Chapter 186 — Lu Qingxue's Farewell

CHAPTER 186

Lu Qingxue's Farewell

Lu Qingxue waited outside the inn while the White Crane wagons loaded at the next crossing.

Shi Feng found her when he came back from the reporting office. She stood beside the wall, out of the doorway, with a travelling cloak folded over one arm. Her white disciple's robe looked dusty at the hem.

For a moment he remembered the well in Yunze Town. She had stood in somebody's way then, holding an envelope she should have delivered much earlier.

Today her hands were empty.

“I'm leaving with the Pavilion,” Lu Qingxue said.

Shi Feng stopped beside the step.

“Safe travels,” Shi Feng said.

She nodded, but didn't leave. Behind her, a wagon driver shouted for the final luggage. Somebody on the roof of the cart lowered a trunk too quickly and received an angry answer from below.

“I won't keep you long,” Lu Qingxue said.

He waited. She had come this far to speak. He could give her a few minutes without pretending the meeting meant more than it did.

“The record sent back to my household will include the tournament result,” Lu Qingxue said. “Your recovery and your choice of sect. I checked that myself.”

“It should include what the officials verified,” Shi Feng said.

“It does,” Lu Qingxue said.

Not his meridians. Not the ring or the physique. She knew only what the arena had shown everyone, and she didn't ask him to fill the empty spaces in her account.

That made the conversation easier.

A porter squeezed past carrying a rolled mattress. Lu Qingxue moved closer to the wall before the man needed to ask. Shi Feng shifted his everyday bag to the other shoulder.

“The earlier report is still wrong,” Lu Qingxue said. “Not the physician's uncertainty. The way the Pavilion made it certain afterward.”

“I know,” Shi Feng said.

“I knew enough to question it then,” Lu Qingxue said. “I didn't.”

Her voice stayed low. There was no crowd to hear an apology and turn it into another story about a fallen engagement. Kang Liu stood inside the inn counting cups, but the road noise covered their words.

Shi Feng looked at her properly.

Lu Qingxue didn't look like a woman hoping a champion would offer to rescue her from a lesser sect. She looked tired of choosing the easier account of something she had done.

“I'm sorry,” Lu Qingxue said.

He felt none of the anger he once expected from that sentence. The lost months remained lost. Her apology didn't return them, and refusing to hear it wouldn't return them either.

“I heard you,” Shi Feng said.

She drew a careful breath. He hadn't said everything was forgiven. She didn't try to make his answer larger.

“I wanted you to know before I went,” Lu Qingxue said.

“Then now I know,” Shi Feng said.

For a little while they stood without speaking. A wheel struck a loose stone near the crossing. The driver blamed his helper, and the helper pointed at the wheel as though the wood could testify.

Lu Qingxue almost smiled at the argument. She remembered how quickly Shi Feng would once have answered such a complaint. Now he simply let other people's journey remain their business.

“Artificer Hall,” Lu Qingxue said. “You chose it quickly.”

“I had reasons before the offers,” Shi Feng said.

She nodded. He didn't explain Xu Changhe's journal, and she didn't ask whether a more prestigious offer might change his mind. The choice was his, just as leaving Qingshi Town had been his.

“You always disliked people deciding for you,” Lu Qingxue said.

“Most people dislike it,” Shi Feng said.

That was true. She had simply thought his ruined future made the decision easier to make on his behalf. Remembering that brought heat to her face.

The wagon driver called again.

Lu Qingxue put the folded cloak over her shoulders and fastened its plain tie. The knot slipped on the first attempt. She retied it without waiting for help.

“Goodbye, Shi Feng,” Lu Qingxue said.

“Goodbye, Lu Qingxue,” Shi Feng said.

She turned toward the crossing. He went into the inn.

Neither looked back to see whether the other had stopped.

Kang Liu lifted a clean cup from the counter.

“Tea before you pack?” Kang Liu asked.

“Water,” Shi Feng said.

The innkeeper poured it without asking who the woman had been. He had seen enough visitors during the tournament to understand that curiosity didn't always improve a customer's mood.

Shi Feng drank while Kang Liu separated the cups with chipped rims. The work reminded him of the tea house in the capital, the cracked handle and the first proposal that changed his life.

He let the memory come. Then he set down the cup.

Lu Qingxue's departure had settled an old conversation. It hadn't settled the one he still carried from Qingliu Lane. Those hurts belonged to different people and different choices. He wouldn't use an easy goodbye to pretend the difficult one no longer mattered.

He climbed to his room and checked the reporting receipt. Champion. Artificer Hall. Direct inner entry. The ink was ordinary; the road it recorded was new.

He put the receipt with his travel papers.

At the crossing, Han Zheng checked the luggage against a list without looking toward the inn.

Lu Qingxue took her place near the rear wagon. The chief disciple helped a younger junior tie down a loose case, then climbed aboard after making sure the driver had room for his feet.

Nobody began a speech about the honour White Crane had lost. They had supplies to secure and a border road to reach before dark. Defeat didn't remove the need to travel sensibly.

Han Zheng finally looked at Lu Qingxue.

“You spoke to him?” Han Zheng asked.

“Yes,” Lu Qingxue said.

The steward's brush stopped. Perhaps he wanted to ask what a champion had promised. Perhaps he feared what she might have repeated. She gave him no answer to either question.

“The result goes into the report,” Lu Qingxue said. “As it happened.”

Han Zheng lowered the list and told the driver to move.

The wagons rolled away from the crossing. Lu Qingxue watched the road ahead until the wheels settled into a steady rhythm. She had training to return to and mistakes of her own to stop repeating.