As night fell, the racket of the Street of Silk simmered down into a lukewarm, sluggish murmur.
Luke didn’t stay at any of those cheap, shady inns.
Based on information he had subtly gathered earlier in the day from the Gold Cloaks and several vendors, he found an inn with a decent reputation situated between the Street of Silk and the Old Gate—the “Inn by the Blackwater.”
The inn was a three-story building made of stone and wood, looking far neater than the shacks in Flea Bottom.
Hanging at the entrance was a wooden sign painted with a river sail, its polished brass door knocker glinting faintly in the torchlight.
The people coming and going were decently dressed—or at least clean.
Luke walked up to the counter and requested a room in slightly stiff yet clear speech.
The innkeeper was a lean, middle-aged man with a neatly trimmed mustache and sharp eyes.
He sized up Luke’s well-made yet oddly styled gray robe, as well as the seemingly ordinary yet hefty coin pouch at his waist.
Asking no questions, he gave a flat rate: a single room with a small window offering a glimpse of the street, basic fresh water, and bedding—one Silver Stag a day, or ten Silver Stags for a month.
For an ordinary commoner, this price was a small fortune, but for Luke, who had just pocketed hundreds of Gold Dragons, it was entirely acceptable—especially in exchange for safety, cleanliness, and peace.
Without haggling, he counted out ten shiny Silver Stags and paid for a month.
This quick deal made the innkeeper’s smile significantly warmer.
He personally led Luke to the innermost room on the second floor.
The room was broader than expected, roughly twenty square meters.
A worn but clean thick carpet covered the floor, and a wooden canopy bed with heavy curtains stood in one corner, made with freshly laundered plain linen sheets and a woolen blanket.
There was a solid wood table, two chairs, a washstand with a brass basin, and even a small fireplace.
The window was cracked open slightly, allowing the evening breeze to blow in air from the Blackwater River—slightly fishy, yet far fresher than that of Flea Bottom.
No foul smells, no insects.
Though the furnishings were simple, they exuded a heavy, authentic “antique” texture.
Luke thought to himself that back on Blue Star, this place could easily go for seven or eight hundred a night as a themed boutique guesthouse.
He carefully inspected the door lock—just a simple latch and bolt, far from modern standards but sturdy enough.
But he didn’t rush to rest.
He needed to organize his thoughts and plan ahead.
Retrieving a notebook and gel pen brought from Blue Star from his storage space, Luke began meticulously taking stock under the steady light of a tallow candle burning in a brass candlestick.
After a day of trading and attentive listening, combined with his prior knowledge, he had essentially figured out the exchange rates for Westeros’s main currencies.
He wrote down on paper:
Gold Dragons are the highest unit.
1 Gold Dragon ≈ 30 Silver Moons ≈ 210 Silver Stags ≈ 1,400 Copper Stars.
Copper coins are the smallest unit, varied in type and tedious to exchange, so ignore them for now.
Note: Received a small amount of Essos continental currency (Braavosi iron coins, Pentos silver coins, etc.), value yet to be evaluated.
Next was pricing.
He recalled the expressions of shopkeepers, mercenaries, prostitutes, stewards, and nobles during the day when they saw the sugar, salt, and glass bottles, or caught the scents—greed, shock, desire, hesitation, and ultimately biting the bullet to close the deal…
Those expressions clearly told him that the “scarcity” and “quality” of the goods he brought far exceeded the comprehension of ordinary people in this era.
He couldn’t sell them cheap.
Picking up his pen, he wrote down a new, clear pricing strategy on paper to serve as a baseline for the future:
Table Salt (200g bamboo jar): 100 Silver Stags.
(Today’s average price was about ninety; rounded up to highlight its “refined” quality.)
White Sugar (200g bamboo jar): 1 Gold Dragon.
(Stick strictly to this price as the threshold for a “luxury good.”)
Essential Balm (small bottle): 50 Silver Stags.
(Positioned as a “practical miracle remedy.”)
Florida Water (bottle): 10 Gold Dragons.
(Insect-repelling, odor-eliminating, fresh scent, plus the value of the glass bottle itself—well worth the price.
Target customers: wealthy merchants, particular nobles, high-end brothels.) The source of this chapter is g.com.
Perfume (bottle, various shapes and fragrances): Starting at 10 Gold Dragons.
(Can be higher depending on the elegance of the bottle.
Core selling point: long-lasting captivating scent + artistic glass bottle.
Target customers: noblewomen, high-class courtesans, merchants pursuing luxury.)
Writing up to this point, Luke paused his pen and stared at the figure “10 Gold Dragons.”
In Westeros, this was a substantial sum of money that a skilled craftsman might have to save for several years to amass.
But he had plenty of reasons to set this price:
Cost and value were two entirely different things here.
On Blue Star, these items were nearly dirt cheap, but here, they were one-of-a-kind.
The price had to match the “perceived value” they conferred—status, enjoyment, novelty.
Furthermore, the glass bottle itself was a hard currency.
He remembered the burning gazes people cast upon the bottles earlier that day.
Although glassmaking existed in this world, it was costly, and its purity, clarity, and variety of shapes fell far short of Blue Star’s industrial products.
Here, these bottles were works of art and luxury items in their own right.
More importantly, controlling the supply to maintain scarcity was his core strategy.
Flooding the market with cheap, high-quality sugar, salt, and exquisite glass bottles might net him more profit in the short term, but it would inevitably disrupt the local market, drawing the attention and hostility of local sugar merchants, salt dealers, glassmakers, and the guilds and nobles behind them.
Possessing valuable treasure attracted unwanted trouble, and alone, he couldn’t withstand the greed and dirty tricks that would follow.
Only by taking the “high-end, limited supply” route—releasing tiny amounts each time to maintain an air of mystery—and targeting the highest tier of clients who could afford the markup and cared about “decency” and “rules,” could he minimize the impact on existing interests and reduce the risk of violent robbery by desperate criminals or low-level thugs.
A high price was, in itself, a form of screening and protection.
“I only earn the pocket money of the rich, not the living expenses of the poor!”
He closed his notebook and put it back into his space.
Blowing out the candle, the room plunged into darkness, leaving only the starlight filtering through the window and the faint, distant lights outside.
Lying on a bed that wasn’t particularly soft but dry and clean, listening to the unique nighttime silence of another world—so different from the ambient hum of Blue Star’s cities—his thoughts surged and ebbed like gentle waves.