My name is Ren.
I keep a food stall on Market Street in Stonebridge. The harbor smells like rope, wet oak, and pepper. Lanterns drip. Carts wake. Coin decides how mornings go.
Canvas roof up. Two stools out. Board chalked:
COPPER, SILVER, GOLD, TODAY'S RATES. NO BARTER.
NO BLADES. NO SHOUTING. PAY FAIR.
I cook within my level. One star only. If I reach higher, the flame blanks and the bowl dies.
The match snaps.
A five-point red seal glows under the stove stone. Heat settles to the picture I hold... porridge heat, low and even. It listens.
On the shelf, the jar from last night waits: MOON SALT. Label neat. Lid tight. One pinch binds a bowl to breath for an hour. Paid use only.
Rice clears in the sieve. A dry pan rattles it bright. Bones rest in the back pot; stock takes its first slow breath. Ginger fine. Scallion thin. Eggs in a blue bowl, clean as moons.
Two timbermen take the stools. Wet boots. Rope creases. Sawdust in their palms like pale maps.
"Workman's Congee," I say. "Two coppers. Egg if you want it."
Coins go down flat. A hair-thin gold seam along the counter gives a small, bright sound... true money. Rice slips into broth with a soft hiss. Pinch of salt. Lid on. Even flame. Finish will be a ribbon of oil and three green rings.
First bowl across. Steam climbs, calm and clean. They eat without talk. Work settles into their shoulders instead of sitting on their backs.
Sela steps in, rain on her sleeves, boy at her side. She pays first, then speaks.
"Two," she says.
"Hot and steady," I tell her.
Tam stands on his toes. He breathes the steam—slow in, slow out—the way we taught him. Color finds him. Sela's mouth lets go of a line it did not need to hold.
A dock bell taps twice. The street remembers it has a pace.
Arlo arrives with his hood beading water, ledger dry. City clerk. He favors clean boards and coins that know their names.
"Notice," he says. "Public scale test at the west bench tomorrow at dawn." He sets silver before he says more. The seam warms. "Bring two weights."
"I'll bring four," I say.
He eats and writes a single line. He does not touch my chalk. He doesn't need to.
Pera carries grain in. No pocket scale today. He folds his hands open beside the sack.
"Weight?" I ask.
"Checked on a bench that never liked me," he says.
We measure with mine. It holds. He watches the stir, not the steam, like a man trying to learn patience from a spoon.
A crew runner stops at the edge of the canvas. Three coppers in his fist. Breath one beat too fast.
"Two bowls," he says.
"In the order paid," I answer.
He sets the coins one by one, like a man teaching his hand to trust the wood. He regains a minute and keeps it.
A traveler in a river cloak lays shell-silver on the counter. No wink. No story.
"Foreign," I say. "Numbers will find you."
The seam hums. My rate board writes itself a neat line under today's chalk. He adds copper without sighing and eats off to the side like a body thawing out.
New boots with clean laces arrive with a grin that wants to spend itself. A silver lands dead center, pinning nothing.
The seam darkens it fast and nips his palm. He blinks once, sets down the right coin, and keeps his left hand busy with the bowl. I don't add a speech to the lesson he just paid for.
A boy in a green wrap presses a flattened copper to the wood. The seam ignores it.
"That buys a ribbon at the toy stall," I tell him. "Mine listens to coins with faces." He slides out a true copper from his sleeve. "Short for egg, not for porridge," I say.
He chooses sense. Eats slow. Remembers to smile halfway through.
Kade calls down the lane like he was hired to wake the street. He shakes a rag near his pan and tries to sell excitement.
"Free garnish with any—"
My board answers him for me. The line stays where it is.
A carver's apprentice arrives with red dust in his cuticles and a hand that trembles when it rests. He pays. I finish his bowl with a pinch from the jar—fine salt, lemon zest, a breath of sugar. He eats. His fingers quiet. He looks at his own hand like it owed him that stillness and has finally paid.
Two crate men—yesterday's steam talkers—return. No drama now. They order. Pay. Step apart. When their bowls come, they nod and let it be enough.
A watch officer shows his badge like a second purse. He plants his elbows as if the wood answers to metal.
"Two," he says. "Now."
"Order. Pay. Wait in the line you joined," I say, and move a bowl to a woman who was here first.
He looks left. He looks right. He buys the rule at posted price and learns it quietly, which is the only respectable way to learn in public.
Wind shifts. The canvas leans with it. Fire keeps its picture and refuses to argue with weather.
A red-shawled woman reads my board and Kade's and chooses mine without hurrying. The coin she lays down makes the seam warm... certain, not loud. She eats the first spoon with her shoulders already lower.
An old fisherman I don't know touches the counter, then his cap, then my board. "Heard you keep time," he says. He pays. He eats. He leaves without asking to be remembered.
The back pot ticks once. Not yet. I want strength, not hurry. I skim foam and watch the wave in the ladle flatten and stay. That's the cue I trust.
Arlo finishes and snaps his ledger shut. He taps my rate board with the back of his knuckle. "Straight enough to pass for writing," he says.
"It's meant to read clean," I answer.
He steps out into the wet with the kind of nod that prints itself later in neat ink.
The fee crew pass... Tall, Short, Quiet. No blades showing. They stop at the chalk by the stools the way men stop at a city line. Tall counts breaths, not coins. Quiet watches the seam. Short looks at the blue bowl of eggs and forgets to scowl for a heartbeat. They move on. No trouble bought today.
The kettle on the back ring gives a second tick. I let it be. Time Kettle is patience, not a trick for show. Congee stays the work of the morning.
A courier in blue returns for his two bowls and carries them like scale pans. He does not spill. He does not run. He learns that a steady hand gets there faster than a loud voice.
Rain remembers manners. Rope smell eases. Hot rice becomes the noise that matters. A gull gives up and tries another street.
I chalk for the evening crowd while the last bowls come back empty:
WORKMAN'S CONGEE — TWO COPPERS. GINGER. SCALLION. EGG IF YOU WANT IT.
TOMORROW — PUBLIC SCALE TEST, WEST BENCH, DAWN.
And the line that keeps the roof up:
PAY FAIR.
I bank the front flame. The seal keeps its ember. The seam holds a small warmth where good coin touched and stayed long enough to count. The jar returns to being just a jar until someone pays for help that fits in a pinch.
The street exhales. So do I.
> [Kitchen Ledger] Next at L6: Door Line (2★)
Threshold makes blades harmless inside; still cuts food and rope.
Limit: chalk must be straight at dawn.
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Kitchen Ledger — today
• New dish: Workman's Congee (1★) — bone stock, rice, ginger, scallion; egg optional.
• Tools used: Fire Start; Coin Law; Oath Bowl (on standby); Moon Salt (pinch, paid).
• Cap: 1★ only.
• Bowls served: 97.
• Posted: public scale test at dawn.