Chapter 1123 — The Pavilion’s Seal

CHAPTER 1123

The Pavilion’s Seal

The courier was a young man in Pavilion grey with frost in his eyebrows. He stopped at the edge of the array and waited to be fetched.

Qin Wuyan brought him up the valley. At the abode step the courier bowed so low that his satchel slid round onto his chest.

“Honoured guest elder,” the courier said, straightening the satchel in a hurry. “From the Ninefold Tower, by way of Hanyuan. Old Tower Master Dai’s seal. I’m told to put it into your hands and nobody else’s.”

“Then put it in my right hand,” Shi Feng said, holding it out. “My left arm can’t lift yet.”

The courier relaxed a little at the plain answer. He put the letter in Shi Feng’s right hand and bowed again.

The letter was folded in grey Pavilion paper and closed with the old tower master’s seal, red wax pressed with the Pavilion’s nine roofs. Shi Feng broke it on the step. Lin Langtian read it over his shoulder without asking.

It was a copy of a record, written in a clerk’s plain hand.

Sky Pavilion. Register of Marks. Alchemy, 6 Mark. Shi Feng, guest elder.

Below that there had been a line, and the line had been struck through in red. Shi Feng could still read it under the red. Held below Profound Heaven. Exception noted.

Under the struck line was a new one. Realm: Profound Heaven. Confirmed on the report of Guardian Qin Wuyan. Exception closed.

Under that was Old Tower Master Dai’s seal again, and beside it one more line in a different hand. The hand was small and neat. Shi Feng had seen it on a white card that had sat in his sleeve for a year.

Now charge them properly. Jiang Xu.

Shi Feng read it twice. Then he laughed out loud on the step, despite the pain in his ribs. He was touched that Jiang Xu had written to him in his own hand.

“What’s funny?” Lin Langtian asked. “It’s a register. Registers aren’t funny. Senior Brother has read thousands.”

“Master Jiang told me in Tianjing that I charged the Jiang too little,” Shi Feng said, folding the letter carefully. “He’s still worried about it.”

“Then Master Jiang is a sensible man!” Lin Langtian said, slapping the step. “Senior Brother likes him already.”

The courier coughed politely.

“There’s more, honoured guest elder,” the courier said, opening his satchel. “The Hanyuan tower asked me to bring these as well. The steward said to tell you he’s very sorry about the number.”

He took out three bundles of commission letters tied with Pavilion cord and stacked them neatly on the step. The stack came up to Shi Feng’s knee.

“Steward Wenren says these came in over nine days,” the courier said. “Since the clouds over this valley were seen from Pinefall. Every great house north of Hanyuan, honoured guest elder. Some of them twice.”

“The grass bends where the wind blows,” Lin Langtian said, picking up the top letter and sniffing it. “This one smells of money.”

Shi Feng untied the cord and went through them on the step. It took him most of an hour. The courier refused to sit the whole time, and Qin Wuyan stood beside him. The young man seemed less nervous for it.

Most of the letters were the same. A house had an elder near Profound Heaven, or an elder at Profound Heaven with an old wound, and a 6 Mark who stood at Profound Heaven himself was worth more to them than any 6 Mark who didn’t. A few named prices. A few asked him to name his.

One letter was different. It came from an old house at Shuoyang. Its ancestor was early Profound Heaven, and an old wound had been closing his inner heaven a little more every year. The letter listed the herbs the house already held. Shi Feng checked them, and they were the right ones. The house had written its fee plainly at the bottom. Three million six hundred thousand, through the Pavilion, all of it in advance.

“This one,” Shi Feng said, handing it to the courier. “Tell the Shuoyang house I accept. They send the herbs to the Hanyuan tower and I’ll refine there within the month.”

“And the rest, honoured guest elder?” the courier asked.

Shi Feng lifted his left arm. It went to the height of his chest and stopped there.

“Tell them all the same thing,” Shi Feng said. “Thank you. When I can lift this arm over my head, I’ll read their letters again. Not before. If I fail a Profound Heaven commission with one arm, I’ll have burned a house’s best herbs, and they won’t forgive me that just because I’m famous this month.”

The courier wrote it down word for word.

“Steward Wenren thought you’d say that,” the courier said, putting away his brush. “He said if you did, he’d hold the letters at the tower and tell every house the 6 Mark is resting. He said nobody would dare argue with a resting 6 Mark.”

“Then I’m grateful to Steward Wenren,” Shi Feng said. “Please tell him so.”

The courier bowed three times and went back down the valley with the bundles on his back. Qin Wuyan walked him to the array’s edge.

By evening the Pavilion’s own runner had come back up from Pinefall with a slip of paper. The Shuoyang house had paid. Three million six hundred thousand had gone into his account at the Hanyuan tower, in full, on the strength of one line from him.

Shi Feng was satisfied. He recorded the sum in his private book without comment.

Lin Langtian had been watching him write. He sat down beside Shi Feng on the step with a sweet potato in each hand. His right hand still shook a little, and he pressed it against his knee until it stopped.

“Junior Brother,” Lin Langtian said. “Now that you’re rich and famous and at Profound Heaven, can I ask you something?”

“Ask, Senior Brother,” Shi Feng said. “I’ll answer if I can.”

“It isn’t that kind of question,” Lin Langtian said, giving him one of the sweet potatoes. “Do you want to know what the stone over the door says?”

Shi Feng looked at the inscription by the abode’s mouth. It was still covered in moss, as Lin Langtian had left it.

“If you want to tell me, I’ll listen,” Shi Feng said. “I won’t ask you to.”

Lin Langtian didn’t answer. He ate his sweet potato and looked at the stone.