Chapter 2 — Tenth Under Heaven

CHAPTER 2

Tenth Under Heaven

Shi Feng stopped outside the reception hall. A servant reached to shut the side door and pointed him toward the main entrance. The guests wanted everyone to see him come in. Very well. He pulled his cuff straight and entered by the middle.

Shi Zhen waited in his ceremonial belt, dressed well for a nephew’s disgrace.

“Late! The clan’s guests are waiting, and the boy dawdles outside!” Shi Zhen muttered to the elder beside him. “Where are his manners?”

Clan Head Shi Rong sat at the head of the hall with the elders below him in order of seniority. The Lu family sat on the left and the White Crane Pavilion’s visitors on the right. At every window, junior disciples and maids had suddenly found a reason to dust the lattice.

No chair had been set out for Shi Feng.

He bowed to the clan head and to the guests. He stood at the table’s end. The Second Elder wanted him to look like a criminal.

“Shi Feng…” Lu Qingxue said softly, rising.

“Lu Qingxue,” Shi Feng replied.

She held a sealed scroll. Good, Shi Feng thought. They could finish without wasting the morning.

That spring, the Thousand Blossom Register ranked her tenth among Great Liang’s young beauties. Merchants raised prices, claiming a fairy’s hometown shouldn’t sell cheap cloth. Shi Feng didn’t understand how her face improved their cloth.

Han Zheng, the Pavilion’s steward, lifted two fingers. A sealed wooden case rose from a servant’s arms, floated across the hall and landed on the table without a sound.

The elders gasped. Controlling objects without touching them marked Foundation Establishment. In Qingshi Town, people bowed to that realm from across the street.

“The old agreement between your families is no longer suitable,” Han Zheng said impatiently, in the tone of a clerk reading a grain tally. “Disciple Lu has been chosen for our Cloud Ascension instruction. Her future needs freedom from promises that can’t be kept anymore.”

Shi Feng ignored the case and looked at Lu Qingxue.

“Is this your decision?” Shi Feng asked.

“Yes… I,” Lu Qingxue said. Her eyes went to the steward first, and then came back.

Shi Feng noticed that first glance and nodded.

“Let’s get this over with,” Han Zheng continued, with a sneer. “The Pavilion offers three hundred spirit stones, a Meridian-Mending Pill, and a full year of treatment from our outer physicians.”

At the windows, the maids were so shocked they forgot to dust.

“Three hundred!”

“And a pill from the Pavilion itself!”

“The Second Elder’s eyes are shining!”

Shi Zhen leaned forward in his seat. Greed was written all over his face.

“May I hear her answer in full?” Shi Feng asked the steward.

Han Zheng’s fingers stopped on the arm of his chair. After a moment he nodded, and Lu Qingxue stepped away from the guests.

“My master has offered me a path I couldn’t have imagined eighteen months ago,” Lu Qingxue said quietly. “If I take it, I’ll be gone for years. I… I don’t want to promise you a life I’m not even sure I want. I’m sorry.”

At least she gave a clear answer.

“You want the engagement ended,” Shi Feng said.

“Yes,” Lu Qingxue said.

One person no longer wanted the engagement. There was nothing more to discuss.

“Then it should end,” Shi Feng said.

Shi Zhen let out a long breath of relief. Lu Qingxue didn’t.

“I asked to speak with you privately,” Lu Qingxue said, lowering her voice. “I wanted to…” She stopped.

“But you agreed to speak here, didn’t you?” Shi Feng said.

“…Yes,” Lu Qingxue said, and looked down at the scroll.

He held out his hand. Han Zheng passed him the scroll and a brush already dipped in ink, like he was a child being given medicine.

Shi Feng read. The scroll returned the ancestral pledges, released both families, and declared the decision mutual. The last line made him say, in front of everyone, that the settlement was fair.

They wanted him to sign away the insult with the engagement.

“Isn’t the sum enough?” Han Zheng asked, sneering.

“The money is generous,” Shi Feng said. “The sentence next to it costs too much.”

“The pill alone is a great treasure! Do you know how many people would beg for it?” Han Zheng said.

“Can it restore my meridians?” Shi Feng asked.

“It’s a treasure of our Pavilion,” Han Zheng said.

Shi Feng waited. The silence stretched, and the steward said nothing.

