Chapter 88: The Gold That CriedBonus Arc – Fire Tales & Ancestor Scrolls
They say a child's fate can be traced by the moments of their birth.
For Ọlálẹ́yẹ, the moment was marked by gold.
Born beneath a waxing moon's gentle gaze, his first cry was answered not only by the hum of the earth but by the delicate clink of a gold coin pressed into his tiny palm. His mother wept with joy, naming him Ọlálẹ́yẹ—the one who had brought wealth home. His father smiled with pride, whispering promises of a future paved in prosperity. The elders, eyes twinkling with wisdom, nodded solemnly, foretelling a life untouched by want or hardship.
And for many years, they were right.
The Making of a Merchant KingBy the tender age of thirteen, Ọlálẹ́yẹ was already a familiar figure in the bustling markets of Ìbàdàn, Abeokuta, and beyond. He moved with the confidence of someone twice his years—his fingers deftly weighing silk and spices, his voice clear and commanding as he haggled with traders thrice his age.
By twenty, his caravans stretched like golden threads through the land, linking cities and kingdoms with promise and trade. His name jingled like coins in the pockets of those who whispered about him in shadowed corners.
Children sang songs of Ọlálẹ́yẹ, the boy whose slippers jingled with the sound of silver bells, whose smile was carved of bronze and held the power to sway kings.
Women spoke in hushed tones about the warmth in his eyes, as if he carried the sun itself beneath his skin.
Kings met him not as a mere merchant, but as an equal—sometimes even as a rival to be respected or feared.
The world was his oyster, his hands the instruments of its wealth.
The Silence in GoldBut gold has a silence no one ever warns you about.
It is not the loud clatter of coin in a bowl.
It is the quiet stillness that settles in the heart, the hollow echo in a room filled with riches but no laughter.
Slowly, almost imperceptibly, Ọlálẹ́yẹ began to change.
At first, it was subtle.
He no longer walked barefoot to his mother's grave on the outskirts of the village, preferring instead to pay hired mourners to sing her praises.
He stopped bathing in the cool, clear waters of the village stream, ordering servants to pour rosewater and crushed jasmine petals into marble tubs.
Where once the market was alive with the voices of neighbors and friends, it became a place of cold calculations, paper ledgers, and guarded secrets.
The Girl with the CowrieOne sultry evening, a girl appeared at Ọlálẹ́yẹ's courtyard.
Barefoot and dusty, mud caked her feet and stained her cheeks. Her eyes held neither shame nor fear, but a quiet hope.
In her small hand, she clutched a single cowrie shell—smooth, white, and weathered by the river.
"I heard your gold multiplies," she said softly, voice barely above a whisper. "Can it heal my mother?"
Ọlálẹ́yẹ looked down upon her, swathed in robes threaded with gold and silk, a world away from this child.
"I sell goods, not miracles," he replied, voice edged with tiredness, as though the weight of his wealth pressed on his soul.
"But you're blessed," she insisted, stepping closer. "You must have power."
A flicker of something crossed his face—remorse? Annoyance? Or simply exhaustion.
He laughed, but there was no warmth in it.
"Tell your mother to pray harder," he said.
And the girl left.
The First TearThat night, the gold coin—the same one placed in his infant hand—rolled from its pedestal.
It tumbled silently to the floor.
No one saw it fall.
But the coin wept.
Not with sound, but with salt.
A single crystal of salt emerged from the tiny eye etched into the face stamped on its surface.
The next morning, the coin lay damp, shimmering with moisture.
Ọlálẹ́yẹ blamed the servants.
He ordered them beaten for their carelessness.
But the coin wept again.
And again.
And again.
Day after day, the dampness spread, staining the silk on his robes, corroding the metal of his ledgers, seeping into the fine cracks of his wealth.
The Priests' WarningDisturbed, Ọlálẹ́yẹ summoned priests and diviners from across the land.
The village priests examined the coin with grim faces.
An old priest, eyes clouded with years of seeing too much, touched the coin and recoiled.
"This gold has memory," he whispered.
"And it remembers what it could not do."
"What does that mean?" Ọlálẹ́yẹ demanded, voice trembling.
The priest's gaze softened.
"It remembers who you refused."
Haunted by the PastThe image of the girl returned to Ọlálẹ́yẹ with relentless clarity.
Her mud-streaked face.
Her hopeful eyes.
The cowrie in her hand.
Not begging.
But believing.
The Weight of RegretThat night, sleep evaded him.
The coin cried louder.
Not in sound, but in weight.
It grew heavier, pulling its copper bowl across the table as if desperate to be heard.
Its shine dulled and warmth chilled.
Tarnished GoldAnd then, the strange began to spread.
His other gold—bars, bracelets, chains—began to tarnish.
First slowly, then faster.
By the week's end, even a silver merchant refused to trade with him.
"Your gold is... wrong," she said, voice trembling.
"It smells like sorrow."
DesperationIn a final act of desperation, Ọlálẹ́yẹ sought every kind of help.
He called upon priests, diviners, and even a famed mirror reader from Benin.
None could help.
The River's ReckoningOne moonless night, exhausted and broken, Ọlálẹ́yẹ walked alone to the riverbank where children once played.
He held the crying coin tightly in his palm and whispered:
"What do you want from me?"
The coin burned with a sudden, fierce heat.
Then, a voice—not from the air, but from deep inside his bones—spoke:
"Return what you never gave.
Give what you never earned.
Heal what your gold could not touch."
The Breaking PointHe fell to his knees.
For the first time in his life, he wept.
Not for loss, but for forgetting.
Leaving it All BehindThe next morning, he left.
Not with ceremony.
Not with fanfare.
No farewell.
Just a single figure walking away from riches, from power, from gold that cried.
The Road of RedemptionWeeks later, stories began to spread.
In a village near the northern hills, a barefoot man had built a small shelter beside a dying woman's hut.
No name.
No gold.
Just hands and silence.
He washed her body daily, brought herbs, and whispered forgotten songs.
She recovered.
Then he moved on—to the next town, the next village.
Never charging.
Never staying.
A Man and His LegacySome who saw him called him a fraud.
Others called him a prophet.
But those who truly watched saw neither.
They saw a man who had learned that gold could cry—and that sometimes, tears came in the form of regret.
The Final Resting PlaceWhen he finally died—under a sprawling tree near the old sponge river—there were no coins on his body.
Only a single stone rested in his hand.
The villagers who buried him said the stone glimmered faintly at dusk, as if light still lived within it.
The Whispered CoinNear the bend of a nearby stream, where the water slowed and softened, someone once found a coin.
It looked ordinary.
Except for the eye stamped in its center.
Within that eye rested a tiny salt crystal.
When touched, they said they heard laughter.
And a whisper on the wind:
"When gold learns to weep, the soul remembers."
The End... Or Perhaps the BeginningỌlálẹ́yẹ's story is not one of riches or power.
It is a story of the price we pay when we forget to give.
Of the tears that gold can shed.
And of the healing that comes only when we choose to carry the weight of regret with an open heart.