Dragonblood Chaos Heir

Chapter 23: The Merchant of Secrets

The library's outer shop was as silent as Lin Feng had left it. The blind old man was at his counter, this time polishing a set of intricate bone-carving tools. He didn't look up as Lin Feng approached.

"The memory is stable?" the old man asked, his milky eyes fixed on a point just past Lin Feng's shoulder.

"Stable," Lin Feng confirmed. He placed two more high-grade spirit stones on the counter, a generous tip for the silence and the sanctuary. "Is there a place in this city that trades in more than goods? A place that trades in truths?"

The old man's polishing cloth paused for a fraction of a second. "Truth is a dangerous commodity. It's rarely pure, and often poisonous. You want the Veiled Bazaar. It moves. Tonight, it will be in the dry tanks beneath the old granary in the flour district. Entry requires a secret offered, not a coin."

Lin Feng absorbed this. A black market for information. "A secret?"

"Something true. Something the city doesn't know. Something worth the price of admission." The old man finally looked toward him, his blind gaze unsettlingly perceptive. "You, I think, have several to spare."

Lin Feng nodded, a plan forming. He had a secret, potent and recent. One that would shake the city's power brokers to their core and buy him entry into any shadowed hall. "My thanks."

As he turned to leave, the old man spoke again, his voice dry. "A word of unsolicited advice, young storm. You carry a vortex within you. It is hungry. But even a whirlpool needs a center, or it scatters itself on the rocks. Find your center before the city finds you."

Lin Feng paused at the door, the warning echoing his father's final words. The chaos must have a heart. He did not reply. He stepped out into the late afternoon.

Verdant Cloud City was a wounded animal, licking its burns. The smoke had cleared, but a tension heavier than any fog choked the streets. Patrols of city guards, now reinforced with grim-looking mercenaries, walked in larger, more vigilant groups. The shops that were open did so with half-shutters, and customers were few. The Lin compound was a cordoned-off ruin, a blackened scar on the city’s face. The official story had collapsed under the weight of the message on the gates and the sheer scale of the disaster. The "beast" was now openly whispered to be a "spirit of vengeance."

Lin Feng needed to move before the city's fear solidified into a unified hunt for a single, definable enemy. The Veiled Bazaar was his next step. Not just for information, but to become a player in the shadows, to shape the narrative from within the underworld.

He spent the remaining hours of daylight preparing. He found a secluded, abandoned tannery by the river, its vats empty and reeking of old chemicals. Here, he crafted a new identity. Using the principles he’d gleaned from the chaotic assimilation of various energies, he practiced altering his aura. He couldn't hide the deep, chaotic vortex, but he could cloak it in a shell, a superficial layer of energy that mimicked a specific, less alarming signature.

He settled on Metal-Attribute Qi, sharp, cold, and precise. It was common among assassins and mercenaries, intimidating but not otherworldly. He wove threads of the mercurial silver from his core into a brittle, gleaming lattice around the swirling darkness within. To a casual spiritual scan, he would feel like a high-level Body Tempering cultivator with a sharp, metallic edge, dangerous, but understandable.

He also changed his appearance. He used soot and grease from the tannery to darken his hair and add shadows to his face. He traded his traveler’s robes for a set of dark, practical leathers taken from a forgotten locker, the kind worn by rat-catchers and sewer scouts. He kept Frost Desire wrapped, but slung it across his back in a way that suggested a common, if large, tool.

By the time the last light faded, he was no longer Lin Feng, nor the grey-robed bidder. He was a sharp, anonymous blade in the city’s underbelly.

The old granary in the flour district was a looming silhouette against the starless sky. The area was deserted, the mills silent. Lin Feng found the entrance to the dry tanks, a rusted iron grate set in the ground behind a mountain of rotten sacking. The grate was unlocked. He lifted it and descended a slime-slick ladder into darkness.

The air below was cool and still, smelling of wet stone and mildew. He followed a faint draft, his enhanced senses picking up the murmur of voices and the glow of shielded lanterns ahead. The tunnel opened into a vast, circular cavern, one of the city’s original water reservoirs, now bone-dry.

The Veiled Bazaar was not a market of stalls. It was a gathering of shadows. Dozens of figures stood or sat in small groups around the periphery, their faces obscured by hoods, masks, or simple glamours. Light came from floating, shrouded glow-stones that cast more shadow than illumination. Conversations were conducted in low murmurs or through hand-signs. The atmosphere was one of profound, professional paranoia.

A large figure, broad as a barrel and wearing a porcelain comedy mask, stood blocking the path from the tunnel into the main space. Two slits in the mask revealed watchful, intelligent eyes.

"A secret," the guard rumbled, his voice echoing slightly in the cavern. "For the Keeper. Something the city doesn't know. Something true."

Lin Feng met the guard’s gaze through the mask. He spoke, his voice low and flat, stripped of all accent. "Elder Tian is not in seclusion, healing from a spiritual wound."

The guard leaned forward slightly. "Oh?"

"He is in the undercroft beneath the Lin treasury. He is alive. But he has no cultivation. No memory. No mind. He is an empty shell. The Ghost didn't kill him. It broke him."

A ripple of absolute stillness passed through the nearby shadows. Conversations died. Faces turned toward the tunnel entrance. The revelation was a stone dropped into a stagnant pond. The fate of Elder Tian had been the subject of frantic speculation. This… this was beyond assassination. It was imaginary terrorism.

The guard in the comedy mask stared at Lin Feng for a long moment. Then, he gave a single, slow nod. He stepped aside. "The Keeper will see you. Center of the cavern. The one with the blue lantern."

Lin Feng walked into the bazaar. He felt the weight of countless hidden eyes upon him. His secret had bought more than entry; it had bought dishonor. He moved toward the center, where a single figure sat on a simple stool behind a low table, illuminated by a lantern with a pane of deep blue glass.

