Chapter 1072 — The House That Cannot Die

CHAPTER 1072

The House That Cannot Die

At Black Ice Ford, the post yard was already full.

A long sledge of plain black lacquer stood in the middle of it, with no crest on its doors, and its team was being changed. Twelve outriders stood round it in the plain grey of the princess’s pavilions, all late Shattering Void or better.

Wanyan Che reined in so hard his horse slid.

“Whose sledge is that?” Wanyan Che asked one of his riders in a low voice.

Nobody answered him. The sledge door had opened.

Long Caili stepped down onto the snow in a dark fur cloak over deep blue. A veil of grey gauze hung from her brow to her chin, and it didn’t move in the wind. Her eyes went round the post yard once and stopped on Shi Feng.

“Master Shi,” Long Caili said, in the same cool voice she used across her counter in Tianjing.

“Your Highness,” Shi Feng said, and got down from his horse to bow. “You’re a long way from Tianjing.”

“I own a grain house in Hanyuan,” Long Caili said. “I’m allowed to visit it. I’m going south.”

Behind Shi Feng, Wanyan Che had gone white. He dropped out of his saddle and went down on one knee in the snow, and all thirty of his riders went down after him in a rush of white fur.

“Wanyan Che of the Wanyan house greets the Fourth Princess!” Wanyan Che said loudly, his head bowed.

“Rise, Master Wanyan,” Long Caili said, without looking at him. “Your father is ill. Don’t kneel in the cold for me.”

Long Caili looked back at Shi Feng.

“A red commission,” Long Caili said. It wasn’t a question. Her pavilions heard everything that went through the Hanyuan tower.

“The Wanyan patriarch,” Shi Feng said. “A cracked heaven.”

Long Caili’s eyes went over the thirty riders once more, slowly, and came back. She said nothing about them. She looked at Qin Wuyan, standing a step behind Shi Feng with the road bag on his shoulder.

“Take Qin Wuyan’s advice, Master Shi,” Long Caili said. “Not your own.”

Then she turned to the captain of her outriders.

“Change their horses,” Long Caili said. “Ours have just come out of the stable. Theirs have come sixty li. Theirs go south with us.”

“Your Highness,” the captain said, startled. “Our own team is—”

“Tired horses are good enough for a road I know,” Long Caili said. “Do it.”

The captain bowed and did it. In a few minutes the Wanyan riders had fresh horses under the princess’s grey blankets, and her grooms were leading thirty tired ones round to the back of her sledge.

Wanyan Che watched it happen with his mouth slightly open.

“You’ve given us the fresh horses,” Shi Feng said. “Will your own riders manage?”

“They know this road,” Long Caili said. “Go and see your patient.”

She went back to the sledge. At the door she stopped with one hand on the frame, and for half a breath Shi Feng thought she would say something else. She didn’t. The door closed. The grey outriders mounted, the sledge’s runners cracked free of the ice, and the whole train went out of the south gate of the post yard without another word.

Shi Feng touched the cool black jade token at his belt, where Long Caili had told him to keep it. He left it visible.

“Master Shi knows the Fourth Princess?” Wanyan Che asked, a little hoarsely.

“I work for her,” Shi Feng said, and mounted his fresh horse.

They reached the Wanyan estate at dusk on the second day, exactly when Wanyan Che had said they would. Its walls were black timber on a stone base, with a watchtower at each corner, and beyond the back wall there was nothing but the white waste.

“In the north they say a Wanyan never dies in bed,” one of the riders said proudly as the gate opened. “The house that cannot die, they call us.”

“Quiet,” Wanyan Che said sharply, and the rider went red.

The whole house was waiting in the courtyard, perhaps two hundred of them, and when Shi Feng rode in they bowed together to the 6 Mark.

The patriarch received him in the main hall, sitting up.

Wanyan Bo was a big man who had been bigger. The flesh had gone from his face, and his skin was grey. His late Profound Heaven aura filled the hall, and Shi Feng felt at once that it was wrong: somewhere inside it, a thin cold draught was running out.

“Master Shi,” Wanyan Bo said, and his voice was still deep. “Forgive me for not standing. If you can help me, I’ll stand and bow to you properly.”

“Then we’ll do it that way round, Patriarch,” Shi Feng said.

The house steward brought a Pavilion note on a tray. Shi Feng checked the seal and the sum. Eighteen hundred thousand, the first half, paid through the Hanyuan tower. He put the note in his sleeve.

“The sickroom’s through there,” Wanyan Bo said, nodding toward a door at the back of the hall. “But my guardian will want a word with you first. He’s stubborn. He’s earned it.”

A man stood beside the sickroom door. He was old, broad and bald, with his grey beard tied in two braids. His aura was early Profound Heaven, plain and solid, with no polish to it at all.

“Hong Lie,” Hong Lie said. “Guardian of this house.”

“Master Hong,” Shi Feng said.

“Since the crack, seven healers have come to this door,” Hong Lie said flatly. “Every one of them stood under my hand for ten breaths before he went in. Two of them got through. The others went home.” He didn’t smile. “The patriarch’s heaven is broken. I don’t let anyone into it who can’t stand up under a whole one.”

Wanyan Che stepped forward quickly.

“Uncle Hong, this is the Pavilion’s 6 Mark,” Wanyan Che said anxiously. “Surely the rule—”

“The rule is the rule,” Hong Lie said.

Shi Feng looked at Qin Wuyan.

Qin Wuyan looked at Hong Lie for a long moment, measuring him. Then he set the road bag down by the wall.

“Fair,” Qin Wuyan said, and stepped aside.

“Then we’ll do it in the courtyard,” Hong Lie said, “so the house can see.”

He walked out past Shi Feng into the snow, and as he went, he raised his right palm.