Chapter 215 — The Slag Weight

CHAPTER 215

The Slag Weight

“That's the bottom of the barrel,” Zhu Liu said. “Literally.”

He tipped the barrel on its side and shook it. A last handful of grey dust slid out, mixed with a few bits of burnt charcoal and some flakes of bronze. Zhu Liu counted the flakes anyway.

It was the one hundred and forty-first attempt. Shi Feng no longer remembered the other hundred and forty. Three days of sweepings had given him eleven lumps, two cracked blobs and nothing that looked like a needle. The sun was low, his hands were sore, and he was packing his tools into the box when he saw the last pile.

Shi Feng thought, Waste of charcoal. Then he thought, Why not.

He swept the last dust, bronze flakes, charcoal ends, and black crumbs into the crucible. Then he lit the fire. He was exhausted and barely adjusted his stance. He just wanted to finish the barrel before the light failed.

Strike. Strike. Strike. Strike. Strike. Strike. Strike.

He didn't pause before the seventh. He didn't think about it either. The hammer simply rose and fell, and his qi followed it down into the metal without being asked.

The fire turned a dull orange, then a strange dark red. The metal rang once, low and heavy, and went still.

On the anvil lay an ingot the length of his palm. It was thick and ugly and the colour of wet slate. One edge was rough and the other was crooked, and a faint line of dull silver ran along one side.

“Another lump,” Zhu Liu said, almost with relief.

“Probably,” Shi Feng said.

He Zhen's footsteps sounded outside the lean-to. The elder came for his evening inspection every day, and every day Shi Feng showed him the pile. He Zhen carried a flat block of Grade 1 spirit iron under one arm. It was his test block, the one every needle had to pierce.

“Show me,” He Zhen said.

Shi Feng pointed at the ingot. He Zhen looked at it, sighed and set his test block on the bench beside the anvil.

“A lump,” He Zhen said. “Again.”

He picked up the ingot to turn it over. It was heavy. His wrist dropped half an inch, and the crooked edge of the ingot touched the test block as he put it back down.

There was no sound at all.

The ingot slid straight through the block. Two clean halves fell apart on the bench with a small click, and the ingot sat on the table between them, not even scratched.

He Zhen's brush fell out of his hand.

“…”

Outside the fence, the gossips fell silent. A moment later, they all started at once.

“The block just fell in half!”

“He cut a Grade 1 block with a lump!”

“With a lump? We had eyes and failed to see Mount Tai!”

“I told you it was a very slow weapon.”

Zhu Liu opened his receipt book with shaking hands. “One test block,” Zhu Liu whispered. “Cut. I'll have to write it as damage.”

“Don't write anything yet,” He Zhen said hoarsely. He picked up both halves. The cut was so smooth that the two faces shone. “Zhu Liu. Fetch Elder Tian Luo. Tell him to bring a Grade 2 block.”

Tian Luo came quickly, with a Grade 2 block and three inner-court elders behind him. The ingot cut the second block as easily as the first. It cut a Grade 3 block too, though that one took two tries.

The elders began to argue before the third block had finished falling.

“The task was a needle,” He Zhen insisted. “Where’s the hollow? Where’s the qi thread? I can’t pass him because a lump cuts well. It hasn’t met a single requirement!”

“It cuts Grade 3 iron!” Tian Luo said. “You can't call that none!”

“We judge its form as well as its function,” He Zhen said. “You can’t ignore one because the other surprised you. Without a compass and a square, one cannot draw a circle.”

“Then what do you grade a thing with no form?” Tian Luo asked.

An elder uncertainly suggested slag. Very good slag, certainly, but none of them could agree what else to call the ugly ingot. The argument continued over the clean halves of the test blocks.

Shi Feng stood to one side with soot on his face. Nobody asked him anything, and he saw no reason to interrupt. Nearby, an old man with a broom was sweeping a patch of ground that was already clean.

Li Changyuan leaned on the broom and looked at the ingot for a long moment.

“Whose iron is it?” Li Changyuan asked.

“The sect's, Sect Master,” He Zhen said, bowing. “Sweepings from the old barrel.”

“Then half of it's mine,” Li Changyuan said. He walked off, sweeping as he went.

The elders went quiet. After a long breath, Tian Luo coughed into his hand.

“The grade will be reviewed,” Tian Luo said. “For now, the record says: not graded.”

Zhu Liu wrote it down with great relief.

Shi Feng took the cool, heavy ingot while the elders argued. The wind lifted Zhu Liu’s receipts from the table again. After chasing them twice this week, Shi Feng had an idea.

He set the ingot on top of them. Not one sheet moved.

“It's a paperweight,” Shi Feng said.

Zhu Liu bent over his book and wrote carefully: Item: one weight, grey. Made from slag. After a moment, he crossed out the second part and wrote Slag Weight, because it was shorter.

He Zhen looked at the empty barrel, then at Shi Feng.

“You haven't passed the exercise,” He Zhen said. “And there's no more iron in the sect to give you.”

“I'll think of something,” Shi Feng said.

“I'd like to hear it before you do,” He Zhen said.

“Iron?” Lin Langtian called from the fence. “Did I come at the right time?”

Lin Langtian was leaning on the posts with a potato in his hand, looking more interested than anyone had a right to look.

“Did somebody say there's no iron?” Lin Langtian asked.