The Keeper was a woman. She was wrapped in layers of grey wool, her face hidden by a veil of the same material, leaving only her eyes visible. They were the color of a winter sky, pale and sharp, and they held an intelligence that felt ancient. On the table before her was a slate and a piece of chalk, a set of scales, and a small, locked coffer.

"You bring a storm with you, sharp one," she said, her voice melodious but devoid of warmth. "A secret that changes the balance. Tian, a void. This confirms much rumor and chills the blood. What do you seek in return?"

"Information," Lin Feng said, stopping before her table. "Two things. First, the current dispositions and intentions of the Lei Clan. Specifically regarding the Lin holdings and the city's power vacuum."

The Keeper’s winter eyes assessed him. "A common question tonight. The price is high. Your secret was admission. This requires trade." She gestured to the scales.

Lin Feng had come prepared. From his pocket, he produced a small, rough-cut crystal. It was a piece of the Spirit-Stone ore from the Deng convoy, but he had used his chaos to invert a tiny portion of its energy, creating a permanent, localized zone of spiritual deadening. It was a fascinating, unique artifact—a tool for assassination or stealth.

"The crystal creates a field that nullifies low-level spiritual perception for a three-foot radius," he said, placing it on one scale pan. "Permanent. Silent."

The Keeper picked it up, holding it to the blue lantern light. She closed her eyes, sensing its properties. A faint, intrigued hum escaped her. "A novel tool. Acceptable." She placed a weight on the other scale, balancing it. "The Lei Clan. Patriarch Lei Zong is cautious but opportunistic. He believes the 'Ghost' is a destabilizing force he can use. He is not seeking to fight it, but to let it clear the board of rivals, first the Lin, now the Deng, who are reeling from the loss of the convoy and their alliance. He is currently acquiring debt-notes and trade contracts from Lin affiliates at fire-sale prices. His daughter, Lei Meili, is the architect. She is colder and more ambitious than her father. She sees the Ghost not as a beast, but as a potential… vector. She is searching for its identity, not to destroy it, but to understand its motives. To see if it can be predicted, or even… leveraged."

Lin Feng processed this. It was worse than simple hostility. The Lei were smart. They saw him as a natural disaster to be harnessed. Lei Meili’s curiosity at the auction made sense now. She wasn't just assessing a rival bidder; she was assessing a potential piece on her board.

"And the second piece of information?" the Keeper prompted.

"The source of the fire at the Lin compound. It wasn't the Ghost. Who was it?"

The Keeper’s eyes gleamed. "Ah. That is a more expensive question. It cuts closer to the heart of current… investments." She waited.

Lin Feng had one more item. He laid on the table the Deng Clan's alliance jade slip, the one he’d taken from the convoy strongbox, the one with Patriarch Deng Lei’s personal emblem and promises to "Elder Tian." It was physical proof of the conspiratorial alliance that had poisoned his father.

"This," he said, "is Deng Lei's written commitment to support Tian's tyranny, detailing resource transfers and political backing. In the right hands, it shatters the Deng's claim of being innocent partners and paints them as co-conspirators in patricide."

The Veiled Bazaar seemed to hold its breath. This was not just a secret; it was a weapon. A political flammable device.

The Keeper reached out a long-fingered hand and took the jade slip. She ran her thumb over the emblem, feeling its truth. "This," she murmured, "is worth many answers." She placed it in her coffer. "The fire. It was not the Lei. They prefer clean, financial kills. It was not the Deng; they were too busy licking their own wounds. It was an internal purge."

Lin Feng’s eyes narrowed. "Explain."

"A faction within the Lin Clan itself. Minor cousins, branch family members who saw Tian’s weakness and the Ghost’s attack as a chance to erase the main line entirely and claim whatever scraps remained from the ashes. They were led by a man named Lin Kuo, a bitter, ambitious cousin with some talent in fire-attribute cultivation. They set the blaze in the ancestral hall to destroy the records of lineage and obligation, to create a clean slate. They did not know about the undercroft, or Tian's ritual. They simply saw chaos and tried to crown themselves kings of the ashes."

Lin Feng felt a cold irony settle in his gut. His vengeance had created a vacuum, and the vilest elements of his own clan had rushed in to fill it with more fire. The Lin Clan hadn't just been killed from the outside; it had been cannibalized from within.

"Their fate?" he asked.

"The fire they set burned hotter than they anticipated. Lin Kuo and most of his conspirators died in the very blaze they started. A fitting end, purchased by your chaos."

So. The ledger with the Lin Clan was not just closed; it was burned to nothing, inside and out.

He had what he came for. He knew the Lei Clan's game. He knew the source of the fire. And he had planted two seismic secrets in the underworld's information stream: the true fate of Tian, and the proof of the Deng's treachery. Let the city's powers chew on that.

He nodded to the Keeper. "Our business is concluded."

"As you say, sharp one," the Keeper replied, her winter eyes lingering on him. "A word of free advice, for you have traded generously. Lei Meili is not just searching for the Ghost. She has hired external talent. A hunter of hunters. A man who specializes in tracking things that don't wish to be found. He arrives tomorrow. You have made the city interesting. Try not to let it make you dead."

Lin Feng turned and walked back through the gallery of watching shadows, the weight of new threats and new understandings settling on his shoulders. He was no longer just a force of nature crashing through the city. He was a player in a dark, intricate game. The Lei Clan wanted to use him. A professional hunter was coming to find him.

He emerged into the cold night air above the tank. The calm, consolidating peace of the scriptorium was gone.

The swirl was accelerating. And he was at its center.

He had sought the Veiled Bazaar for truths.

He had left with a warning: the hunt for the Ghost was over.

The hunt for the man behind the Ghost had just begun.