Azul breathed in the fumes of alcohol and the sweat and makeup of the bar dies.

  If you looked in, you could see the jostling about of bar maids and merry singing of drunken friends arm in arm. Every now and then you would see a man sneak of to the outside, under some dim lighting and ease himself onto the wall.

  This was Orient. The bar that the servants of the nobles and even some merchants frequented. The chill morning air fought against the heat of the alcohol, a tussle the bar goers were all too familiar with.

  Azul smiled and ordered another beer, making sure to direct his order to a bar dy he had singled out. She was giving him ‘the eyes’.

  The bar floor was fashioned from polished cedar wood, with actual gss instead of the chipped wooden jars other establishments used for mugs. The dies here were all a cut above the rest, instead of the pin, old, peasant wives and daughters at the pces the peasants frequented—-young women, done up like dies of the court, albeit with less fine dressing.

  Azul sighed to himself. This had been 20 years in the making. He had toiled for a full decade as an apprentice to one of the best tanners he could find. Spent years, making sure he could get his wares to all the rich and important people he could, tie his name to their pockets.

  He had gotten to the verge of bankruptcy a few times.

  But now he was here. In only a few years, maybe he’d be able to marry into a noble family. He ughed, but dreamers could dream. That was the pn. Rise from peasant to noble. Become better than the life he was born in.

  The pretty dy with the straight brown hair, brought him his gss, making sure to leave a small kiss on the lips of the mug. Her strawberry lipstick leaving a heart shaped print on both sides of the gss. She winked at him and went back to serving the other guys at their tables. With the same flirtatious mannerisms.

  Azul grinned. She definitely had the hots for him.

  He looked down at the pouch at his waist and smiled. So much money!

  ‘Heh heh, that boy Khan is really too naive. How can I let so much money cross my hands without taking my cut?’ He held the pouch in his hands, tossing it up slightly so it could come down into his chemically darkened palms, he could feel their weight as they ccked in that sonorous way only money could.

  “Waitress. Another round of drinks!” She obliged. A different girl this time. Azul was starting not to notice.

  He ordered drink after drink. Gradually getting more and more drunk. Soon a bard, a singing storyteller, set up in the middle of the room.

  One of the highlights of coming to this establishment. He sang, and told a story he had heard about on his travels… about an angry band of cultivators, being defrauded by mortals, as he chased them around the continent.

  The room burst into ughter. Even the waitresses and guards, who had heard the story a thousand times already over the past few weeks.

  The bard took it in stride, walking around with his hat in hand and instrument in another. Taking donations and pints of alcohol wherever he went.

  He wore a long robe, with sleeves of yellow and blue, and a long hat, with what he called phoenix feathers coming out, although everyone knew they were the painted feathers of the neighborhood chickens. His moustache were two downward snted lines that curved into a ridiculously rge circle at either ends.

  Azul, watched him, as he swayed from pce to pce, gss in hand. ‘Why did he have to be the center of attention?’

  Normally, Azul knew his pce. Even when he bucked against it, but today, with money in his wallet, alcohol in his bones, and pretty dies around, well, maybe he should be the one everyone looked at.

  Laughed at his jokes like that. Looked up at him like that.

  He didn’t notice they weren’t looking up at the bard with awe, or respect, but with derision. They were ughing at him, not just his jokes, but the bard didn’t mind. He was here to make money. So, if all he had to do was make someone ugh to get his silver and free drink, he’d do it as many times as it takes.

  That was why he wore such a ridiculous outfit.

  Azul got up from his seat, this time he had a whole bottle in hand instead of a gss, he walked over to the middle of the pub. Where the bard had set up already and took his pce, the bard looked at him, a mixture of weariness and resignation in his eyes.

  He had encountered this type of customer before. He knew how to handle him. The best way was to let them speak, make fun of them every now and again, as long as they didn’t notice, which, the bard was sure Azul wouldn’t notice with so much drink in him, they’d be out of his hair—or, feathers, in no time.

  Azul started boasting, having no good stories to tell. He had bought a full round of drinks for everyone earlier, so no one really minded.

  “Did I ever tell you about…” he swayed, holding out his hands, and pnting his feet so as to not fall, “d..id…” hiccup, “ I ever tell you abwuoot… I… sknndddd,” he fell on his face. The room burst out in ughter. Jeering out his name.

  Azul smiled, thinking the ughs and appuse was for him. He kept ranting, telling about all his “exploits”.

  A man—a butler, sat at the back of the bar, in the shade, he was drinking his sorrows away. His dy, the dy Vespara-widow of The Liu Hong Manor, wanted the pelt of a Celestial Mirror Leopard for the winter. As a noble dy, concerned about her image, she had heard that the noble dies of the capital all thought the pelt of a Celestial Mirror Leopard was what was in for this winter.

  She wouldn’t be caught out of fashion–The horror.

  And as her butler, he had to comply. His job was on the line. The problem was, no one was stupid enough to go around hunting spirit beasts. Especially not the Celestial Mirror Leopard. They might as well tell their wives and kids they wanted to kill themselves and get it over with.

  So as he sat, there, brooding, and pulling on his hair as he sipped his heavy liquor, he overheard a drunk, nose in the sky man, bragging about the animals he was able to skin. The butler ignored it at first, before realising who was speaking.

  It was Azul.

  He recognized the man. He was too prideful for his own good. He had even heard that Azul had once promised the daughter of a fallen noble family to pay of her debts as longs as she would let him have her noble title.

  Needless to say, it was a miracle she had even let him live. If she wanted her debts paid of, would she not marry a rich old merchant? Or even become a concubine of one of those newly minted cultivators?

  Why settle for a mere tanner?

  But the butler saw his chance. He had almost stoped paying attention, when he heard Azul boast about the spirit beast he had just had in his possession!

  ‘Wait, those spirit beasts I heard about were from him? He was even able to get them live?’ The butler startd thinking, ‘Maybe, he could get the Celestial Mirror Leopard….even if he doesn’t, what have I got to lose?’

  So the butler waited, and waited, till Azul had stopped boasting and had started vomiting into a small barrel at the other end of the bar. Till the bard had told the same 4 stories over and over again for the nineteenth time. Till the st man left the bar, and he cornered Azul when he saw his chance.

  He put on a servile, almost faening attitude, “Are you the one who was able to get the spirit beasts?”

  Azul looked up at him from his spot on the floor, next to the vomit barrel. Hearing in double, with high pitched ringing going through his ears. His head had started pounding a while ago.

  “Huh?...Yes?”

  “Ah, wonderful.” The butler looked around, amking sure no one heard him. “ My dy has a request. You can get any animal right? I’ve heard about your great works.” The man put his hand behind his back, making a sign to call for the bar dy, the one who he was sure Azul fancied, she came shortly, adequately dressed to convince a drunk man of anything

  The bar maid came. His barmaid. She leaned against him.

  “Ohh, Azul, can you really?” She purred.

  The combination of drink, pride, and scantily cd women was enough to down most men, not to talk of Azul.

  He puffed up his chest, his cheeks turning a slightly darker shade. “Of course,” he looked at the dy, and… other parts of her. “I could get you the moon if you asked.”

  Both the butler and the waitress rolled their eyes. The dy making sure to hide her contempt behind her fawning eyes.

  “My friend here, really wants the pelts of a Celestial Mirror Leopard, do you think you could get some?

  “Of course. When would you like them by?” All the time he didnt even look at the butler.

  But the butler chimed in. “Would you be willing to talk to Lady Vespara about the pelts?”

  “Of….courzze, u hav tiimee?”