Tian needed to sit down after the Elder’s revelations. He wasn’t going to get a chance to.

“We are not in a position to completely dismantle the salt trade in the Broad Sky Kingdom, even if we were to disregard the familial interests of our disciples, but this is unendurable. Junior Wang?”

“Trade with other salt producing nations. The Green Dragon kingdom has oceans, and we share a border on the Northeast. Alternatively find new salt mines domestically that can be exploited more cheaply than the imported salt from Black Iron Gorge.”

“Might as well wish for magically appearing salt in every warehouse. If mines were so easy to find, we would have them already, no?” Elder Feng sounded distinctly cool. “And do you really want to put the noose around the Kingdom’s neck into the hand of another?”

“Better a peer kingdom than heretics, Elder. And mines are hard to find for mortals, but hardly impossible. A heavily funded geological survey of the kingdom would have many benefits, not the least of which is identifying new salt mines. It’s not like boiling brine requires any hidden arts either. Brine springs can be found in the Broad Sky Kingdom even more easily than mines. Once they have been found, it’s just a question of expanding scale and reducing cost to the point where it’s competitive with what Black Iron Gorge is producing.”

“And the social consequences?”

“Temporary, and not our problem. Arguably a net positive if we can increase domestic production.” Wang shook his head. Elder Feng frowned slightly.

“I just told you that the Mountain is one of the Gorge’s biggest customers through the disciples’ family businesses. How is it not our problem?”

“Since when do Monastery rules bend in favor of supporting vice?” Wang’s words were barbed. They all knew a high degree of discretion was employed by the disciplinary squad. A squad made up entirely of hereditary disciples. Who almost all had ties to mortal merchant houses.

“Brother Wang really knows how to stick a knife in from an unexpected direction.” Tian reflected. “It seems he doesn’t like the squad much.”

That got a sniff from Elder Feng. “Juniors Tian, Hong, Su?”

The three shared a look. Hong shook her head. “Brother Wang’s plan sounds better than anything I can think of off the top of my head. Though I will say that there is a serious risk of the country collapsing if we cut off the salt supply too quickly.”

That got her odd looks. “Broad Sky Kingdom is hot, and a lot of it is very humid. Preserving food is hard. We can’t possibly import enough ice for every peasant to use. Without salt, there is a real risk of famine.” She shrugged awkwardly.

“A good point. Junior Su?”

“I would need time to research an answer too. Without sufficient data, we cannot calculate the necessary statistics needed to find the optimal solution. Brother Wang’s plan does provide a starting point, however, and I would assume the kingdom has salt consumption statistics somewhere.”

“Junior Tian?” The Elder’s eyes, and intent, settled on him. Tian thought the air got slightly thinner when she did. Perhaps it was just his imagination.

How to solve this problem? He had absolutely no idea. Nothing in his life or his training had ever prepared him for a question like this, and nothing he read seemed relevant. All he could think of was…

“Poison.” He cupped his hands and slightly bowed.

That brought the room to a halt. “Pardon?”

“Poison, Elder. The salt is poison.”

There were discreet looks of confusion shared around the room.

“Elaborate.”

“New methods of producing salt or trading for salt are good, but it will take a long time and I’m guessing it will be expensive. But we all know the Gorge is the home of heretics, and heretics love their curses and poison arts.” It was one of the stratagems used by the Virtuous Minister Jin of Wu. Brother Fu made him read the biography. “We make everyone think the salt is a slow acting curse, or poison, or both.”

“How do we do that?”

“Hush it up, Elder.”

Now everyone was openly staring at him. Tian felt incredibly awkward and pulled out the book.

“The minister needed to clear the land for a new summer palace for the king, so he convinced the nearby villagers there was a plague. A little laxative in the wells, combined with hastily carting the poorly covered bodies of executed prisoners through the village, set the idea of illness in their mind. The villagers heard the public proclamations that there was no plague in the area, saw how the magistrate was harshly punishing anyone who suggested otherwise, and figured that was as good a proof of plague as there could be. Once the magistrate boarded up his house, and fled in the middle of the night with his three favorite concubines and eldest legitimate son, the villagers couldn’t clear out fast enough.”

Tian flipped to the next page. “The minister got a promotion for that, as well as a reward of new brushes and ink from the palace chamberlain.”

