As the morning bell of the West Market rang three times, Xiao Moli stared in a daze at the young man in green robes reflected in the bronze mirror—his raven-black hair was tied into a ponytail by Huwa with an abacus bead cord, and tucked at his waist was a jade pendant carved with a "shame-defying ghost face," its abacus bead eyes "watching" the tight corners of her mouth. Zhang Yifan leaned against the door frame with a soft chuckle: "Young Master Xiao's disguise is even brighter than a foreign merchant's glazed glass lamp."
"Noisy!" Xiao Moli flicked her sleeve and walked out, only to have Huwa stuff a wooden carved cufflink into her hand. It was carved with a ghost face holding a wolf-hair brush, and the cuff was even embroidered with a tiny green ox pattern. The three of them had just stepped into the water lane when their eyes were dazzled by the foreign merchants' glazed glass stalls. Ali, a Persian merchant, held up a glazed glass bottle inlaid with gems and shouted in halting Han Chinese: "Chang'an noblewomen love pomegranate red the most; three qian of silver buys half a bottle of fragrance!"
"See that?" Zhang Yifan's abacus beads bounced across the glazed glass bottle. "Foreign merchants choose goods by color first. This pomegranate-red glazed glass bottle is five times more expensive than an earthen jar of the same capacity—" He suddenly pointed at the "foreign merchant ghost face" Huwa was carving, which had pieces of glazed glass embedded in its high nose bridg…
Chapter 79