I just stared down at the slate that announced that this wholesale tea shop would sell tea directly to tea shops. Someone had erased the slate several times recently. Apparently somebody did not like the policy and kept racing it or the seller himself realized when people who were going to raise a fuss about the policy were coming by.

  Either way, he saw Moon Fei and immediately erased the contents of the slate. The only thing left up was the pricing list.

  The seller deflated as we passed. Maybe it was Moon Clan robes. They probably had their fingers in the tea trade here as well. With a start, I realized I was wearing Moon Clan robes. I probably looked like an official at that exact moment.

  I had asked the tailors to prepare me something that would stand up to scrutiny when I went to speak to the emperor.

  I was going to have to go back to them and talk about it.

  That wasn’t the issue, though. If he could identify me as a moon clan cultivator and I was just wearing the robes, others would also recognize that as well. I didn’t have time to go on a brief shopping trip right that second. I had no problem letting the moon Clan take credit for what I did. Heck, I brought two of them along with me and I left one back home.

  I was going to have to find some other way to deflect the curiosity of a random pass by. My robes, though great and form-fitting, were going to betray me.

  Moon Fei brought me out of my reverie by tapping me on the shoulder. That meant that he was up by me.

  “Did we find it?” I asked without looking away.

  The tea seller looked about to launch into their schpiel.

  “We found something,” he said. “I didn’t want to move quick but-”

  “Sir, did you want to buy something?” The sales agent said. “We have some of the finest tea leaf this side of the continent. Some of the freshest leaves from Western Jewel arrived today.”

  I pause to taking what he was saying. I went so far, and he was trying to sell me something that I could have gotten in my backyard. Course. That made sense because that’s what you did, right? You sold people something that you thought they couldn’t get otherwise?

  But I’d had the teammate locally in a Western duel and it wasn’t anything to write home about. In fact, it wasn’t anything to even mention in like conversation unless he really wanted to. It was just adequate for my purposes. Had it come with 200 mg of caffeine, I would have been all for it, but that hadn’t happened. It just did its own thing and tasted kind of mind.

  If you were going to sell a product, you had to believe in it. This guy looked like he was just trying to clear the back of the store.

  “Thank you, but I’m not interested,” I said. “I have tea at home.”

  “But sir, our Western Jewel tea is guaranteed to provide the energy you need for continuous cultivation,” the man said.

  I turned and gave him my full attention. There were strange things and then there were strangers ones.

  “Always be cultivating?” I said.

  “Yes, indeed. It’s a refreshing way to... close the deal.”

  My mind went back to seeing Glengarry Glen Ross with my daughters. We’d always loved the quips. So what is it was rated R? We could still enjoy most of it.

  “You’re talking about... let’s talk about something else,” I said.

  “Sir!” Moon Fei said.

  “One minute,” I said. “Do you have any tea? Like a mug of it?”

  “Tea?” the man said in a feminine voice. “Tea is for closers only.”

  I narrowed my eyes.

  I gave the man a look. His eyes look younger than he was. His beard looked one hundred percent fake. Now I’m not about to tell a man what he shouldn’t do regarding facial hair. But when he looks like he’s just a girl wearing a Santa Claus wig, I question whether or not he knows what he’s doing. Knew who he was. I stared into eyes that reminded me of my own. There were precious few mirrors around for me to get into. Good luck with.

  This set of eyes in particular?

  They reminded me I hadn’t seen Rachel in forever. God, I missed the kids.

  “Sir?” He said, in an exceedingly low voice. “Care to buy?”

  “I have some business to conduct, and then I’ll be right back.”

  There was something there that I wanted to see. Not that I felt familiar with them, but I felt something. Moon Fei was tugging on my arm and I reluctantly left. We moved out towards the next block, where Xiran was speaking in hushed tones to everyone there.

  Had it gotten so caught up in my shopping that I lost them all? Maybe it was time for me to take a brief break from this. I had taken 6 weeks off. Maybe I could take the work of my working idol, Adele.

  Didn’t she work like six months out of every six years?

  That was something I was looking forward to.

  I came in on the tail end of the discussion.

  “I can confirm that this is the place,” Xiran said. “I want to lead us in.”

  I gave her the look. Not that I didn’t approve of this. I approved. However, I didn’t want to be the one putting her on the line. If she wanted to volunteer? I would back her up.

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  So, for the first time, I would let her lead the mission. Xueyie would be right behind her.

  Lee and I would follow.

  “Capture or detain if you can,” Lee said.

  “Wait, you’re just going to go inside and fight these people?” The elder kang said. “But the girls?”

  “The girls will be fine,” I said. “They know what they’re doing. Can you make a formation that we can toss living cultivators into like a jail cell?”

  He took a second and then nodded. I could tell that he had some more reservations about this. Essentially, he was letting his daughter run in and do her own thing. Her own thing being killing demonic cultivators.

  I wondered how her father paternal instinct would kick in. If she was my daughter overjoyed to see her doing all this. I might be reserved with my own daughters, but ultimately, it wasn’t my decision. All I wanted to do was to give them the opportunity to grow and get better. It was on them to do anything.

  Beyond that? I would cheer their accomplishments but I wasn’t going to tiger mom them into submission. Yes, tiger mom was a verb in our household.

  As Min and I watched, Xiran and Xueyie knocked on the door to the disguised building. It was a front, of course. All of their buildings were.

  The front of the day was that this was an import export business. At least that was what their signage said. I didn’t believe it, but it was on them to actually prove it to any government authority that was going to be there.

  If I was doing this myself, I would come in as an inspector and ham up that I was looking for a bribe or some shit.

