The Street of the Silent Sisters on the edge of Flea Bottom was at least tidier than the heart of the slum itself.
The storefronts looked somewhat presentable, and the air carried a mix of roasted meat, stew, and animal fat.
Though still thick, it wasn’t nearly as choking.
One of the roast meat shops was doing particularly brisk business.
Charcoal crackled inside, and the savory aroma of meat floated halfway down the street.
Luke stood outside for a moment before stepping through the doorway.
The shopkeeper was a fat white man wearing a greasy apron, currently dripping with sweat as he flipped meat chops on an iron rack.
Luke didn’t waste words.
He reached into his pack, pulled out a bamboo canister, unstoppered it, and held it out to the man.
The fat shopkeeper raised his eyelids, sizing up this oddly dressed outsider with a strange accent.
His thick, greasy finger reached out hesitantly, dipped into the snowy white crystals at the opening, and popped it into his mouth.
The next second, his eyes went wide!
Pure saltiness without a trace of bitterness or foul taste, so fine that it dissolved instantly on his tongue.
Unable to believe it, he took another generous dip, rubbed it onto a freshly grilled, sizzling chop, and took a massive bite.
“By the Seven…”
The fat shopkeeper grunted in satisfaction, every fold of fat on his face smoothing out.
When he looked at the bamboo canister again, his gaze burned hot enough to ignite.
“What…
what kind of salt is this?
Where did it come from?”
Luke couldn’t understand everything, but he recognized the hunger in those eyes.
He raised a single finger and said in stiff, broken tones, “One Gold Dragon.
No bargain.”
“A Gold Dragon?!”
The shopkeeper reacted as if a hot pair of tongs had touched his feet, nearly jumping into the air.
He shook his head like a rattle, waving his greasy hands wildly.
“Impossible!
Far too expensive!
At most…
fifty Silver Stags at most!”
“One Gold Dragon.”
Luke’s tone didn’t shift as he made a move to pull the canister back.
“Wait!
Wait!”
The fat shopkeeper panicked, grabbing Luke’s wrist.
Spittle flew everywhere as he babbled complaints about high costs and how tough business was.
Luke didn’t understand most of it, but thanks to the “translator” cheat, he grasped the gist.
He remained silent, waiting for the man to catch his breath before offering a brief reply: “Good salt.
Worth it.”
“Seventy Silver Stags!”
“One Gold Dragon, or I leave.”
“Impossible!
Eighty Silver Stags, that’s my limit!”
“One Gold Dragon, or I leave.”
…
“One hundred Silver Stags!
That’s the number—believe me, it’s the highest price you’ll get!”
The fat shopkeeper gripped Luke’s sleeve tightly, staring at him with pitiful ox eyes, sweat dripping from his forehead.
Luke estimated that after nearly fifteen minutes of haggling, one hundred Silver Stags was probably the man’s absolute limit.
He finally relented.
“Fine.
One hundred Silver Stags.”
As if receiving a grand pardon, the fat shopkeeper immediately counted out one hundred shiny Silver Stags, practically snatching the canister of refined salt—which weighed no more than two hundred grams.
He cradled the bamboo canister like a holy relic, muttering under his breath, “A loss, a total loss…
but this flavor…
damn well worth it!”
Having scored his first victory, Luke felt much more confident.
Following the same method, he pulled out a canister of white sugar.
This time, after tasting that unprecedented, mind-blowing sweetness, the fat man’s expression was pure shock, utterly priceless.
A new, even fiercer battle of wits began.
Luke held firm on the price of one Gold Dragon, letting the man jump, gesture, and wail as much as he liked.
In the end, perhaps overwhelmed by the shock of the refined salt and the business opportunities behind it, the shopkeeper went all in.
With trembling hands, he fished a precious Gold Dragon coin from the deep recesses of his cash box and exchanged it for the canister of white sugar.
His expression looked as if a chunk of his own flesh had just been carved off.
With this successful start, Luke grew bolder.
He specifically targeted the prosperous, well-kept shops on the Street of the Silent Sisters: four more roast meat shops, six bakeries, a tailor shop, and even a vendor selling rare fruits…
The process was largely identical: display, taste, amaze, haggle, deal.
His spoken words remained clunky and his vocabulary sparse, but relying on an assertive composure, flawless goods, and occasionally using his translator to gauge the other party’s bottom line before offering a counter-offer that struck *just* at the critical limit, most transactions went smoothly without incident.
Salt sold relatively easily, with prices fluctuating between one hundred and one hundred and twenty Silver Stags.
After all, it was a necessity and the quality was top-tier; shopkeepers were willing to stockpile it or use it to elevate the quality of their food.
White sugar was more of a “rarity.” It drew even greater amazement, but the price scared some people off.
The final closing prices varied considerably, ranging from one hundred and fifty Silver Stags to nearly two hundred and fifty Silver Stags, depending entirely on how deep the shopkeeper’s pockets were and how bold they were to try something new.
He even successfully sold a small package of rock candy, bringing back a handful of loose coins: Silver Moons, Silver Stags, Copper Stars, and copper pennies of various purities!
There were even some foreign coins stamped with strange symbols from Essos across the Narrow Sea.
This suited his needs perfectly—he needed to figure out how money worked in this world and stock up on small change for transactions.
A morning’s effort might have looked like simple street hawking, but it was actually a covert war of information and psychology.
When Luke slipped into a quiet alley to catch his breath, clutching a heavy purse, he did a quick tally: ten canisters of salt sold, ten canisters of sugar sold, and one small package of rock candy sold.
His total revenue approached nearly thirty Gold Dragons!
Most of it was already safely stored inside his portable space.
In the eyes of a King’s Landing commoner, this was a massive fortune.
More importantly, he had figured out how much the shopkeepers on the Street of the Silent Sisters were willing to bleed and how hungry they were for rare goods.
What was more, he hadn’t raised much suspicion.
An outsider with a strange accent carrying top-grade goods, hawking them on the street to turn a quick profit.
In a port city teeming with merchants, that wasn’t particularly strange.
When lunchtime arrived, he carefully avoided touching any local food.
He simply found a quiet corner, pulled out sealed bread and bottled water brought from Blue Star, and polished them off in a few bites.
The local sanitation conditions were a hurdle he couldn’t cross just yet.
After taking a short break, his gaze shifted toward the more prosperous district on the distant hill.
His afternoon target was the Street of Silk, where spending power was far higher and the appetite for luxury goods was much greater.
He straightened his light gray ranger outfit, reorganized the “special cargo” remaining in his bag, and stepped away from the Street of the Silent Sisters.