Chapter 224 — Honest Advertising

CHAPTER 224

Honest Advertising

“No, no, no!” Lin Langtian said. “That sign is a disaster!”

Lin Langtian had barely arrived before he read the board, kicked the stool, and helped himself to a comfortable place by the stall. Now he held the sign up for everyone to see. Shi Feng waited for the inevitable advice.

“It says what the stall does,” Shi Feng said.

“You’ve told them where to bring herbs,” Lin Langtian said. “Tell them why they should bring them to you! Even good wine fears a deep alley! Zhu Liu, fetch a crate. They need to see me.”

“Which crate, Chief Disciple?” Zhu Liu asked.

“Any crate that can hold a man of my glory,” Lin Langtian said.

Zhu Liu ran. Sima Lan slowly raised her head from the herb bundles. She looked deeply suspicious of whatever Lin Langtian planned to do with a crate and an audience.

Within the minute, Lin Langtian was standing on a crate at the outer-court gate with his arms spread. The queue turned to stare. Passing disciples stopped. Cui Hong appeared at his post and decided that today he needed a different post.

“Disciples of the outer court!” Lin Langtian shouted. “Listen to the story of Granny Wu of the eastern slope!”

“Who's Granny Wu?” someone whispered.

“Nobody knows her,” someone else whispered.

“She was bedridden for twenty years!” Lin Langtian said. “Twenty! She couldn't lift a spoon! Then her grandson bought a pill from this very stall, and the next morning she carried two buckets of water up the mountain! On her own legs! Singing!”

“Senior Brother Lin,” Shi Feng said. “There's no Granny Wu.”

“Of course there's a Granny Wu,” Lin Langtian said, not lowering his voice. “There is now. I just made her. She's wonderful. Next!”

The crowd murmured.

“Is that true?”

“Chief Disciple Lin wouldn't lie...”

“He's lying right now! Look at his face!”

“But the pill is real. I saw the princess's pill.”

“So is the granny real or not?”

“…”

“Next, the story of Young Master Pei of the western dormitory!” Lin Langtian shouted. “Cultivation stalled for three years! Parents crying! Dog refusing to look at him! One pill, and he broke through before the dog finished its breakfast! The dog has since apologised!”

Sima Lan pressed two fingers to her forehead.

“Is he going to say that the dog apologised in front of everyone?” Sima Lan asked.

“He already did,” Shi Feng said.

“Of course he did,” Sima Lan said.

Shi Feng stood beside the cauldron and let it happen. He'd told Lin Langtian once that it wasn't accurate. Telling him again would only make the speech louder. Besides, the queue had doubled.

By late afternoon it had reached the dormitory wall. Disciples who had never spoken to the champion pushed forward, one holding a fistful of fever herbs. The old herb-sorter from the storehouse came back with his brother. Cui Hong, finally, gave up pretending not to look and began counting heads on his board.

“Forty-three,” Cui Hong muttered. “Forty-three, from a cracked cauldron.”

“Forty-four,” Zheng Yu said. “Someone's grandfather.”

Then the cauldron went wrong.

It was the thirty-first pill of the day, a Qi-Calming Pill from herbs bought by a nervous student named Hu Tao. Shi Feng smelled it before he saw it. The herbs had been mixed with a cheap filler leaf, the kind some stalls used to stretch their stock. He tried to compensate, but the flame was already committed. The pill came out grey, lumpy and bitter.

A waste pill.

Hu Tao's face fell. The queue behind him went silent.

“My herbs...” Hu Tao said. “Three weeks of my allowance...”

“I'll refund the ingredients,” Shi Feng said.

“You don't have to,” Sima Lan said sharply. “The stall's rule is...”

Lin Langtian jumped off his crate.

“Zhu Liu!” Lin Langtian said. “Write this down! Failed pill. Cause: bad herbs, not the alchemist. Loss on the alchemist! The stall repays the full cost to the customer, from the alchemist's own pocket!”

“From whose pocket?” Zhu Liu asked.

“His,” Lin Langtian said, pointing a sweet potato at Shi Feng. “And that is the proudest thing I've ever said at a gate. Hu Tao, here is your refund. Tomorrow, bring herbs that haven't been through three vendors.”

Shi Feng counted out the value from his own purse. Not the violet one. He paid in exact stones, and Hu Tao took them with shaking hands.

The queue let out a breath.

“He pays for his own failures?”

“The Pavilion never does that!”

“Sixty percent, and they keep the broken pill!”

“This stall is honest! Heaven has eyes!”

“…”

Sima Lan closed her mouth before finishing her objection. The crowd was praising the stall, and Hu Tao had his money back. She finally understood why Lin Langtian had shouted the refund for everyone to hear.

“I would have charged the customer a handling fee,” Sima Lan said, very low.

“I know,” Shi Feng said.

“It would have been cheaper,” Sima Lan said.

“And tomorrow they’d remember who took their money,” Shi Feng said. “I’d rather they came back.”

That night, in the hut, Shi Feng sat on the floor with a plate of grey, bitter lumps that Zhu Liu had swept up. He took one and chewed.

[Devoured: failed pill | Gain: herbs' worth, exactly | Note: filler leaf, tastes of old rope]

He swallowed the second.

Outside the door, Lin Langtian's laugh floated by.

“The mocker is still watching, Junior Brother!” Lin Langtian called, not bothering to knock. “Did you see his face? He's counting the queue!”

“I saw,” Shi Feng said.

“Good,” Lin Langtian said. “A man who promises a month should be held to a month. I've written it in the receipt book in my own handwriting. Don't thank me!”

Shi Feng had not been about to.