Chapter 204 — The Caring of a Chief Disciple

CHAPTER 204

The Caring of a Chief Disciple

The hut's door flew open without a knock.

Shi Feng was sitting on his plank bed, writing the day's coal receipt in neat columns. He didn't look up. After two days, he had stopped expecting anyone to use the latch.

“Junior Brother!” Lin Langtian announced, carrying a bamboo basket the size of a washtub. “Don't get up! Don't thank me! I'm here to care!”

“You said you were visiting this evening,” Shi Feng said.

“I’m here, aren’t I?” Lin Langtian said, kicking the door shut. “And I brought something better than conversation. Move that basket, get your cauldron out, and light the fire.”

Shi Feng put down his brush. The basket was covered with a clean cloth, but the smell rolling out of it was strong enough to make the room feel warmer. He lifted a corner of the cloth.

Seven herbs lay inside, each wrapped in its own piece of wet paper. One was a pale orchid with nine silver leaves. One was a red fruit the size of a thumb. One was a root that hummed faintly, as if it were thinking.

He recognised none of them by sight. He recognised the shape of the problem instantly.

“What recipe is this?” Shi Feng asked.

“Soul-Nurturing Pill,” Lin Langtian said happily. “Made from the Nine-Leaf Orchid, Red Marrow Fruit and friends. A good, honest, beginner's pill.”

“For Nascent Soul cultivators,” Shi Feng said.

“Yes,” Lin Langtian said.

“That's a 2 Mark recipe,” Shi Feng said. “I hold a 1 Mark. It stops at Golden Core.”

“The herbs won’t inspect your certificate,” Lin Langtian said. “You know it’s beyond you. Good. A fall into the pit, a gain in your wit. Now try it and find out where you fail.”

“They cost more than I do,” Shi Feng said.

“Much more. That's why I brought them.” Lin Langtian lowered his voice. “Don't worry about the price. It's on the chief disciple's tab at the herb hall. Nobody's ever seen that tab paid, so nobody's ever been brave enough to read it.”

Shi Feng looked at the seven herbs again. Back in Qingshi Town he'd have sold his last blanket for one of those leaves. Then he'd have wept for a week over wasting it.

He thought, This man isn't asking me to succeed. He's asking me to try something I can't do, and he knows it.

“I'll fail,” Shi Feng said.

“Of course you’ll fail,” Lin Langtian said, entirely untroubled. “I didn’t carry these here to watch you do something easy. A cultivator’s road goes against heaven. Light the fire.”

Shi Feng set up the cracked cauldron. Lin Langtian dragged over the last chair and sat with his chin on its back. He looked delighted, but he watched every movement of Shi Feng’s hands.

The recipe was in Shi Feng's head, copied from a scroll Lin Langtian dictated while he was lighting the furnace. First the orchid, to open the pill's skeleton. Then the root, at the lowest flame. Then the fruit, last and fastest, before the whole thing could sour.

He lit the fire and reached for the first herb.

The flame felt strange from the start. A 1 Mark recipe needed careful fire. This needed fire that listened. The cauldron hummed, and the orchid's nine leaves curled into the heat, softening into silver paste.

So far, so good, Shi Feng thought.

He added the humming root. The paste thickened, turned grey, then began to shake. Shi Feng lowered the flame by a hair.

Too much.

The paste shuddered. A crack ran across its skin, and the smell of the hut changed from medicine to burnt hair.

“Fruit!” Lin Langtian called. “Now! Quick!”

Shi Feng dropped in the red fruit. The cauldron coughed, and a single dull pellet rolled out onto the tray. It was grey-black, lumpy, and about as shiny as a stone from Tong Gui's coal sack.

Silence filled the hut.

“Well,” Lin Langtian said, with enormous kindness. “That's a pill.”

“That's a failure,” Shi Feng said.

“Then we’ve established that you can make something pill-shaped,” Lin Langtian said. “Don’t glare at it. Eat it.”

Shi Feng picked up the pellet. It was still warm, and the qi trapped inside was thick and wild, like a river dammed in the wrong place. Any other cultivator who swallowed it would have coughed up blood by morning.

He put it in his mouth.

It tasted of burnt orchid and pond water. It was extremely bitter.

Then the Physique woke up, and the pellet dissolved into warmth. The qi in the seven herbs poured through his meridians in a long, even wave. It was not the multiplied power of a real pill. It was exactly what the herbs were worth, no more.

The Ledger sounded in his mind.

[Devoured: failed pill | Gain: herbs' worth, exactly | Note: bitter]

He swallowed, grimaced, and wiped his mouth.

“There,” Lin Langtian said, beaming. “A real alchemist never wastes a failure. You've just eaten about four hundred spirit stones of orchid. Congratulations on your breakfast.”

“It was dinner,” Shi Feng said.

“Dinner, then!” Lin Langtian said, slapping his knee. “You’ve eaten well. Let your poor senior brother get one word wrong.”

“That wasn't a joke,” Shi Feng said.

“Even better,” Lin Langtian said.

Shi Feng waited for the warmth to settle through his bones. The cauldron ticked as it cooled. He had failed within a quarter of an hour, but he could still recall each change in the paste. The attempt had taught him where his control gave way.

“The orchid went wrong first,” Shi Feng said. “The skeleton wasn't ready when the root went in.”

Lin Langtian stopped laughing.

“Hm,” Lin Langtian said. Then he smiled again. “Good eyes. Same time tomorrow, Junior Brother. Different herbs.”

“Do you ever ask first?” Shi Feng asked.

“I'm not asking,” Lin Langtian said. “I'm caring.”

He tucked the empty basket under his arm and walked out. The door swung behind him, still open.