  The girls made a seamless entry. I saw a guard outside that they had just flirted with briefly, or they had sweet-talked. Either way, they were in.

  I checked the guard, and he had the familiar signature tattoo on his face.

  This was the place.

  Fortunately or unfortunately, we were in it.

  I gave them about two minutes before I send Min in.

  Then Lee and I walked up. The guard was quite disinterested in the two of us.

  “What do you want?” He said, flatly.

  “Excuse me, sir, but we are interested in exporting some of our more esoteric goods. Might we have a word with the proprietor?” I said, trying to sound as regal as I pretended to be.

  “The boss is with a customer,” he said. “Come back later.”

  He was definitely not the customer service type. He didn’t care if we dropped off the face of the earth.

  I could hear the muffled sounds of a woman beating someone to within an inch of their life.

  The guard turned, obviously hearing the same thing.

  Of course.

  Mood: Nobody’s going to stop me.

  “Lee, I believe that this man is missing a hey you,” I said.

  “A what?” He said.

  “Hey, you!” She said, popping him into the jaw.

  He jerked back.

  “Why you little-” he said, winding up for a haymaker. It was the most telegraphed move I had seen in ages.

  She leapt off the group and into him, cleanly kicking him through the wooden door. He left a man-sized hole.

  Peering through the wall, he had fully disappeared, clearly having gone through the wall on the far side. That would be tough for the resale value of the place.

  I hoped that the next group got a deal when they bought it.

  A demonic cultivator threw himself at me, full force.

  I twisted him in the air and then did him the honor of tossing him through two layers of granite wall.

  A general contractor just landed the repair gig that would buy his daughter the cultivation pills to advance to the third realm.

  That was my team. Irreverently causing gentrification by destroying real estate for new age cultivators to buy.

  It was almost our calling card at this point.

  Chances were that the Mooks that we had tossed through the walls were going to be seeing stars. Then they would talk to the blue robes.

  I walked into the devastation.

  Xiran was cleaning house. Xueyie was only watching her back.

  It was like they were just trying to see what the bare minimum devastation would be. They conspicuously stacked several unconscious men and women against one wall. I eyed Xiran as she tossed another.

  It was clean and efficient work. I had to give her credit.

  “Papa Kang, is your part ready?” I said, leaning back.

  “Bring the first few through!” Egiya yelled.

  Lee and I formed a human chain with Xueyie, moving humans into the chains that the blue robes had supplied and into the holding formation. It would hold a cultivator of up to third realm, but one of those wouldn’t go down easily.

  Within minutes, twelve were behind the formation lines and we were looking for a reason to go through the rubble for some of those that had gotten their shit pushed through the wall.

  God, I love smart, strong women.

  Especially the ones that made my job so much easier. These two were legends in their own right. Now all we had to do was to put them in the hands of someone competent in the security ministry.

  “Lee, I’m going to go talk to a merchant about some tea,” I said. “Can you finish up here?”

  I felt like I was done with the game. I wanted to quit before, but now I was so thoroughly done with these shenanigans. I was so done that I was not thinking straight. How else would the merchant’s eyes so remind me of Rachel?

  The dream of going home and seeing them safe again floated up to me once more, unbidden. There I was, just driving them to either and they-they were just laughing. They were teasing me about something that Lauren had said or they had a new inside joke or... something broke my side of me.

  Somebody knew how to get me back to my daughters in this city and I would tear is apart until I could see them again if I... if I did what? If I became the monster that I fought against?

  I didn’t have that in me.

  I just had to keep putting one foot in front of the other. These damn day dreams kept pulling me out of where I was and bad to something that had no chance or happening. A part of me believed it wasn’t going to happen if? Heck, I would take Lee with me too!

  I was back around the corner quickly. The merchant was still there. There were also several groups of blue-robed cultivators passing through the crowd. I recognized a few faces from our last problem. None that I knew the names of.

  A few saw me and nodded. They flowed past me. The merchant locked eyes with me briefly and then stepped out. I wanted to run and spout a quip or two. He was gone before I knew it.

  I walked to what I thought was his shop.

  “What are you doing, Joe?” Min said.

  “That tea seller- he reminded me of home,” I said. “I just wanted to talk to him.”

  “He reminded you of home?” Min said, appearing on my shoulder.

  “His eyes- he had my eyes. The eyes I gave my daughters,” I said.

  The moon spirit dropped, and I followed her. She moved like a cat.

  For once, she didn’t give me any sass. I was expecting it. There was a part of me that needed it.

  Min worked her way in between the crowd, picking up speed.

  I was right there behind her, and then we were in front of a closed up shop.

  That wasn’t right.

  He was fully open before we came. What had prompted this? He closed up because of all the heat?

  There was a considerable amount of blue robe presence. It was like back on the blue night at the cop bar. Rather than keep moving, I just sat down and looked at the cultivators passing by.

  After a while, the blue robes stopped being in most of the traffic. Then there was a lull, as the customers weren’t certain if returning would tip them off or something. The merchants were open and out talking, trying to draw in anyone.

  They didn’t pay attention to me.

  I let myself just sit there and watch as the hustle and bustle of normal commerce took over. The damn market would go on. Apparently, whatever they were selling here would keep selling, if only because of the people morbidly curious about what exactly was going on.

  There was no social media here, so it made sense that this would become a juicy piece of gossip.

  For matters of public safety, this kind of thing needed to get out. The amount of times that I had killed demonic cultivators without the word making it out was getting to be a problem. The public had a right to know, but also how would they get the news?

  Maybe I needed to start a printing press and just tell them. It wasn’t the first time that I had thought deep thoughts about getting suitable reading material. This time, though, I was thinking of how society found out about their demonic infestations.

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