Chapter 212 — The Wall Outside His Door

CHAPTER 212

The Wall Outside His Door

Sima Lan stood in the corridor with a stick of chalk in her hand.

She was drawing short lines on the plaster beside his door. Four stood side by side, and she crossed them with a fifth. Then she started a new bundle. A faint smell of burnt iron hung around her, and she didn't look happy about it.

“What are you doing?” Shi Feng asked. His face was black with soot.

“Counting,” Sima Lan said without turning around.

“Counting what?” Shi Feng said.

“Your furnace,” Sima Lan said, finishing another bundle. “It explodes and my wall jumps. Again and again. I’ve heard one hundred and twelve so far.”

Shi Feng looked at the wall. Twenty-two bundles of five stood in a neat row, with two more lines after them. Behind him, Zhu Liu peered out of the lean-to with his receipt book open.

“It's correct,” Zhu Liu said in a small voice. “My book says one hundred and twelve too.”

“Then my ears are accurate,” Sima Lan said.

Shi Feng thought, She counted every one. That was twelve days of listening through a wall. He decided not to say that aloud.

“You're keeping a record,” Shi Feng said.

“Call it what you like,” Sima Lan said. “For twelve days I’ve had smoke through my window and a shaking bed every twenty minutes. How am I supposed to cultivate? If you won’t count the damage, I will.”

“I'll hang a wet cloth over the vent,” Shi Feng said. “And I'll move the forge door.”

“You'll do more than that,” Sima Lan said.

She held up the chalk. It had already worn down by a third.

“This costs two coppers. I'm adding it to your account,” Sima Lan said.

“I don't have an account with you,” Shi Feng said.

“You do now,” Sima Lan said, tapping the chalk against her palm. “Even brothers settle their accounts clearly. Chalk first. As for the smell, I haven’t decided what to charge. Don’t rush me.”

Shi Feng thought about arguing. A whole box of chalk cost one copper in Duanyang City, and he knew it. But he had just blown a lid across his own forge, and a calm answer was cheaper than a long one.

“Fine,” Shi Feng said.

Sima Lan stopped with the chalk in the air. She had clearly prepared a longer speech.

“You aren't going to argue?” Sima Lan asked.

“No,” Shi Feng said.

“…” Sima Lan said.

The princess turned back to the wall and drew the next line much harder than it needed. The chalk snapped in two. She picked up the pieces as if she'd meant to do that.

“Your rhythm is wrong,” Sima Lan said at last.

Shi Feng blinked. “My rhythm?”

“Six steady strikes, then you stop,” Sima Lan said. “About two breaths. After that comes the seventh strike and the bang. Every time. You’re flinching before you bring the hammer down.”

Shi Feng was silent for a moment.

On the first day, the bar had swelled on the seventh stroke. On the second day, the seventh. On the ninth day, the seventh again. He had been looking for the fault in his fire and his qi. He hadn't thought to listen to his own hammer.

“You heard that through a wall,” Shi Feng said.

“It's a thin wall,” Sima Lan said.

“You counted the pauses,” Shi Feng said.

“…It's a very thin wall,” Sima Lan said.

Zhu Liu, in the doorway, kept his eyes on the ink and his ears wide open. Shi Feng nodded slowly.

“Thank you,” Shi Feng said.

“Don’t thank me for helping,” Sima Lan said, turning so fast that her sleeve brushed the chalk. “I want you to finish that needle so I can sleep. That’s all.”

“I won't,” Shi Feng said.

“Good,” Sima Lan said. She held out her palm. “Two coppers.”

Shi Feng paid her. She counted them, pocketed them and walked to her own door without another word. Before she shut it, she paused with her hand on the frame.

“Your knuckles are bleeding,” Sima Lan said, not looking back. “If it gets on my wall, that's another charge.”

The door closed.

Shi Feng looked down. She was right. The blisters on his right hand had burst some time during the afternoon, and he hadn't noticed.

By morning half the outer court had come to look at the new tally.

“A hundred and twelve!”

“Who wrote this?”

“The princess! I saw her chalk!”

“Why is the princess counting the champion's failures?”

“Maybe she's collecting evidence.”

“Evidence of what? That he can't make a needle? A champion who doesn't know the height of heaven or the depth of the earth!”

Gongsun Ce's followers cheered. Shi Feng walked past them with a wet cloth wrapped around his hand and said nothing.

Zhu Liu was waiting at the lean-to with the receipt book. His face was grey.

“Senior Brother Shi,” Zhu Liu said. “The stock is gone.”

“All eighty?” Shi Feng asked.

“Seventy-nine are lumps,” Zhu Liu said. “They’ve all been melted three times, so they’re ordinary iron now. There’s only one proper bar left.” He swallowed. “I checked twice. Nobody can say I lost the others.”

Shi Feng walked over and looked at the last bar of spirit iron.

It sat there on its shelf, grey and heavy and perfectly innocent. A strange idea had been sitting at the back of his mind for three days. He had eaten every failed pill Lin Langtian had pushed on him, and each one had given back the worth of its herbs.

Spirit iron was a spirit material, wasn't it?

He looked at the bar the way he usually looked at dinner.