Second I got near the entrance, two big beefy guys stopped me cold.
"Hold it. Buying or selling?"
"Selling." I kept my voice flat. "Heard there's a black market here. Came to check it out."
A guy with a scar on his face looked me up and down, eyes running over the poultry in my hands, and eased up a little. "Selling, huh? Twenty cents management fee first. Then the rules." He paused, then lowered his voice. "Listen up. You hear anybody inside yell heat's on, you run south, then hook west. Whatever you do, don't run the wrong way. Don't go running into the Wanda Mountains. Wolves and bears in there. You go in, you ain't coming out alive."
That put a chill in me. I nodded quick and dug out the money. "Thanks, man."
These two were the black market's muscle. Paid to do a job, with eyes and ears all over the commune. Patrol moves, and they get the word out ahead of time. That twenty cents buys you your life.
The other one, a fat guy, had his eyes glued to my stuff already. He grinned and leaned in, hefting a piece. "Brother, well, I'll be. Didn't expect this. All quality goods. I'll be straight with you. Live hen, five bucks, dead three. Live goose seven, dead four fifty. That's the going rate all over around here." He picked up an egg, weighing it in his hand. "But your stuff here's a size bigger than usual and cleaned up real nice. So I'll cut you a special deal. Dead chicken three fifty. Dead goose five. Chicken eggs two and a half cents. Goose eggs four cents. How's that? Not stiffing you, am I?"
I could see it plain as day. These two had the wheels turning in their heads. Poultry and eggs, nothing special out in the countryside, but haul them into the city and they're hot items. Double your money in one flip.
I didn't drag it out. Ran the numbers, nodded. No problem.
"All right, that price works. Ten chickens, twenty geese, thirty chicken eggs, forty goose eggs, all yours. No haggling." But I switched gears. "Give me a hundred in cash, and the rest, that thirty-some bucks, turn it into cloth coupons and cotton coupons. My family's short on those."
I had the space. Food and drink weren't a worry. Cash didn't do much for me. My family, though, that was a whole different story.
Got born into a good family this time around. Home was at Chaoyangmen, right in the capital, a three-courtyard siheyuan compound. Whole big family living happy together.
The whole sent-down youth slot was never even supposed to land on me. My folks originally wanted to send one of my two little sisters. But I knew just how rough it was for girls out in the countryside. Never enough to eat, never warm enough, and getting picked on and pushed around by the locals on top of it. That kind of suffering, no way two pampered girls could handle it. So I overruled everybody and stepped up myself.
Then I jumped through a ton of hoops, got my big brother set up as his own household, got my older sister to take over Mom's job, just so I could keep both my sisters safe and sound back in the city.
Right before I left, the whole family scraped together two hundred bucks and secretly sewed it into the lining of my cotton coat. That was Grandpa and Grandma's retirement money, my parents' blood and sweat money, my big brother's private stash.
I don't forget stuff like that. I had to find a way to send more money and coupons back home, make life a little easier for them, so they could buy a new cotton coat, put a decent meal on the table.
Seeing me pay up so easily, the fat guy grinned even bigger. "You got it, you got it. Cloth coupons, a buck a foot. Cotton coupons, two bucks a pound. I'll give you two zhang of cloth coupons and eight and a half pounds of cotton coupons. Not a cent off."
I did the math. Enough for the family to make a few cotton coats, a few thick quilts. Fair deal.
"Deal. Thanks, man."
Right then the two of us swapped. Cash in one hand, goods in the other. He pulled a cloth pouch from his coat, counted out a hundred in cash, then peeled off a stack of brand-new cloth and cotton coupons, and handed them over.
"Count them. Anything short, I'll make it up."
I checked it all over careful, made sure it was right, folded the money and coupons up nice, tucked them into the coat lining, patted it down again and again, then wrapped the coat tight and turned to head into the market.
Right now I was carrying three hundred bucks in cash, plus the cloth and cotton coupons I'd traded for. Money and coupons in hand. Hell, I even stood up a little straighter.
Because besides selling my stuff, I had one real goal this trip. Get a gun.
Up here in the northern frontier, wild and remote, the mountains and forests were crawling with animals. Whether I was going hunting or just watching my own back, that axe from the space wasn't nearly enough. With a gun, I could protect myself and bag more game to stockpile and ship home.
Soon as I walked into the black market, it was a whole different world from the dead silence outside. Inside, it was packed and buzzing, shoulder to shoulder. The kerosene lamps were dim and yellow, but they couldn't smother all that raw, churning human energy. A street a hundred-some yards long, both sides crammed with stalls, two, three hundred people weaving through. Every last one of them keeping their voices down, eyes sharp and wary.
The goods on those stalls, I'm telling you, if you could think it up, they had it. Live rabbits and pheasants, dressed wild boar legs, roe deer meat, wind-dried venison and bear paws. Right next to those, tiger bones, deer antler velvet, top-grade wild ginseng. Further down, a few high-nosed, deep-eyed Russians manning a stall, rifles and handguns and boxes of ammo laid out plain as day, plus thick fur coats.
But over in the most out-of-the-way corner of the market, a few kids, gaunt and yellow-faced, dressed in rags, were locked up in a busted wooden cage. Their eyes were all timid, faces full of fear, letting out a weak little sob every now and then.
Somebody was trafficking kids. People streaming past all around, and not one of them dared spare a second glance.
I just stood there, something jamming up in my chest, this whole mess of feelings. In a time this hard, when just staying alive was a struggle, the darkness in people got thrown into sharp relief. To survive, some folks fought with everything they had. Others didn't care what line they crossed.
I let out a quiet sigh, turned my head away, pushed down everything churning inside me, and made myself stop looking at that corner. My steps went heavy as I headed deeper into the market.
Goal was clear. That Russian gun stall.