plants more vibrant than in the golden sameness of the desert from where we’d come. In the distance, the jagged mountains captured the glow of the setting sun, a prickly row of golden spikes just beyond the flat waters of the river.
The city was named for its metal industry—báiyínmeantwhite silver—and was a center for alchemical stone trading. At least, it had been before the private armies started rounding up alchemists.
We arrived at the outskirts of the city, all three of us shivering, nearly dead on our feet. I would have liked nothing better than to stumble into the closest inn and sleep for the next day and a half, but I forced myself to trudge to the town center until I found some stone merchants. I had fewer than ten stones to my name, and I didn’t want to be caught unprepared again. I gave Wenshu some coins to find food, then started filling a tray with my stones, keeping an eye out for clear opal.
“I’m a jeweler,” I announced to the stone merchant in Lanyin dialect, just in case he was thinking of turning me over to the private armies for suspicion of alchemy. It was one of the only things I’d learned to say in that dialect before we left Chang’an. “I use these to make bracelets.”
But the merchant only waved his hand like he couldn’t care less. I had been a merchant once, so I knew that as long as peoplepaid, there was little reason to pry into their business.
As I turned to the second row of stones, I tripped over Zheng Sili’s foot.
“Quit standing so close to me!” I said, shouldering him back. But instead of stepping away, he only followed after me like a lost sheep.
“It would probably be wise to get me some stones as well, if you want my help,” he said quietly.
I stared at him blankly, and it took me a moment to realize what he was implying.He doesn’t have any money.I rolled my eyes and jammed a hand back into my bag, passing him a handful of gold. He caught it with both hands, frowning.
“That’s it?” he said. “Aren’t you spending the prince’s money?”
“Shut up!” I said in Guangzhou dialect. “We just got out of jail. You want to go straight back there? And that’s plenty to buy what you need.”
“Are you being stingy, or do you actually think this is a lot of money?”
I rolled my eyes. “If you want more stones than that can buy, go dig some up by the riverbank,” I said, slamming my tray down in front of the merchant. I caught a glimpse of opal behind the counter and held up three fingers, pointing to it. The merchant wrote down a number on a piece of paper and spun it around to show me.
It was nearly three times higher than what I’d expected.
“Are you serious?” I said before I could stop myself. The merchant must have understood the capital dialect, because his expression slid into a frown. I’d purchased alchemy stones for over ten years, and I knew how much something like this should have cost, even with inflation, which seemed to have evened out after the production of life gold ceased. “How much is the opal?”