Chapter 1069 — Two Doors

CHAPTER 1069

Two Doors

Shen Yaoqing turned without a greeting and walked, and Shi Feng fell in beside her.

The Serene Jade’s inner courts lay below the peak in long white terraces, one under another, with pines between them and covered walkways along their edges. Matron Yue had gone back up toward the small pavilion without a word. Nobody else was on the path.

That didn’t last.

By the second terrace, there were disciples on the walkways. By the third, there were dozens. They stood along the railings in their white robes, pretending to sweep snow or carry books, and every one of them was looking at him.

“That’s him! The Pavilion’s 6 Mark!”

“The bell rang for him. My master heard it from the Frost Terrace.”

“He came down from the Supreme Elder’s hall? On his own feet?”

“Look at him. He’s walking straighter than I do.”

“…”

Shen Yaoqing didn’t look at any of them. She walked with her eyes ahead and her hand resting on her sword hilt, the same exact, even pace she’d kept since the day she first walked him through the Lotus Gate. The disciples saw her face and found other things to look at.

Shi Feng was glad of it. His knees had stopped shaking on the path, but his meridians still ached, and he’d rather not be stared at while he limped.

At the fourth terrace an outer-hall steward hurried up the steps toward them, saw who was walking with Shen Yaoqing, and stopped so suddenly he nearly fell.

“Master Shi,” the steward said breathlessly, bowing. “Snowpine Court is kept, by the Grand Elder’s order. If the honoured guest wishes to rest before—”

“I’ll go down today,” Shi Feng said. “Thank the Grand Elder for me. Tell him I’ll come back.”

The steward bowed again and stood aside.

They went on down through the outer courts, past the hall where the elders had refused him once, past the Frost Terrace where the junior disciples were still arguing about the bout, and past the gate of Snowpine Court with its snow swept and its door shut. Nobody stopped them. Everybody watched.

At the head of the Lotus Gate, Shen Yaoqing stopped.

The white jade gate stood open, its tall leaves carved with layered lotuses. Beyond it, the White Stair descended into cloud. The wind came up the stair from below and pulled at their sleeves.

Shen Yaoqing turned and looked at him for the first time since the inner peak.

“No one has left the Supreme Elder’s hall standing in my lifetime,” Shen Yaoqing said.

She said it as a fact, the way she’d report the number of disciples on a terrace. Then she held out the white jade pass in both hands. A slip of paper was tied to it with a grey cord, and on the slip was Grand Elder Zuo’s seal. It was the sect’s road pass: any Serene Jade post, town or ferry in the north would let the bearer through and give him a horse.

Shi Feng took it in both hands and bowed.

“Thank you, Lady Shen,” Shi Feng said. “And your master.”

Shen Yaoqing inclined her head once, turned and walked back up through the gate. She didn’t look back. Her white robe went up the steps between the pillars and was gone among the pines.

Qin Wuyan was sitting on the low wall just outside the gate, with the road bag beside him and a cup of cold tea in his hand. He stood when he saw Shi Feng, set the cup on the wall, and picked up the bag.

“Master Shi,” Qin Wuyan said.

“Did you hear the bell from out here?” Shi Feng asked.

“This one heard it,” Qin Wuyan said. He looked at the cup on the wall. “Then this one’s tea fell over. The wall shook.”

“Twice?” Shi Feng asked.

“Three times,” Qin Wuyan said. He looked at Shi Feng’s face, and then at the white pass in his hands, and his old face didn’t change. “Master Shi is standing.”

“Everyone keeps telling me that,” Shi Feng said.

He walked to the head of the white stair and sat down on the top step, out of the wind behind the pillar. Qin Wuyan stood a step behind him and looked down the mountain.

Shi Feng took out his small private book and opened it on his knee. He turned past the tally from the Tianji Mansion to a clean page, wet the brush and wrote two lines.

Mother: the plate cracked.

Xiuyi: Profound Heaven.

Shi Feng studied the lines. The broken plate had stopped his search for his mother. Nangong Xiuyi had agreed to wait, but he first had to reach Profound Heaven. Neither matter was settled.

There was a third thing he hadn’t written. At the Tianji Mansion, blind Elder Sang had stopped in a corridor and told him his fortune without being asked: “A death knot within the season. An old debt unties it.” Yun Zhiwei had said she was never wrong about knots.

The season had a little over forty days left in it.

Shi Feng didn’t know what the knot was, and he didn’t know which old debt she meant. He had a great many old debts. Most of them were owed to him.

He blew on the ink until it was dry, closed the book and put it away.

“Where now, Master Shi?” Qin Wuyan asked.

“Down,” Shi Feng said, and stood. “Then wherever someone needs a Profound Heaven pill.”

He tucked the road pass into his sleeve and started down the white stair. Qin Wuyan came a step behind with the bag on his shoulder. Behind them, at the top of the mountain, the bell on the inner peak didn’t ring again.