Chapter 210 Market
The shopkeeper exchanged it for 300 strings of copper coins at the current price, a weight too heavy for a mortal to carry. In fact, people often carried loads of these coins to buy salt and oil. The monks' spiritual coins were actually more popular than the copper coins and silver notes issued by the court.
She watched Luo Xuanyi put the copper coins into her storage bag, and her smile became less distant: "Fellow Daoist, you must be a casual cultivator too, right?"
"Shopkeeper, you have a good eye." Luo Xuanyi admitted it readily, not intending to pretend to be a cultivator from one of the six major alliances. However, she was still a little curious. "But how did you determine that? I just came in a short while ago and have only spoken a few words."
The shopkeeper smiled slyly. She walked out from behind the counter and invited Luo Xuanyi into the back hall. "I can tell at a glance how imposing the cultivators of the six great alliances are. Only casual cultivators like you and me would have the interest to listen to the rain and drink tea. Please come in, fellow Daoist. The tea is ready."
There was a square courtyard in the center of the back hall of Puji Trading House. Rain was falling, and a tea table was placed on the corridor in a very elegant manner. Luo Xuanyi didn't recognize the hanging flowers in the pots under the eaves. After a closer look, she found that they were ordinary flowers and plants, not spiritual herbs.
Flowers blossomed, their lavender hues a picturesque sight. A servant stood guard in the lobby while the shopkeeper and Luo Xuanyi sat opposite each other, pouring tea. Her movements were as graceful as flowing water, but it wasn't the elaborate tea ceremony Luo Xuanyi had seen at Baose. Instead, she served two deep ceramic cups, each containing a generous cup of tea, simply strained to remove the tea leaves. Just one glance quenched her thirst.
Luo Xuanyi was more comfortable with this kind of thing. Tea, water, just quenching thirst was enough. She raised her cup and took a sip, then asked, "I've heard that cultivators from the six major alliances also observe the rain to gain enlightenment. How can you say that only independent cultivators have this kind of sentiment?"
The shopkeeper cupped her hands in the ceramic cup, covering them with her own. It looked as if she didn't actually like the slightly chilly environment; she was simply judging Luo Xuanyi's preferences. After all, no matter how affable Luo Xuanyi was, she was still her junior in terms of cultivation. While she could call him "fellow cultivator," she couldn't truly treat him as a fellow cultivator.
She rubbed the ceramic cup with both hands and replied, "Fellow Daoist, you also said that watching the rain is for enlightenment. The cultivators of the six great alliances are blessed by the Heavenly Dao and constantly seek enlightenment. They watch the rain and the flowers for enlightenment, not just to appreciate the rain and the things of nature. Not to mention that they are wearing expensive feathered robes, so they won't be soaked by the rain at all."
Luo Xuanyi nodded, finally accepting this statement. The opinions of others helped Luo Xuanyi better play her role, and she kept this detail firmly in mind.
On the tea table at the old tree root, curls of purple smoke drifted from the red copper incense burner. The shopkeeper finally took a sip of the teacup he was holding and placed it on the table. Luo Xuanyi guessed that the water must have gone cold. The shopkeeper looked at Luo Xuanyi and said, "Fellow Daoist, you just mentioned that there's no cultivator market nearby. Do you want to buy anything?"
"Please forgive me if I have offended you." Her voice was slow and sincere. "Fellow Daoist, you must have realized how remote this place is. Guhu Town is located at the westernmost end of the midline between the two major cities of Longlan City and Fanghui City. Ordinary cultivators don't come here, so naturally there is no market."
“But our trading houses are spread all over the place.”
At this point, Luo Xuanyi also understood: "If there is something I want, I can entrust it to your trading house, and you can find it for me?"
If you have business but don't make money, you're not a businessman. The shopkeeper nodded with a smile: "Our trading company is to transport the goods collected from Guhu Town. We have a caravan of 50 people to support us. It's okay to bring some goods back and forth."
