Chapter Nine
Leander stopped at the house to unload an ungodly number of baskets from the obstreperous donkey. Maybe Leander was pitiful and without a future, but at least he poured his despondency into weaving baskets and not chasing chemical highs. He found Auntie Daiyu squatting nearby, watching his house.
Leander bowed. “Auntie Daiyu, I hope you have not waited for me.”
“It is nothing. I am curious how Yang Xiangren, the old cheapskate, has treated you today.”
She had definitely gotten a report from someone in Yang’s household.
Leander untied the finest of the baskets he had woven in his little self-pity session.
It was round and tall with straight sides and phoenixes woven into the pattern.
He had made it near the end of his crafty freak out when he’d been trying to convince himself that he was making better choices now.
“Thank you, Auntie Daiyu, for helping me obtain a job.” He held it out. “I hope you can accept my simple gift.”
She took the basket, running her fingers along the largest phoenix with reverence. “This is beautiful work.”
Leander didn’t want to admit he’d had a mental breakdown, so he offered a better reason for sitting next to a river and playing with reeds.
“Master Yang feels my skills are not appropriate for the task he set me. My knowledge of the surrounding area and where to find important plants is severely lacking, so given my incompetence, I thought to find another way to earn money to support my son.” It was bullshit.
Pure bullshit. But Leander was rather skilled at lying.
“How could you produce such a fine weave? This would have taken a master weaver several days, and you have many baskets.” She studied him. The afternoon light struck the side of her face, leaving half in darkness so she looked like she wore a half-mask.
“None as detailed as that one,” Leander said, “but I asked the reeds to shape themselves while they were still rooted in the earth. Then I broke each reed from the root when it had incorporated itself into the basket.”
“But this is dry and cured,” she said, clearly startled far more than Leander had expected. “You said your power lay only with live plants.”
“Those reeds were alive this morning, but I removed the chi and left only the dried basket.”
Auntie Daiyu blinked, studied the basket, studied him, and then closed her mouth. “You did not tell me you had such skill.”
“I did not know, Auntie Daiyu. After living my life in the city, I had no chance to weave reeds. This was my first attempt at the craft. I have made others if you would like to see them.” Leander untied the other baskets, laying them out in front of the house for her to inspect.
Some had lids; others were open-mouthed.
Most were highly decorative, and all were watertight.
Auntie Daiyu inspected several, bringing the weave to her nose before slowly turning the pieces. “Remarkable. Truly remarkable.”
“If Auntie Daiyu knows of somewhere I can sell these, I would be grateful.”
She peered at him. “How many can you produce in a day?”
“I would not want to take all the reeds from the river, nor can I provide them enough magic to regrow them while I work for Master Yang, so I could do four or five a day. I could not promise more than that.” Leander had made over a dozen today, but despair and a need to get out of his own head had fueled that spurt.
Auntie Daiyu nodded. “I will find homes for such art. You still have Yang’s most disagreeable donkey, so I assume you have not yet completed your work.”
“I have not, Auntie,” Leander agreed. He took one of the simpler baskets, one he had filled with food he had foraged for the next couple of days, and carried it into the house, setting it on the table.
“You show great trust not locking the door,” she observed.
Leander walked back outside, touching the vines that grew along the sides of the door.
“It is protected,” he promised. Her eyes grew wide.
Leander opened several other baskets, transferring plants from the individual baskets he’d used to protect the enriched stalks.
Then he started loading everything into the old basket he’d gotten and Master Yang’s house.
He put the heavy roots at the bottom and then the various stalks and finally the most delicate leaves and flowers on the top.
“Shall I carry the baskets to your house, Auntie Daiyu?” Leander asked.
Auntie Daiyu had watched, her smile growing as Leander worked. “I shall walk with you. I want to make sure you do not make another compromise with your pay.”
“I shall earn what is fair,” Leander said simply. He shifted his pile of now-empty baskets into the house and closed the door.
Her smile grew wider. “I shall ensure it.” She definitely hated Master Yang. Leander put the one sagging basket on the donkey and started leading it toward Master Yang’s house beside the lake. A servant must have seen Leander coming because Yang stepped onto his front porch as Leander walked up.