“You wish to perpetrate a huge fraud on the whole of the Broad Sky Kingdom.”

“Not a fraud elder. It’s a teaching lie. The salt has weakened the ability of the kingdom to resist the heretics and harmed the Ancient Crane Monastery. Sounds like a curse or a poison to me.” Tian nodded seriously. He was putting a lot of effort into getting better at metaphors, and his efforts were finally paying off.

“Or, well, there is a simpler option than all those things, but I don’t think the Monastery would go for it.” Tian shrugged helplessly.

“You think it’s less appealing than deceiving a nation of nearly a billion people, causing enormous social panic and devastating who knows how many families in the process?” Elder Feng was giving him a very odd look now, which Tian thought was quite rich coming from an Elder of the Ancient Crane Monastery.

“Yes, Elder.”

“Go on.”

“We do have those big crates of preservation talismans in the Depot. How hard would it be to set up a few workshops and start selling them to mortals?”

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That did have her rocking back in her seat. Then she frowned. “You really don’t see a problem with that?”

“Everyone has qi. How much could activating an incredibly basic talisman take?” Tian spread his hands.

“You are right. The Monastery would like that idea even less than adding actual poison to the salt. You haven’t really interacted with any mortals since you rang the Dragon Bell, have you?”

“Not really, no, Elder.”

She nodded slightly. “Each of you will receive a little silver and be sent down into Burning Flag City. Investigate the situation there. See how what you find changes your answers.”

Tian blinked. That was it? That was the scope of the instructions? No… definitely do this or definitely don’t do that? Just “Investigate?” What situation needed investigating? Should they do something based on their investigation?

“Dismissed.” The elder picked up her tea cup and sipped it. It seemed that really was everything.

Tian noticed that the prickly Lin hadn’t been invited to the meeting. What that signified, he didn’t know.

Steward Pan gave each of them a small sack of silver and copper coins, then they were ferried to the ground outside of the city by flying cloud. The dim pre-dawn light provided excellent concealment. The four exchanged looks. “Sister Su, do you want one of us to travel with you?” Tian asked. It would be difficult to move around a mortal city in a wheelchair.

“No thank you. I expect I will be auditing the city government so I won’t be moving around much.”

“Wait, auditing?” Hong looked over at the librarian. “How are you going to get them to open their books?”

“I am Level Nine of the Earthly Realm, and I’m from Ancient Crane Mountain. How are they going to stop me?” The question would have sounded like boasting from anyone else. Sister Su sounded genuinely curious. Of course they would let her look. Failure to do so would result in non-optimal outcomes. For them.

“Point. Brother Wang?” Tian asked.

“Merchant’s quarter for me. Time to hit the food stalls near the caravans. I’ll just throw on a different robe while I look around, change it up as needed.” Wang shrugged. “I don’t think my answer will change much, though. I wrote that memorial after I studied the problem for weeks. Sister Hong?”

“City guard, disciplinary squad, whoever they are using to maintain order here. I’ll go in my sect robes. Smuggling is still a crime, and if this is a national problem, it’s worth starting at the bottom and seeing how far up the rot goes. Brother Zihao… no, I know the answer to this. Please don’t. Please don’t throw the face of the Monastery on your very first mission for the Elder.”

Tian was already pulling out the head covering basket and shabby black robes of a wandering monk. It was the go-to disguise of West Town brothers when they were on missions. Rough shoes, holes carefully worn in the bottoms, hit the ground. “Eh? But this is standard when dealing with mortals isn’t it?” Tian carefully put a wooden bowl on top of the hat. He gave it a little pat then started sorting out the annoying monastic robes.

“With countryside peasants, yes. Not in a sophisticated city!” Hong rubbed her forehead.

“Can’t be that sophisticated. Still has mortals in it.” he quickly shucked off his outer robes and got changed. There was more grumbling about propriety, but Tian firmly ignored them. “Right. Off I go.” Tian slid the bowl inside his robes and fixed the irritating head covering basket thing by its chinstrap. It was fairly roomy inside, which was a bad thing as that meant it sloshed around more.

“Where to?” Brother Wang asked.

“No idea. We’re daoists. I’ll just go with the flow. Does anybody know when, or where, they are picking us up?”

There was an awkward silence.

