Chapter 106 — You Let Me Believe It

CHAPTER 106

You Let Me Believe It

Ling Qingzhu waited until Wen Shou had sent the challenge to Han Zong. Then she took Shi Feng away from the crowded passage.

An empty waiting room stood behind the south wall. Its door opened onto the arena corridor, and voices carried through the upper shutters. She left the door ajar. Her white veil stayed tied.

Shi Feng stood beside the window. He had expected questions. He hadn't expected the careful way she kept her hands at her sides, as though holding his sleeve again would make her anger harder to state.

“You let me believe you were crippled,” Ling Qingzhu said.

He looked at her.

“Yes,” Shi Feng said.

She had prepared for one of his dry answers. The direct admission made her pause.

“How long?” Ling Qingzhu asked.

“Foundation Establishment is recent,” Shi Feng said. “The recovery began before I came to the capital.”

Her fingers tightened. Before the tea house. Before the marriage papers. Before she stood over his bedding and wondered whether he could survive another mountain trip.

“You could cultivate when we made the agreement,” Ling Qingzhu said.

“Yes,” Shi Feng said.

She turned toward the open door, then back again. Outside, someone laughed about Gao Zhen's fallen sword. She wanted those voices farther away.

“I told you what I believed,” Ling Qingzhu said. “I explained the danger and why the arrangement suited me. You heard it and said nothing.”

“You chose a man with no faction and a ruined reputation,” Shi Feng said. “The reputation was real. The condition wasn't.”

“That distinction mattered to me,” Ling Qingzhu said.

Her own words caught at her. She had explained the permits, her elders and the marriage rule. She hadn't explained why she had stopped to look at this particular man before asking him to bargain. He still thought she had met a convenient stranger.

Ling Qingzhu looked at the open door. That withheld reason didn't make his concealment painless. It did make it harder to speak as though she had placed everything honestly between them. She said nothing about it.

“I know that now,” Shi Feng said.

He had known it earlier too, if he was honest. He had simply preferred the safety of letting the world be wrong. At first she had been another person in that world. Somewhere between shared meals and her fingers straightening his work notes, that had changed without either of them agreeing what it meant.

She watched him, waiting for more.

“My recovery was mine to protect,” Shi Feng said. “Wei people were asking questions. The prince already disliked my name. I wanted time to cultivate before anyone decided what I should do with it.”

“So you couldn't trust me,” Ling Qingzhu said.

“At the tea house, I didn't know you,” Shi Feng said.

The answer hurt because it was reasonable. She remembered arriving with a neat paper on which his obligations filled the page. She had been offended that he asked about hers. Trust hadn't been among the things either of them offered that afternoon.

“And afterward?” Ling Qingzhu asked.

He didn't answer at once.

Afterward she had saved his rice, dried his blanket and stood close enough for him to forget what he was saying. Afterward he had wanted to tell her many things. Wanting hadn't made the words easy, and every quiet day made another quiet day seem sensible.

“I let it continue,” Shi Feng said. “That part was my choice.”

Her eyes shone above the veil. She was relieved by his acknowledgment and still angry enough to dislike the relief.

“I bandaged you,” Ling Qingzhu said. “I thought you were trying to survive with a body that couldn't carry qi. You stood there and let me worry about that.”

“The wound was real,” Shi Feng said.

“I know the wound was real,” Ling Qingzhu said. “I'm talking about what you allowed me to think while I tied it.”

He lowered his gaze to his own hand. She was right about that. He could defend the reason for keeping his cultivation secret without pretending the secrecy had cost her nothing.

“I should have answered more clearly when you asked,” Shi Feng said.

She drew a slow breath. It wasn't a full explanation, and she knew it. There were things behind his calm that a recent breakthrough couldn't explain. She didn't ask him to put every one on the table because she had finally noticed the first.

“Are you going to be safe against Han Zong?” Ling Qingzhu asked.

“Yes,” Shi Feng said.

“You said that about Gao Zhen without telling me why,” Ling Qingzhu said.

“Then here's why,” Shi Feng said. “I'm at early Foundation Establishment. My strength is greater than the ordinary measure of that realm. Han Zong is at mid Foundation Establishment. I'll need to pay attention. I won't need you to rescue me.”

She searched his face. He spoke without contempt for either her concern or Han Zong's cultivation. That helped more than another joke would have.

“I wasn't ashamed to stand beside you before today,” Ling Qingzhu said.

Shi Feng's chest tightened.

“I know,” Shi Feng said.

He remembered her taking his hand before the prince's carriage. Part performance, part something he had never managed to name. He remembered the day she carried his bowl without being asked. He hadn't mistaken every kindness she gave him.

“Don't say it as if I only wanted a useful husband,” Ling Qingzhu said.

He looked up sharply. She hadn't meant the words to sound so personal. Now they hung between them, and neither knew how to finish what they began.

“I won't,” Shi Feng said.

The bell keeper tested the bronze rim outside. A low note passed through the shutters. Their remaining time was shrinking.

Ling Qingzhu moved toward the door, then stopped.

“You don't have to tell the whole capital how it happened,” Ling Qingzhu said. “I understand that. I just don't want to learn everything about you from a crowd.”

Shi Feng felt the force of that simple request. He could promise care. He couldn't promise to hand over the physique, the ring's dead spirit and every enemy he had killed because one hidden fact had finally become public.

“I'll speak for myself,” Shi Feng said. “Where I can.”

She nodded slowly. It wasn't the easy answer she wanted, but it was one he meant. She accepted that much without claiming the hurt was settled.

At the corridor, he paused to let her pass first. Her sleeve brushed his wrist. Neither reached for the other.

Han Zong waited at the far end with his spear upright beside him. The crowd's talk had changed from whether Shi Feng belonged on the platform to how far he could climb.

Ling Qingzhu returned to the rail. Shi Feng went toward the official, carrying his own secrets and one honest answer more than he had brought into the room.