Chapter 1127 — Balanced to the Copper
CHAPTER 1127
Balanced to the Copper
The sledge came up the Pinefall road on the third morning, behind four grey horses and ten outriders in dark blue, and the whole town was waiting in the street for it.
By the second evening, every tea stall in Pinefall knew that the Fourth Princess was also the first name on the Hundred Famed Tianxing. Half the farms within twenty li had sent somebody into town to see her.
The sledge stopped in front of the herb house. A maid opened the door. Long Caili stepped down onto the swept snow.
She wore a plain dark blue travelling robe and a veil of the same colour. The street went completely silent.
“That’s her? That’s the first of the Tianxing?”
“Don’t stare! Do you want your eyes put out?”
“I can’t see her face anyway…”
“You don’t need a face. Look how she stands. A phoenix doesn’t land on a common tree.”
“Why is the herb-house manager shaking like that?”
“…”
Long Caili didn’t look at the crowd. She looked once along the street and found Shi Feng standing by the herb house door with his arm in its sling. She was worried, though her face showed nothing.
“Guest elder,” Long Caili said coolly, inclining her head.
“Your Highness,” Shi Feng said, bowing. He was glad she had come.
Long Caili walked past him into the herb house. The manager, who had been bowing in the doorway, nearly fell over backwards getting out of her way.
The counting room at the back had one window, one long table and a brazier. The manager had dusted the table until it shone. Long Caili sat at its head, with Shi Feng at her right. The maid and the manager stood by the door.
Long Caili didn’t open the ledgers yet.
“The court first,” Long Caili said. “In order. One. The Situ censor’s motion that a missing guest had broken his contract has been withdrawn.”
“On what grounds?” Shi Feng asked.
“Because you aren’t missing,” Long Caili said. “Your guardian’s report and the Pinefall magistrate’s record arrived in the same week. One said you were alive. The other said you were killing bandits. The Censorate couldn’t call you missing after that.”
Shi Feng was relieved. He nodded.
“Two,” Long Caili said. “My Fifth Brother asked the Emperor for leave to come north for his rematch. The Emperor refused him. He didn’t give a reason. My Fifth Brother broke a pillar in the training hall and then went to sulk at the Thunder Abyss Valley.”
“Which pillar?” Shi Feng asked.
“The third on the east side,” Long Caili said. “The palace is still repairing it.”
She went straight on.
“Three. The Situ’s friends at court are now saying something new,” Long Caili said. “A 6 Mark at Profound Heaven is the Sky Pavilion’s greatest asset, and no single princess should hold his contract. They say it very respectfully. They’ve said it three times.”
“And?” Shi Feng asked.
“My elder brother answered them in open court,” Long Caili said. “He said the Pavilion holds itself, and that if the Situ wanted to tell the Pavilion who its guest elders could sign with, they were welcome to walk to the Ninefold Tower and say it to Old Tower Master Dai’s face.” She paused. “Nobody has walked there yet.”
Long Caili didn’t ask him for anything for her own cause. Shi Feng understood that she had come only to put his mind at rest.
She pulled the first ledger across the table and opened it in front of him.
“The house accounts for this season,” Long Caili said. “Your purchase is on the ninth page.”
Shi Feng turned to the ninth page. The entry was written in the manager’s careful hand. Profound Heaven-grade herbs, his list, line by line. The weights. The prices. A total, one million four hundred thousand, entered at cost on the day he’d come in with the broken token. Under that was her own small, straight hand, checking every line, and a seal.
He added the column himself. It balanced to the copper.
He looked up. Across the room the manager was staring at the floor, red to the ears. He still couldn’t believe what he’d been told to write.
Shi Feng ran his eye down the page again. There was a line on every other page of the ledger, at the bottom of every other buyer’s entry, for the house’s cut. There was no such line on his.
“Your Highness,” Shi Feng said. “Your houses’ at-cost price still carries the house cut. It’s on every page but mine.”
“The standing order said at cost,” Long Caili said, without looking up from the second ledger.
“Your standing orders always say at cost,” Shi Feng said. “Your houses never waive the cut. I’ve read your Tianjing books.”
Long Caili turned a page.
“Sign the ninth page,” Long Caili said. “The manager wants to go home.”
Shi Feng was touched. She had waived the house’s cut for him and would never admit it. “Thank you, Your Highness,” he said, picking up the brush, and signed the ninth page. The manager let out a long breath by the door.
The door opened. Lin Langtian put his head into the counting room with snow on his hair and a basket on his arm.
“The boy said the sweet potatoes are sold here now,” Lin Langtian said. Then he saw who was sitting at the head of the table, and his whole face lit up. “Ah! Your Highness! The famous Fourth Princess! Yours Truly is Junior Brother’s Senior Brother. I carried him forty li. I don’t suppose a house of yours keeps a few sweet potatoes for a hero?”
The maid’s face went white with outrage. The manager choked.
Long Caili lifted her eyes from the ledger and looked at Lin Langtian for one breath. She knew who had carried Shi Feng out of the basin.
Then she took a fresh slip of paper, wrote on it, sealed it and held it out to him without a word.
Lin Langtian took it and read it. His mouth fell open.
“The bearer is to have sweet potatoes for one season,” Lin Langtian read aloud. “At every Long household house in the north.” He looked up. “Junior Brother! She wrote it!”
“You carried me forty li,” Shi Feng said. “Her Highness doesn’t forget a thing like that.”
Long Caili had already gone back to the second ledger, and she didn’t look up again until the last page was signed.
By then the herb boy was running down the street outside, shouting that the new Tianji issue had come.