Trouble at Evans City Shops
The merchant turned his head and saw the proprietress grabbing him. He quickly lowered his head and stammered, "N-no, I didn't say anything. You must have misheard, madam. Please let go! I have things to do, I need to go handle some business."
Cynthia Wu had no intention of letting him go. She'd been puzzled these past few days as to why no one was buying their exotic spice, and now that she’d caught someone, she was determined to get to the bottom of it.
“Sir, it’s one thing if you don’t want to buy our exotic spice, but at least tell me why you’re unwilling to purchase it!” Cynthia Wu pressed, her tone growing anxious and sharp.
Seeing Cynthia Wu like this, the merchant became even more frightened, shrinking his head and not daring to utter another word.
Mark Hunter quickly stepped in to mediate, urging Cynthia Wu to let go of the merchant’s hand. Then, with polite courtesy, he said to the merchant, “My apologies, sir. My wife was just a bit anxious, so her tone came off a little harsh. Please allow me to apologize on her behalf, and I hope you won’t take it to heart.”
The merchant, seeing Mark Hunter’s friendly and courteous manner, nodded and said, “It’s fine. I don’t hold grudges against women.”
Mark Hunter continued, “Sir, you traveled all the way to the Capital just to buy our exotic spice. So tell me, why is it that after placing a deposit, you’d rather lose money than finish the deal?”
The merchant looked troubled, wanting to speak but hesitating. Mark Hunter, sensing he knew something, pressed on, “How about this, sir—if you tell us the real reason behind all this, we won’t deduct your twenty percent deposit. In fact, we’ll refund you in full. How does that sound?”
The moment he heard he wouldn’t lose any money, the merchant was immediately tempted.
He was a restaurant owner from a small county town. Unlike the big establishments in the Capital, he couldn’t afford to lose money so easily. That deposit hurt, and if it weren’t absolutely necessary, he’d never have given it up.
When he heard the spice shop owner say he wouldn’t lose any money as long as he told the truth, the merchant was tempted.
So he glanced around, moved closer to the shop, and picked a spot where no one else was nearby. Lowering his voice, he said, “Sir, Madam, don’t tell me you haven’t heard the rumors going around the Capital?”
Mark Hunter and Cynthia Wu exchanged glances and shook their heads. “What rumors?”
The merchant looked surprised. “You really don’t know?”
“We truly don’t know. What rumors?” Cynthia Wu pressed.
The merchant hesitated for a moment, then gritted his teeth. “Alright, since you’re refunding my deposit in full, I’ll tell you everything I know…”
The merchant whispered in Cynthia Wu and Mark Hunter’s ears, and as they listened, their expressions grew increasingly grim…
It turned out that after the out-of-town merchant had finished negotiating the deal and paid the deposit, he went to a restaurant on the next street for a meal. As he sat down and started eating, he overheard people at the next table talking about spice. Since he’d just placed an order for spice, he listened in closely.
What he heard shocked him!
The people at the next table were saying that in the villages around the Capital, monsters had appeared, snatching children under ten years old. These monsters would drain the children’s blood, carve up their flesh to send to restaurants for cooking, and grind the remaining bones into powder to mix into the spice!
The reason these spices could make such delicious dishes, they claimed, was because they contained powdered children’s bones!
When the merchant heard this, he hurried to ask around if it was true.
People told him that the matter of monsters was connected to someone powerful, so no one dared speak about it openly. It was only passed around in whispers. As for the spice containing human bone powder, that part was definitely true, they said—many restaurants in the Capital had already stopped using spice in their cooking.