Chapter 161 — What She Asked Before Leaving

CHAPTER 161

What She Asked Before Leaving

Sima Lan visited the inn shortly after dinner.

She stayed in the corridor because Shi Feng was packing his practice furnace and the room had little space left around the case. Her Moon Lake robe caught the light from the stair lamp.

“My brother leaves for Great Liang after the healers permit travel,” Sima Lan said. “Jin Jian has written the report.”

“Good,” Shi Feng replied.

“He had a visitor before the report went,” Sima Lan said.

“Wei Chengyuan,” Shi Feng replied.

She looked at him, then nodded.

“So you heard,” Sima Lan said.

“An attendant asked about Yunze,” Shi Feng replied.

Sima Lan rested one hand on the railing.

“I don't know exactly what he gave the delegate,” Sima Lan said. “Don't assume the public notice made him quiet.”

“I haven't assumed that,” Shi Feng replied.

She accepted the answer without trying to turn the warning into a debt. After a brief pause, she stepped toward the stairs.

“We'll have the draw tomorrow,” Sima Lan said.

“Yes,” Shi Feng replied.

She left just as footsteps sounded below.

Ling Qingzhu saw the pale blue Moon Lake robe before she saw Shi Feng.

Sima Lan paused on the stair to give her room. The younger princess's eyes moved once over the white veil and the folded papers in Ling Qingzhu's hand.

“Fairy Ling,” Sima Lan said.

“Princess Sima,” Ling Qingzhu replied.

The greetings were faultlessly polite.

That made the tightness in Ling Qingzhu's chest seem even less reasonable. Sima Lan had done nothing more than visit a fellow candidate. Shi Feng had no obligation to explain who stood in his corridor.

Knowing that didn't prevent the feeling.

Sima Lan continued downstairs. Ling Qingzhu watched the Moon Lake robe disappear around the turn, then looked toward the half-open door.

Shi Feng stood inside it with a furnace cloth in his hand.

“Fairy Ling,” Shi Feng said.

“I accepted the Valley offer,” Ling Qingzhu said.

“I heard about it,” Shi Feng replied. “Congratulations.”

“Thank you,” Ling Qingzhu said.

She held the papers more tightly than they needed. The written declaration had felt simple at the desk. Here, one step from a room he had chosen without her, every part of it seemed difficult to place in words.

“Our party leaves in the morning,” Ling Qingzhu said.

Shi Feng nodded.

He didn't ask whether she had arranged luggage or food. Once, he would have checked both before she remembered to worry. She knew why he didn't now, and missed it anyway.

“I wanted to ask you something,” Ling Qingzhu said.

“Go on,” Shi Feng replied.

She looked past him at the small room. One bed. A table. His sword beside the wall. The furnace case nearly packed.

No screen between a bed and a floor mat.

“Should I refuse it?” Ling Qingzhu asked. “Stay until the end, and follow you to whichever sect you choose?”

Shi Feng's hand stopped on the cloth.

He looked at the Valley seal in her hand.

“Don't give up a good teacher,” Shi Feng said.

His voice was flat, like advice to someone he had only recently met.

Ling Qingzhu lowered her eyes.

He hadn't asked her to leave. He hadn't asked her to stay. She had offered to place her next road beside his, and he had returned the choice to her own cultivation.

It was fair.

She wished fairness didn't feel so cold.

“I see,” Ling Qingzhu said.

Shi Feng folded the furnace cloth once and set it on the case. He didn't fill the silence with a gentler sentence that would make the first one untrue.

Below them, Kang Liu called to the kitchen for a clean cup. A door opened farther down the corridor, then closed again.

Ling Qingzhu glanced toward the stairs where Sima Lan had passed. Shi Feng picked up the furnace cloth and checked a worn corner. He offered no account of the princess's visit.

She slipped the papers beneath her sleeve.

“I hope your next match goes well,” Ling Qingzhu said.

“Thank you,” Shi Feng replied. “Travel safely.”

She nodded.

Her hand lifted a little, then lowered before reaching the doorframe. There was no reason to touch the wood merely because he stood on the other side of it.

She went downstairs.

Shi Feng remained by the open door until he heard the gate.

Then he closed it halfway, as it had been before she arrived, and sat beside the furnace case.

He didn't call after her on the stairs. The choice was hers, and his own road tomorrow started on the fighting platform.

He checked the outer clasp twice and left the open case beside the table.

Kang Liu passed the open doorway carrying a lamp. He stopped when he saw the furnace case still across the floor.

“Is that leaving tomorrow too?” Kang Liu asked.

“Not tomorrow,” Shi Feng said. “The fittings need checking before I take it on another road.”

The innkeeper nodded and moved on. Shi Feng unpacked the top tray, separated the cracked spacer from the sound ones and wrote its size on a scrap. Remembered alchemy experience could guide his flame. It couldn't keep a loose furnace fitting in place. He would buy the small replacement before the draw.

He returned the sound pieces to their slots and tied the tray down. When he lifted the case again, nothing rattled. He set it beneath the table and washed the dust from his hands before putting out the lamp.

In the courtyard, Hongxiu waited beside the carriage.

Ling Qingzhu stopped before entering it. The night air shifted the edge of her white veil, and she held it steady with two fingers.

Hongxiu didn't ask whether he had invited her to stay. The papers were still in her sleeve, and the answer showed in the way she stood.

“The luggage is ready,” Hongxiu said.

“Thank you,” Ling Qingzhu replied.

She climbed into the carriage and sat with both hands in her lap.

After a while, she took out a narrow violet ribbon from the small inner pocket beside her belt.

She smoothed it once over her fingers.

There was one thing she hadn't asked yet.