Chapter 111 — Madam Shi Has a Seat

CHAPTER 111

Madam Shi Has a Seat

“The seat beside me is taken,” Shi Feng said.

The servant stopped with a cushion in his hands. Behind him, a smiling merchant looked from Shi Feng to Ling Qingzhu and hurriedly pointed toward another table.

“Of course,” Cen Hao said. “Madam Shi, please sit.”

Ling Qingzhu sat beside her husband without waiting for another invitation. They had exchanged barely three sentences over breakfast after last night's chill beside the medicine board, yet she had still tied her veil at the gate when Yan Meizhen's carriage arrived.

Her white veil stayed tied. Cen Hao could see only her eyes as she acknowledged him. She placed her sleeves neatly against the table and gave the merchant a cool nod.

Cen Hao withdrew, his early Foundation Establishment cultivation no help with one room and one guest too many.

The gathering occupied the upper floor of Qinghe House. Merchants and cultivators sat around six low tables, with samples of weapons and herbs displayed along one wall.

Yan Meizhen invited Shi Feng for the buyers and Ling Qingzhu because the kingdom's first beauty made any gathering look grander. She didn't pretend either reason was charity.

“I told them you might accept new orders,” Yan Meizhen said. “Not that you'd agree to all of them.”

“Good,” Shi Feng replied.

“And I told Cen Hao to provide decent tea,” Yan Meizhen added.

“Then he has work to do,” Ling Qingzhu said after tasting it.

Yan Meizhen laughed, and Cen Hao waved for a fresh pot.

Shi Feng looked at his wife. Her expression was perfectly calm. She was much better at frightening merchants than he was.

The second buyer knew what she wanted.

Ning Hong was a woman in her thirties with early Foundation Establishment cultivation and a thin scar beneath one ear. She supervised guards for several trading houses and asked about ordinary recovery medicines rather than legendary pills.

“How long will they keep in a warm climate?” Ning Hong asked.

Shi Feng asked where the guards would travel. She named a southern route and showed him her medicine boxes.

He checked the lining.

“Change this,” Shi Feng said. “It holds damp.”

Ning Hong frowned.

“The seller promised it was suitable,” Ning Hong said.

“For dry roots,” Shi Feng replied. “Not finished pills on that road.”

She tested the soft inner cloth with her fingers and nodded.

“Can you supply the boxes too?” Ning Hong asked.

“I can tell you which ones to buy,” Shi Feng said.

Ning Hong went to examine a different lining. Ling Qingzhu remained beside Shi Feng, making the occupied seat very clear.

Pei Rong arrived with a cup of tea and the same unhurried expression Shi Feng remembered from the ferry road.

“You kept the plain sword longer than I expected,” Pei Rong said.

“It still had uses,” Shi Feng said.

“So did the one with the Wei maker's mark,” Pei Rong said quietly.

Ling Qingzhu was speaking to Yan Meizhen a few steps away. Shi Feng looked at the merchant. Pei Rong recognised provenance, not a fight. He hadn't been at the quarry and knew better than to pretend otherwise.

“Good metal travels,” Shi Feng said.

“Naturally,” Pei Rong said, lowering his voice over the rim of his cup. “And Jade Scale Trading House has naturally forgotten which crate held that Yunze blade when Officer Cheng held your permit at the Southern Gate. Though my factor did mention that a Wei household rider passed through the gate yesterday asking after a quarry witness named Gao An—and after an audience at the Eastern Palace.”

Shi Feng's gaze stayed level. “Name your term, Master Pei.”

“First call on two batches of your Returning Breath Pills before the tournament road opens, at ten spirit stones below the South Pill Street rate,” Pei Rong said smoothly. “In return, my house's Southern Gate surety stays sealed, and my southern herb carts remain open to your orders.”

That was discretion with a concrete price attached, not friendship. Shi Feng weighed the twenty-stone concession against an unhurried supply line and nodded once. Pei Rong raised his cup, Shi Feng returned the gesture, and each kept his own reasons.

