The Medicine Seller has long grown used to being a stranger in strange lands. He is, after all, at such an age where even his birthplace has no one left he recognizes. So traveling across the sea makes little difference to him.
As far as he's concerned, people everywhere, across all times, do not change much. Cultures, traditions, governments? They may vary, but people's hopes, dreams, desires, ambitions, virtues and vices remain relatively consistent.
And so he does what he always does. He sells medicine.
---
It's late evening when he steps out of the Warm Red Pavilion, carefully tucking away the spoils of his latest trade into the confines of his voluminous sleeves. Brothels really were the best when they were run well - always someone in need of a poultice, a powder, or certain... enhancers. He's got himself a cozy little room at the brothel all paid up for the next week, and enough cash to burn that he'll be eating like a king for just as long.
He follows his nose down an alley towards the delicious fragrance of a cart where a merchant is selling buns stuffed delicious meat and vegetables. In his eagerness to sink his fangs into soft, chewy dough full of tasty surprises, he practically stumbles over a person, propped and prone against the side of the brothel.
It is a very good thing that the Medicine Seller tends to be curious and doesn't simply go with his initial suspicion that the man is a drunk sleeping off a bender. No, not with that nasty looking head wound.
The Medicine Seller sighs. Duty, as per usual, calls. His meal of tasty, tasty bao will have to wait.
---
When the stranger wakes, it's amidst plush cushions, gauzy pink curtains, and the overpowering perfumes and incense the brothels use to mask... other odors. His head is bandaged, and there is a tray of plain congee and a pot of medicinal tea set out on a stand by the bed.
Not far off, the Medicine Seller is seated on a table, legs tucked under him and his well manicured hands folded primly in his lap.
Despite his somewhat inhuman countenance, his gaudy attire makes him look quite at home within the ostentatious walls of the Warm Red Pavilion.
"You survived after all," he remarks blandly. "It was a little... uncertain at points."
He doesn't remember taking the first crack on the head, which was a bad sign. He remembers getting hauled up in front of the generals, though. They'd just been so fucking serene as he cursed them for what they'd done.
He doesn't remember how he escaped either, so he'd probably taken more hits then. He'd broken the chains at some point, and when he wipes the blood off his face, a bunch of soot comes off with it. Huh. Well, whatever he'd done, there'd been some flair to it. Shame he wasn't in on the details.
He stole some clothes, bundling up his armor and uniform in a robe. It clanked against bruises every time he took a step. Had to keep going, though. He needed to find a place to lie low. Scrape himself back together and think.
The buzz of danger leaves after a while, and he's just tired. He sits down for a minute to catch his breath, squeeze his eyes shut like it'll stop the headache.
There's a brief moment where he's asleep, and aware of it. All his senses go quiet, and it's a relief.
---
Then he opens his eyes, and immediately squeezes his eyes shut against the smell. No, it doesn't make sense, but it's a lot. Feels like someone's decided to light some incense in his lungs.
This isn't where he was a moment ago.
He sits up, which feels like the biggest mistake he's made all month. It takes him a moment to get his eyes to focus, and a moment more before he realizes that some of the nearby bangles are attached to a person.
"I'm still uncertain about it," he rasps, throat dry. "Where is this?"
"The Warm Red Pavilion," comes the slow, deliberate response. The Medicine Seller gets up off the table to pour the stranger a cup of medicinal tea. It has a strong, bitter scent that sharply cuts through the cloyingly sweet atmosphere, and he passes it to him.
"You were in the alley nearby. Madame has generously permitted you to stay while I treat your injuries."
Generous. He had to pay her an "Extra Guest Fee" to haul this man back to his room! Extra guest fee his tails! She clearly just made that up on the spot. Madame really knows how to squeeze blood from a stone! He can certainly take a guess as to what her specialty used to be when she was still a working girl.
Well, no use sitting in the corner and growing mushrooms about it. Will he ever get his delicious bao...?
"This injury was not from a recent fight. How long have you been wandering about?"
Even the more powerful cultivators would have eventually succumbed to such an injury if left untreated. A potent golden core goes a long way, but sometimes you need some good old fashioned medicine to treat a severe concussion.
"The what?" The details fly straight over Slick's head. Apparently he hadn't gone far, though. Might be a good sign--if the army was onto him, they would've searched here by now.
He takes the cup, but stops, taking a careful sniff. What's in this stuff?
"Hard to tell." He had to lie about this stuff. Or at least half-lie. "I got cornered. Don't remember how I got away." He'd gotten baited out of hiding. A complete miscalculation, he should've known better than anyone that his brothers weren't stupid.
