Chapter 1125 — Due

CHAPTER 1125

Due

Qin Wuyan brought the paper and brush to the abode’s step himself, and set them down beside Shi Feng with both hands.

“The Pavilion has a courtesy to its host sects,” Qin Wuyan said, stepping back. “When a guest elder’s realm changes, the guardian sends word to the sect that hosts him. The Serene Jade gave you its road pass. This one must write to the Lotus Gate.”

“Then write,” Shi Feng said.

“This one has written,” Qin Wuyan said, laying a folded sheet beside the brush. It was four lines long, in a square, careful hand. “The courtesy allows the guest elder to add a line of his own. Most don’t.”

Shi Feng looked at the blank sheet. He already knew who the line would be for.

“I will,” Shi Feng said.

Qin Wuyan bowed and went back to the valley mouth.

Lin Langtian was lying on his back on the warm stones by the furnace with an empty wine jar on his chest. He opened one eye.

“To the Lotus Gate?” Lin Langtian asked. “Tell them Senior Brother wants the best guest room this time. With a brazier. And a view.”

“It isn’t to the Lotus Gate,” Shi Feng said, wetting the brush.

Lin Langtian opened the other eye, curious.

Shi Feng wrote the address first, the same way he’d written it on the claim. To the house of Nangong, at the Serene Jade Sect. From Shi Feng, 6 Mark of the Sky Pavilion.

Then Shi Feng stopped, choosing the words.

He’d been thinking about this line since the basin. He’d thought about it lying in this cave with his ribs broken, while he rebuilt his inner heaven after the first fold collapsed, and under the Sixth Elder’s moon. He’d thought of many things to say. Shi Feng decided the Star Picker needed none of them. Only the realm mattered.

He wrote one line under the address.

Profound Heaven. When the gate opens.

He put the brush down.

Lin Langtian sat up. The wine jar rolled off his chest and he caught it without looking.

“That’s all?” Lin Langtian asked.

“That’s all,” Shi Feng said.

“Junior Brother, that’s one line,” Lin Langtian said. “You’re writing to the strongest man on the continent. Shouldn’t you at least say good morning?”

“He didn’t say good morning to me,” Shi Feng said, blowing on the ink. “He said three things, and I remember all three. ‘Come at Profound Heaven. Come before, and the gate won’t open. Don’t come, and I’ll know why.’”

Lin Langtian stopped smiling, suddenly serious.

“And the last thing he said was that I’d better not be lying,” Shi Feng said. “If I was, not even his old friends at the Pavilion could save me. So I’m not going to write him a long letter. I’ve got nothing to add to what I told him.”

Shi Feng folded the sheet over once and laid it on top of Qin Wuyan’s.

“Come at Profound Heaven,” Shi Feng said again, more quietly, mostly to himself.

Shi Feng kept his hand on the folded paper and looked south past the valley. Far beyond Hanyuan, in a bare hall, Nangong Futian had spent fifteen years and almost everything he owned on one granddaughter who couldn’t cultivate. Shi Feng had heard her soft voice from behind a screen in that house. He had never seen her face.

He owed her a life. He had told her grandfather how he meant to repay it, and named the realm he’d need. Now he had reached that realm. Shi Feng felt calm and certain.

“It’s due,” Shi Feng said.

He said it aloud and plainly. The debt was no longer something for later.

Lin Langtian didn’t make a joke.

Lin Langtian sat on the warm stones with the empty jar in his hands and looked at his junior brother for a long time. He was moved, though he would never say so. He turned the jar slowly. His right hand still shook a little, and this time he didn’t hide it.

“A gentleman’s word can’t be caught by a team of four horses,” Lin Langtian said at last.

Lin Langtian added nothing to it.

Shi Feng picked up both letters and took them down to the valley mouth himself. Qin Wuyan was standing where he always stood. He took the letters and read only the address on the second one. His face stayed calm, but Shi Feng could tell he was surprised.

“The Nangong house,” Qin Wuyan said.

“The Nangong house,” Shi Feng said.

Qin Wuyan sealed both letters together under the Pavilion’s seal and put them inside his robe.

“This one will send them from Pinefall at first light,” Qin Wuyan said. “The Hanyuan tower will put them on the Serene Jade road the same day. Nine days, if the snow holds.”

“And if the Nangong house answers?” Shi Feng asked.

“This one has carried the Pavilion’s letters for a long time,” Qin Wuyan said, looking down the valley. “The Nangong house has never answered a letter.”

Qin Wuyan paused.

“It also has never been sent one like that,” Qin Wuyan said.

Shi Feng stood beside him for a while and looked south with him. There was nothing on the road but snow.

Nine days to the Lotus Gate. After that, the gate would open or it wouldn’t, and either way, he would have to walk up to it.