“I recommend a nice deep wooden bowl for your begging bowls. Something with a bit more height to the sides so any food you manage to snag doesn't spill as you squat in the dirt to eat it.” Tian advised cheerfully, waving his bowl around before tucking it back into his robe. “Just, you know, in case the silver runs out before we get picked up.”

“Scram!” Hong aimed a kick at him. Tian chuckled and started walking towards the city. The others spit up and went their separate ways.

Tian didn’t really have a lot of context for the word “city.” He had seen, at an immense distance, Mountain Gate City which held the Inner Court of Ancient Crane Mountain. He hadn’t thought much about it. It was just a bit of a smudge in the distance. He had a hazy notion of “West Town but bigger,” and that was about as far as his imagination could reach.

The walls of Burning Flag City were a hundred feet tall. The red bricks were tightly packed together, not a single one missing over the vast expanse. Tian stopped a couple hundred yards from the gate and just… looked. Trying to wrap his head around the scale of what he was seeing. The walls, patrolled by heavily armored mortals at the top, were studded by protruding gate houses every half mile or so. There was already a queue outside the gatehouse nearest to Tian, waiting for the dawn and the gates to open.

So far, all he could see of the city were the walls. He was almost bouncing with curiosity to see what was inside.

The people in the queue were rather boring. Men had their hair long, though they tied it in the back rather than make a proper bun. Women kept theirs cropped short, but longer than the Convents preferred. Too long for nice patterns to be traced in the hair. Instead, they used combs for decoration. Pretty, in a bland sort of way.

“Why is it that everyone I’m looking at ranges from “Not great looking” to “Oh I am so sorry?” Tian wondered.

You live with immortality cultivating daoists. Good looks are a known side effect.

“Cultivation makes you better looking? Really?”

Orthodox cultivation generally removes all the things that would tend to make you bad looking, let’s say. Up to a point. The results aren’t equally distributed, but on average, the aesthetic standard is much, much higher. Look, that lady can’t be over thirty and she’s already missing a few teeth. You don’t see that in the sect.

There was a commotion coming behind him. Everyone in the line shifted off the road as a detachment of cavalry came trotting towards the city. Tian was no judge of horses or soldiers, but he thought they all looked very fine. Tall, sturdy horses with long legs and deep chests. Their riders wore long robes made of narrow iron plates stitched together in an overlapping pattern, like scales on a lizard. They had sturdy iron helmets, and on each of their helmets was a red plume. Each was equipped with a saber and a spear, and the stern expressions seemed to be universal issue too.

It was a little awkward when they pulled up in front of him. The one with the fanciest plumes on his helmet and extra red cloth woven into his armor looked straight at him and said “A little far from Pure Land Temple, aren’t you, Venerable?”

Tian desperately tried to remember some of his Brother’s suggestions for suitably monk sounding phrases. The only thing that really stuck in his mind was Brother Three Nights putting his thin hand on Tian’s shoulder and saying “You never break character. Even if they say they know who you are. Even if they are right. You never break character.”

“This Little Monk has the earth for a prayer mat and the sky as an eight layer pagoda. What better temple could there be?” That got a snort from Fancy Plume and some of the other soldiers.

“A little short to be a monk too.”

“With faith, six foot one is possible.” His voice was quite righteous on that one. He was speaking from the heart.

“Remarkably young sounding voice.”

“Is it?”

“It is. Why are you dressed up like a wandering monk, kid?”

“Because this humble one is a wandering monk. Besides, regardless of this little monk’s age, it’s quite good being a wandering monk. People who try to do bad things to wandering monks sometimes explode for no reason.”

That got more snorts. “I don’t suppose you are some hidden villain-exploding expert, are you?”

“Definately not. Even this mendicant’s tea service is barely at the beginner level.” Tian shook his head.

“Alright ‘Venerable Tea,’ follow behind us. You can have a meal at the barracks and get our critique on your tea serving ability.”

Tian bowed. “This little monk thanks the General for his generosity.”

Fancy plume nearly fell off his horse. “General? General? I’m Ten Man Commander Attun! Do I look like a general to you?”

The name landed oddly in Tian’s ear, but that clearly wasn’t the issue. He nodded, the head covering basket hat going up and down with big swings. “Yes. The Benefactor has a big horse, a big spear and the fanciest hat. Command of an army is inevitable. This little monk thanks his lordship for the opportunity to serve.”