He hasn't drunk any of the tea. Trust isn't something he's got in him at the moment. But... "Nobody else tried to help, I guess. Just you. Who are you?" He doesn't recognize the markings.
The what indeed. If the name weren't a dead giveaway, the decor and ...odors should make it more than apparent they were in a brothel.
"Have you never been to a pleasure house...?" he hums, tapping his chin thoughtfully. "The Warm Red Pavilion is one such place."
He watches the stranger - watches how he takes in his surroundings, how he examines the medicinal tea and is, understandably, suspicious. Too many attempts at assurance would probably make him clam right up, and that is hardly conductive to sating the Medicine Seller's boundless curiosity. After all, he's never met a mystery he hasn't felt compelled to compulsively pick at like a bored child with their scabby knees.
"I am a foreign merchant from Dongying enjoying a bit of an overdue vacation," he explains. "Simply put, I am a Medicine Seller."
He inclines his head to the tea. "And that is medicine. ...Free of charge."
Oh. That does explain some things. Like why there were enough pillows to smother an elephant. "Haven't found the time."
So, a foreigner here to see the sights, who just happens to sell medicine too. Other spirit soldiers might be trusting enough to find that plausible, but he isn't. The mercantile states have a lot of outsiders working for them. Maybe this medicine seller was being paid, just like he had been.
To do... something. That's where the suspicion falls apart.
He'd been unconscious, long enough to get bandaged up. If he was going to get dosed with anything bad, it would've already happened.
Slick finally drinks, grimacing at the flavor. He tries to find something else to focus on, something... "I had a bundle with me." Where's it gone?
There is the faintest hint of amusement in his low monotone.
"Your things are wedged under the mattress, near the wall."
There is the slow, upward curling of his mouth, as he's clearly taking pride in how good he is at squirreling other people's possessions away.
"...So that when I left to make use of the facilities, no one would steal them."
And yet, he had little issue leaving the massive medicine box he carries completely unattended. (Though it's also not as though anyone can go rummaging willy-nilly in that little spacial nightmare and come up with anything more exciting than his not-so-secret stash of pornography (which is, admittedly, very exciting) and some expired medicine he forgot about a century ago.)
"Do you have any memory of how you sustained such injuries?"
He pauses, reaching into the pillow swarm to feel around. There's a large lump under the mattress. Okay. He'll have to... something. He should probably get rid of it all, but throwing away his only protection just feels wrong.
For all the good it did. He'd lost his helmet and used all the tricks he'd kept hidden on his belt, and the rest of it hadn't helped much. He glances down at the bruises visible under his stolen clothes, considering how to answer that question. "I got in a disagreement with a few people. They didn't take it well."
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
For Slick
As far as he's concerned, people everywhere, across all times, do not change much. Cultures, traditions, governments? They may vary, but people's hopes, dreams, desires, ambitions, virtues and vices remain relatively consistent.
And so he does what he always does. He sells medicine.
---
It's late evening when he steps out of the Warm Red Pavilion, carefully tucking away the spoils of his latest trade into the confines of his voluminous sleeves. Brothels really were the best when they were run well - always someone in need of a poultice, a powder, or certain... enhancers. He's got himself a cozy little room at the brothel all paid up for the next week, and enough cash to burn that he'll be eating like a king for just as long.
He follows his nose down an alley towards the delicious fragrance of a cart where a merchant is selling buns stuffed delicious meat and vegetables. In his eagerness to sink his fangs into soft, chewy dough full of tasty surprises, he practically stumbles over a person, propped and prone against the side of the brothel.
It is a very good thing that the Medicine Seller tends to be curious and doesn't simply go with his initial suspicion that the man is a drunk sleeping off a bender. No, not with that nasty looking head wound.
The Medicine Seller sighs. Duty, as per usual, calls. His meal of tasty, tasty bao will have to wait.
---
When the stranger wakes, it's amidst plush cushions, gauzy pink curtains, and the overpowering perfumes and incense the brothels use to mask... other odors. His head is bandaged, and there is a tray of plain congee and a pot of medicinal tea set out on a stand by the bed.
Not far off, the Medicine Seller is seated on a table, legs tucked under him and his well manicured hands folded primly in his lap.
Despite his somewhat inhuman countenance, his gaudy attire makes him look quite at home within the ostentatious walls of the Warm Red Pavilion.