“Their own physicians don’t think it can,” Lu Qingxue said in a small voice.

Han Zheng’s expression changed. “Disciple Lu!” Han Zheng said sharply.

“He asked,” Lu Qingxue said, not lowering her eyes.

“Thanks,” Shi Feng said, inclining his head toward her.

Then he took the brush, crossed out the word mutual, and wrote beneath it in small, neat characters: Requested by Lu Qingxue. Accepted by Shi Feng.

Han Zheng’s smile vanished.

“That’s unnecessary,” Han Zheng said, his voice sharp.

“It’s what happened,” Shi Feng said.

“Both wordings mean the same thing. Stop wasting my time,” Han Zheng said.

“Then the true one shouldn’t be a problem,” Shi Feng said.

He turned the scroll and drew one clean line through the compensation line.

“How dare you!” Shi Zhen barked, half rising from his chair. “The clan’s already approved this!”

“I haven’t agreed to that part,” Shi Feng said.

“Do you think turning down money will fix your status?” Shi Zhen shouted. “Do you think three hundred spirit stones grow on the plum tree in your yard?”

“No,” Shi Feng said.

Shi Zhen waited furiously for an explanation that never came.

The windows filled with whispers.

“He crossed out three hundred spirit stones!”

“Is he crazy?”

“He’s lost his mind along with his meridians!”

“…”

Shi Feng needed those stones.

He thought of the leaking roof and wanted to sign. But he wouldn’t take money to call this fair. He still owned his name.

His fingers trembled as he signed. He laid the brush on its rest, not across the wet page.

“We can each keep a copy,” Shi Feng said.

“Hmph. Young people love their dignity,” Han Zheng said. “Let’s hope you can afford it.”

A heavy pressure fell on his shoulders, and his knees weakened. He set one hand on the table and felt the pale mark under his fingertips. Teacups rattled on their saucers. At the windows the maids shrank back from the lattice without knowing why.

The steward was crushing a cripple before the whole clan!

Shi Feng gritted his teeth. I won’t kneel!

The wooden table groaned under his palm. Han Zheng narrowed his eyes and pressed harder, releasing a second wave of Foundation Establishment pressure that made the nearest elders duck their heads and clutch their chairs.

Shi Feng’s knees trembled once, locked, and held. Slowly, inch by inch, he lifted his chin until he was looking straight into the steward’s eyes.

He didn’t kneel.

At the windows and along the hall, the whispers broke out in a rush of shock.

“He’s still standing!”

“That’s Foundation Establishment pressure—even the Third Elder had to bow his shoulders!”

“He doesn’t have a single working meridian, and Steward Han can’t force his knees down!”

“Look at the steward’s face—if he presses any harder, everyone will know White Crane Pavilion had to murder a cripple just to make him bow!”

Han Zheng’s jaw tightened. Clan Head Shi Rong sat straight up, staring at Shi Feng’s back. The watching disciples stepped back from the sill. Nobody laughed.

Only when Han Zheng’s aura faltered against that stubborn spine did Lu Qingxue step forward beside the table.

“He’s signed, Steward Han,” Lu Qingxue said, her voice tight. “The Pavilion has its copy.”

Han Zheng withdrew his pressure and rose, glancing coldly at Shi Feng’s unbent knees. As the guests left, Lu Qingxue paused beside Shi Feng with an envelope hidden inside her cuff.

“The Pavilion physicians’ first report,” Lu Qingxue whispered hurriedly. “Steward Han ordered it buried in the outer archive. I… I copied it before we left.”

Shi Feng glanced at the crane-marked seal without reaching for it in front of the hall.

“Would their report say anything different from the one I already have?” Shi Feng asked.

“I haven’t read the whole thing,” Lu Qingxue admitted in a low voice. “Only that they questioned the diagnosis.”

“Not in front of your steward,” Shi Feng said calmly. “Keep it until you’re not being watched.”

She slipped it back into her sleeve and left. He didn’t ask her to look back.

When the carriage bell sounded, Shi Feng pulled out an empty chair and sat. Two elders moved their teacups without meeting his eyes.

Shi Zhen stood with his ledger, trying to recover his authority.

“Since you want to be so independent,” Shi Zhen said, forcing his voice loud into the quiet room, “let’s talk about the eastern courtyard.”

Shi Feng lifted his head.

This time, his hand was steady.