“You took longer than I expected,” Master Yang said instead of offering a polite greeting.
“You are not paying by the hour, so I explored the countryside so I could be more efficient in the future. It will take me a long time to learn where to find all the plants that would be of use to such an esteemed pill master,” Leander said with a bow.
Auntie Daiyu didn’t even pretend to show Yang any respect as she grinned like a maniac and watched the exchange. Yang came down and yanked the cover off the basket. For a second, he stared inside, his mouth open. It took several seconds for him to recover his voice.
“What is this?” he demanded. “One branch of fleeceflower? One single moonflower bud?” He dug deeper and brought out a knobby root. “One root of ginseng? One?”
Leander bowed. “You provided only a small basket, and I carried as much as I could without risking damaging the basket, which I had promised to return with no additional wear,” he said in his most apologetic voice.
“I only found sixteen of the plants you requested, and I apologize for my incompetence, but I enriched each with chi to make your pills the most effective.” Leander had made sure the plants were all enriched to where Master Yang would be desperate to get more of Leander’s products.
Funny, this is how Druwolf got addicts hooked on Leander’s products back home.
He offered small amounts at lower prices before raising rates.
But by then they wanted Leander’s shit so much they didn’t care how much more it cost compared to other street drugs.
How ironic that Leander was using Druwolf’s sales strategies now.
Master Yang turned red.
“Sixteen plants harvested would be one hundred and sixty yuan, would it not?” Auntie Daiyu asked, delight in her voice. Maybe Leander was getting some revenge, but Master Yang had still won this round by paying so little. Leander had earned only sixteen dollars. Give or take.
“Auntie Daiyu knows her numbers,” Leander agreed. Seeing how red Master Yang had turned, Leander suspected he would have tried to cheat Leander if not for Auntie Daiyu’s presence. Leander owed her.
“Manager!” Yang shouted, and a man with a thin crown of gray hair around his bald head came out a side door. Leander wondered if being near a pill oven made men bald and unattractive.
“Master Yang called?” he asked.
“Pay him one hundred and sixty yuan,” he ordered before he lifted the basket off the donkey and marched into the house. The manager quickly counted out the money and handed it over to Leander before leaving with a small bow. Leander bowed back and turned his attention to Auntie Daiyu.
“I must wash the vegetables I gathered before Shanlin returns from school.”
“From learning,” she corrected him.
“I apologize.” Leander knew that school was a term for those learning magic, but his brain continued to get stuck on trying to translate English directly to Chinese.
The pill master ten years earlier had warned him that only time and practice with the language would overcome the flaws of a magical pill, and still he made errors.
“Teacher Zheng will release Shanlin on his schedule. But before you go home to wash vegetables, you must come with me.”
“For what purpose, Auntie Daiyu?” As much as Leander knew he was safe here, the idea of going somewhere unfamiliar with someone he didn’t know well still made him think about secondary crime scenes and kidnapping and revenge. His chest even felt tight.
“Follow me,” she said before walking away.
Leander followed, the unease still souring his stomach. “Auntie Daiyu, I had hoped to ask you where I could wash my clothes.”
“Separating dirt from fabric is such a simple task that even those who are still refining chi can manage it.”
“Does everyone clean their clothes with magic?” Leander hadn’t seen a laundromat in town, but the answer surprised him.
Auntie Daiyu stopped and studied him. “How did you think we washed clothes?”
“I was divided between people using the river or them having washing machines.” The answer probably made him look like a fool, but trying to hide his ignorance wasn’t likely to work.
Auntie Daiyu blinked at him before muttering something under her breath.
“There is a young woman. She is simple, and she will never cultivate enough chi even to begin the body foundation stage, but she can clean your clothes. Watch her magic while she does so, and you can quickly learn for yourself.”
“Thank you.”
“Pay her with meals, and remember your gratitude toward me when you see who I have brought you to see,” she said. Leander had three seconds to feel alarm before Creek stepped out of a small house with flower boxes on the windows.