"You survived after all," he remarks blandly. "It was a little... uncertain at points."
no subject
He doesn't remember how he escaped either, so he'd probably taken more hits then. He'd broken the chains at some point, and when he wipes the blood off his face, a bunch of soot comes off with it. Huh. Well, whatever he'd done, there'd been some flair to it. Shame he wasn't in on the details.
He stole some clothes, bundling up his armor and uniform in a robe. It clanked against bruises every time he took a step. Had to keep going, though. He needed to find a place to lie low. Scrape himself back together and think.
The buzz of danger leaves after a while, and he's just tired. He sits down for a minute to catch his breath, squeeze his eyes shut like it'll stop the headache.
There's a brief moment where he's asleep, and aware of it. All his senses go quiet, and it's a relief.
---
Then he opens his eyes, and immediately squeezes his eyes shut against the smell. No, it doesn't make sense, but it's a lot. Feels like someone's decided to light some incense in his lungs.
This isn't where he was a moment ago.
He sits up, which feels like the biggest mistake he's made all month. It takes him a moment to get his eyes to focus, and a moment more before he realizes that some of the nearby bangles are attached to a person.
"I'm still uncertain about it," he rasps, throat dry. "Where is this?"
no subject
"You were in the alley nearby. Madame has generously permitted you to stay while I treat your injuries."
Generous. He had to pay her an "Extra Guest Fee" to haul this man back to his room! Extra guest fee his tails! She clearly just made that up on the spot. Madame really knows how to squeeze blood from a stone! He can certainly take a guess as to what her specialty used to be when she was still a working girl.
Well, no use sitting in the corner and growing mushrooms about it.
Will he ever get his delicious bao...?"This injury was not from a recent fight. How long have you been wandering about?"
Even the more powerful cultivators would have eventually succumbed to such an injury if left untreated. A potent golden core goes a long way, but sometimes you need some good old fashioned medicine to treat a severe concussion.
no subject
He takes the cup, but stops, taking a careful sniff. What's in this stuff?
"Hard to tell." He had to lie about this stuff. Or at least half-lie. "I got cornered. Don't remember how I got away." He'd gotten baited out of hiding. A complete miscalculation, he should've known better than anyone that his brothers weren't stupid.
He hasn't drunk any of the tea. Trust isn't something he's got in him at the moment. But... "Nobody else tried to help, I guess. Just you. Who are you?" He doesn't recognize the markings.
no subject
"Have you never been to a pleasure house...?" he hums, tapping his chin thoughtfully. "The Warm Red Pavilion is one such place."
He watches the stranger - watches how he takes in his surroundings, how he examines the medicinal tea and is, understandably, suspicious. Too many attempts at assurance would probably make him clam right up, and that is hardly conductive to sating the Medicine Seller's boundless curiosity. After all, he's never met a mystery he hasn't felt compelled to compulsively pick at like a bored child with their scabby knees.
"I am a foreign merchant from Dongying enjoying a bit of an overdue vacation," he explains. "Simply put, I am a Medicine Seller."
He inclines his head to the tea. "And that is medicine. ...Free of charge."
no subject
So, a foreigner here to see the sights, who just happens to sell medicine too. Other spirit soldiers might be trusting enough to find that plausible, but he isn't. The mercantile states have a lot of outsiders working for them. Maybe this medicine seller was being paid, just like he had been.
To do... something. That's where the suspicion falls apart.
He'd been unconscious, long enough to get bandaged up. If he was going to get dosed with anything bad, it would've already happened.
Slick finally drinks, grimacing at the flavor. He tries to find something else to focus on, something... "I had a bundle with me." Where's it gone?
no subject
There is the faintest hint of amusement in his low monotone.
"Your things are wedged under the mattress, near the wall."
There is the slow, upward curling of his mouth, as he's clearly taking pride in how good he is at squirreling other people's possessions away.
"...So that when I left to make use of the facilities, no one would steal them."
And yet, he had little issue leaving the massive medicine box he carries completely unattended. (Though it's also not as though anyone can go rummaging willy-nilly in that little spacial nightmare and come up with anything more exciting than his not-so-secret stash of pornography (which is, admittedly, very exciting) and some expired medicine he forgot about a century ago.)
"Do you have any memory of how you sustained such injuries?"
no subject
For all the good it did. He'd lost his helmet and used all the tricks he'd kept hidden on his belt, and the rest of it hadn't helped much. He glances down at the bruises visible under his stolen clothes, considering how to answer that question. "I got in a disagreement with a few people. They didn't take it well."