"If I want a certain product, do I have to pay more besides the price of the product?" In order to show her image as a casual cultivator, Luo Xuanyi pretended to be concerned and asked about the price.
The shopkeeper spoke softly, as if afraid to alarm Luo Xuanyi. "It takes time to gather the items a cultivator needs, and that's because of the manpower and transportation costs, so naturally there's a price premium. But the rule of our Puji Trading House is that the premium cannot exceed two-tenths of the appraised value of the goods, which is already the lowest among all the trading houses."
Two-tenths of the goods was already scary enough, and this was the lowest premium among all the trading houses. Luo Xuanyi smacked her lips, and suddenly thought: "Then can you also accept things?"
There are many tricks here. The shopkeeper, without revealing any expression, replaced the ceramic cup with hot tea. The rising mist gradually obscured her face. She held up the ceramic cup again. "Of course, it just depends on the quality. We only have two appraisers here. One can identify magical instruments below the immortal level, and the other can identify mid- to high-grade elixirs and spiritual herbs."
"How do you calculate the money?" Luo Xuanyi asked bluntly.
"Appraisal does take time and effort, but the fee is fixed: one spirit coin per transaction." The shopkeeper swirled the hot tea in her ceramic cup clockwise, looking rather naive and innocent, but her demands for the price were merciless. "If there happens to be a buyer, the trading house will only take a brokerage fee of one spirit coin. If not, I'll also factor in any unused expenses. Since you're a fellow casual cultivator, I'll at least give you a good coat of paint and buy at 90% of the market price."
Even though Luo Xuanyi had never learned the ways of the merchant and only had a cursory understanding of legitimate market prices, she understood that trading houses were essentially making money off of nothing, and even taking a tenth of it. Magical instruments and elixirs required specialized Taoist techniques, countless refinements, and the expense of a vast amount of materials to create, while they could profit simply by reselling them.
Luo Xuanyi could only sigh about the non-existence of the middle trade route in Zang Yaozong. If it were in Zang Yaozong, the people in these trading houses would have been attacked and killed long ago.
This was also a difference between the two. Luo Xuanyi took careful note. If she wanted to make money, she could actually earn more than the trading house. After taking the Bodhi Pill, her body, as long as she had spiritual energy, would have an inexhaustible supply of medicinal power. She could theoretically refine all the elixirs directly within her body.
The Bodhi Pill she'd taken was, after all, one of Taoist Hua Shen's experiments, and it wasn't perfect. The higher the grade of the pill, the lower its quality, and it couldn't perfectly replicate the effects of all rare and precious spiritual herbs. But that was enough. With pills priced a thousand times higher than spiritual herbs, Luo Xuanyi could make a killing just selling the mid-grade pills.
However, Luo Xuanyi didn't dare to start selling pills openly, because she had no idea how many of the pills she learned were exclusive recipes passed down by Taoist Hua Shen and the Demonic Path. She could consider selling them in the ghost market.
But for Luo Xuanyi, she doesn't need money for the time being.
This walk yielded quite a bit of information. Luo Xuanyi stood up to say goodbye, and the shopkeeper escorted her out the door.
The rain had stopped before she noticed, leaving only the rain clouds lingering in the sky. A few people began to move about the streets, and two people running out of an alley caught her attention.
"Move aside quickly, Brother Chang is about to die!"
They were carrying a sturdy young man on a crude stretcher. His face was blue and purple, and his throat was rolling as if something was blocking it, making it difficult for him to breathe. They quickly ran into the alley where Luo Xuanyi had come out, apparently heading towards Ma Xinghua's courtyard.
Luo Xuanyi didn't care at first, but now she couldn't help but raise her eyebrows.
Second update~ The trading house is the legitimate logistics network hh By the way, Zang Yaozong does not have a trading house or store. At most, it conducts transactions between monks, and it is most likely barter.
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