Before the tools were cleared, Yan Meizhen set out a scrap lot: a sealed case of unclaimed stock and a cracked but sound blade, bids written on slips and folded once. The room offered coppers. Shi Feng offered a little more, and the case was his, to laughter at a representative buying another shop's leavings.

“Open it here,” Yan Meizhen said, and entered the sale in her bidding book.

Bent scoops, mismatched rings — and beneath them a bronze return-channel ring for a small pill furnace, its passages clean. Shi Feng pocketed it without a word.

Cen Hao found Shi Feng beside the displayed tools after the discussion ended. The merchant lifted a small silver scoop from a velvet-lined box.

“For measuring medicinal powder,” Cen Hao explained. “Excellent work. Very suitable for a kingdom representative.”

Shi Feng checked the bowl. The metal was clean. The handle carried an elaborate dragon pattern that served no purpose.

“How much?” Shi Feng asked.

Cen Hao named a price.

Shi Feng put it back.

“The ordinary one,” Shi Feng said.

Cen Hao's smile became strained.

“Young Master Shi, surely your standing—” Cen Hao began.

“Doesn't measure herbs,” Shi Feng interrupted.

Ling Qingzhu lowered her eyes, letting the veil hide her smile. The merchant took a plain copper scoop from beneath the table, its bowl properly shaped and its handle strong enough for years of use.

Shi Feng paid the ordinary price. The merchants who had laughed at the scrap lot laughed again, and Cen Hao put the silver scoop back in its box.

“Anything else?” Cen Hao asked without much hope.

“A clean wrapping,” Shi Feng replied.

Cen Hao found one.

They left Qinghe House before the larger banquet began. Ling Qingzhu walked beside him with her hands folded into her sleeves.

“You were patient today,” Ling Qingzhu said.

“I was buying something,” Shi Feng replied.

“With Ning Hong,” Ling Qingzhu added.

“She was buying something,” Shi Feng said.

“You answered all her questions,” Ling Qingzhu said.

“Would you buy medicine from someone who wouldn't?” Shi Feng asked.

She had no good reply, and her irritation stayed.

Shi Feng looked at her lowered lashes and felt pleased despite himself. Jealousy wasn't an apology, but it meant she cared where his attention went.

He thought, Don't push too hard. She's already annoyed enough.

“Your questions are harder,” Shi Feng said.

Ling Qingzhu glanced up.

“Which questions?” Ling Qingzhu asked.

“Whether I should go back to meet someone's niece,” Shi Feng replied.

Her cheeks warmed behind the veil at once.

“You knew what answer to give,” Ling Qingzhu said.

“I did,” Shi Feng replied.

She stayed quiet for several steps. Then her sleeve brushed his arm deliberately rather than by accident.

At the courtyard, Shi Feng opened the gate and let her enter first. She stopped beside the table and turned toward him. Once he shut the gate, she untied her veil.

“You didn't have to leave early,” Ling Qingzhu said.

“I wanted to,” Shi Feng replied.

“Because the merchants were annoying?” Ling Qingzhu asked.

“Partly,” Shi Feng said.

She waited.

Shi Feng put the wrapped scoop on the kitchen table and looked back at her.

“The walk home was better,” Shi Feng added quietly. “And I shouldn't have let South Pill Street tell you about Master Shen before I did.”

Ling Qingzhu paused with her hand on the veil's knot. The stiffness that had lingered since the previous evening eased by a fraction.

“Don't make a habit of apologizing after the street finishes talking,” Ling Qingzhu said, though she moved one of her own small boxes aside in the gate-side cupboard to make room for his wrapped scoop.

Before he could answer, a breathless boy from the southern herb market rapped on the outer latch with a slip from Mu An: Qian Bo and two armed guards had locked the warehouse lane and were seizing every southern root cart booked under Shi Feng's name.