Chapter 196 — The Flame Cavern

CHAPTER 196

The Flame Cavern

“Entry is two spirit stones,” Zhu Liu said. “The funeral deposit is one more. It's refundable.”

Shi Feng looked at the receipt book in the errand disciple's hands. “Refundable how?”

“If you come out, I give it back,” Zhu Liu said, writing carefully. “If you don't, it pays for the incense. I wrote that down too.”

Shi Feng paid three stones and took the receipt. Zhu Liu's brush was shaking, but the characters were neat.

The Flame Cavern opened in the cliff behind Thousand Forge Peak. Heat rolled over the waiting disciples, even this far from the entrance. Black, glassy rock surrounded the opening. Not a blade of grass grew within twenty paces.

Beside the entrance stood a stone board carved with nine columns. Names crowded the first four columns, one name stood alone in the fifth, and the rest were bare.

A crowd had gathered. Thirty or forty outer-court disciples were holding steamed buns and pretending they hadn't come to watch.

“That's him. The champion.”

“He's going in? Already?”

“The sect master sent him himself. It's like pushing a lamb into a tiger's mouth.”

“To the cavern? Is he trying to get rid of him?”

“Our sect master doesn't waste money. Maybe he wants to see if the champion's worth a funeral.”

Shi Feng ignored them. He had spent most of a year being discussed by people who didn't know him, and the volume was no worse here.

The order itself hadn't bothered him. His new master had given the order in a lane full of witnesses, then wandered off scratching his neck. Shi Feng thought, A man who hands out a cracked cauldron and a coal debt on the first day doesn't send me somewhere just to die. There's a reason. I'll find it inside.

The cavern warden, Mu Gang, sat on a stool beside the board with a cup of cold tea. He was a lean man with a burn scar across one cheek, and he spoke like someone who had given this speech four hundred times.

“Nine rings,” Mu Gang said. “Each ring is hotter than the last. At the edge of every ring there's a jade tally on the wall. Touch it, and the board records your name and your ring.”

“And if I don't touch it?” Shi Feng asked.

“Then the board records nothing,” Mu Gang said. “Go as far as you can survive, not as far as your pride wants. As long as the green hills remain, there's no fear of running out of firewood. If I have to carry you out, you’ll pay for that too.”

“Of course you do,” a voice said from the crowd. Several people laughed.

“One stone for carrying, Senior Brother,” Zhu Liu whispered to Shi Feng. “I asked before we came. I thought you should know.”

“Good to know,” Shi Feng said.

He looked at the board. That lone name in the fifth column was carved deeper than the rest, with a neat flourish at the end.

Gongsun Ce.

“Ring five,” a disciple near the front said, pointing with his bun. “Prince Gongsun's record. Foundation Establishment, and he went in with a puppet to carry his water.”

“The puppet melted,” his friend added.

“It was a very good puppet.”

“The elders can reach ring seven, they say. Maybe ring eight, if they're in a bad mood.”

“Nobody's ever touched nine.”

“Somebody touched nine once. He's why the warden has the scar.”

“I got this from a kettle,” Mu Gang said flatly.

The crowd parted for a man in a spotless inner-court robe, with a small wooden puppet riding in the crook of his arm.

Gongsun Ce stopped a few paces from Shi Feng. He looked at the champion's plain outer-court robe, then at the cavern, then back with an expression that was almost polite.

“You're really going in,” Gongsun Ce said.

“The Sect Master said to,” Shi Feng replied.

“Great Liang has soft beds and gentle rain, doesn’t it?” Gongsun Ce asked. “This place won’t spare you because you won a tournament.” He tapped the puppet’s head. “Stop at ring three if you need to. Better to come back than prove a point.”

“Somebody will,” a disciple muttered behind him.

“Thank you for the advice,” Shi Feng said.

Gongsun Ce waited for an argument. Shi Feng gave him none. That polite answer irritated him more than a boast would have. He stepped aside, determined to see how far the champion could actually go.

Shi Feng thought, He's not even wrong. Most people would stop at ring three.

He took off his everyday bag, handed it to Zhu Liu, and walked into the heat.

“Senior Brother!” Zhu Liu called after him. “Remember the deposit!”

“I'll remember,” Shi Feng said without turning.

Behind him, forty disciples went quiet and started placing bets.

The first breath inside already felt like standing too close to a forge. The noise of the crowd fell away behind the first bend, and ahead of him the red light on the walls began to move.