Chapter 226 — Terms of Retention

CHAPTER 226

Terms of Retention

The knock came three times, evenly spaced, like a clerk's.

Shi Feng set down the receipt book he was checking and opened the door. Sima Lan stood in the corridor with one sheet of paper held at chest height. Chalk dust still clung to her sleeve from the tally wall.

“May I come in?” Sima Lan asked.

“Come in,” Shi Feng said, stepping aside. “You’ve checked the books already. Is that paper going to tell me what else I’ve done wrong?”

She stepped inside, looked once at the cracked cauldron in the corner and the broom leaning beside it, and sat down at his table without being invited. Then she laid the paper in front of him and turned it to face him.

“Terms of Retention,” Sima Lan said. “Read them.”

Shi Feng read the heading. Below it were eleven clauses in small, upright writing. There wasn't a single crossed-out word.

“Who's retaining who?” Shi Feng asked.

“I'm offering you a competent administrator,” Sima Lan said. “Consider it a favour to your stall.”

He read the first clause. She would manage his stall, ledger, customers and schedule. The second clause cut the referral fee, since a wage would replace it. The third said the stall's books would be kept by her hand alone, and Zhu Liu would be demoted to carrying the stool.

“Zhu Liu will be relieved,” Shi Feng said.

“Zhu Liu wrote 'ten percent of nothing' in the receipt column yesterday,” Sima Lan said. “He'll be a happy man.”

Shi Feng kept reading.

Clause five set her wage at forty spirit stones a month. Clause six let her buy his pills at the price of the ingredients only, with no fee and no margin. The seventh clause named the party providing the service, and the word was “Attendant.”

“Attendant,” Shi Feng said.

“An assistant can be dismissed over one bad week,” Sima Lan said. “An attendant can't. Clause nine.”

He turned the page over, found nothing on the back, and turned it again.

“You walked out of the palace,” Shi Feng said.

“I did,” Sima Lan said.

“And you sent the stipend back,” Shi Feng said. “At the gate. I saw it.”

“They don’t send it for nothing,” Sima Lan said. “Eat another’s food and your mouth goes soft; take another’s gift and your hand goes short. Every season it comes with another request to go home and be useful in whatever way they choose. I’m done letting that purse decide for me.”

Her voice stayed flat, but her fingers pressed the edge of the table.

“Then you have no income,” Shi Feng said.

“I have my place in the outer court. Nobody’s paying my way,” Sima Lan said. “For four months the Pavilion pills did nothing. Four months at late Foundation Establishment. Then I tried one of yours, and it worked.”

“You said you were testing a fraud,” Shi Feng said.

“I was,” Sima Lan said. “You failed to be one.”

Shi Feng thought, She didn't come here to hire me. She came here because she ran out of other doors, and she wrote eleven clauses so nobody could call it begging.

He respected that. He also noticed that the paper was very well written.

“And the price?” Shi Feng asked. “Of my pills.”

“At the Pavilion's rate I'd need six months of wages for one pill,” Sima Lan said. “I can't pay that. I can work, though. So I'm proposing the exchange, since I can't afford the alternative.”

She said it as though she were reading out a bill.

“Why me?” Shi Feng asked.

“You need someone to run this stall while you refine,” Sima Lan said. “Your books are a disgrace. You forget what your time costs. Leave it like that, and you’ll work yourself into a loss within a month.”

“That last part is fair,” Shi Feng said.

“It's accurate,” Sima Lan said. “Clause ten says I keep Lin Langtian out of your room. He's been in it twice this week.”

“He lives on the mountain,” Shi Feng said.

“He'll live on the other side of that door,” Sima Lan said.

Shi Feng read the clauses again. Across the table, Sima Lan kept her back straight and her hands still. He could see she expected a refusal. The careful wording mattered to her; she wanted to be treated as someone offering useful work.

He finished the last clause. Then he picked up the paper, tilted it to the lamp, and read the first line once more.

“I have one question,” Shi Feng said.

Sima Lan's chin lifted a fraction. “Ask.”

“Who supplies the chalk?” Shi Feng said.

For a moment she said nothing.

“…It's on the ledger,” Sima Lan said at last. “Billed to the contract.”

“Then I accept,” Shi Feng said.

He reached for the brush.

Out in the corridor, something heavy thumped against the wall. A cheerful voice began humming, badly. The smell of roasted sweet potato drifted under the door.

Sima Lan closed her eyes.

“Clause ten,” Sima Lan said, very quietly. “We haven't even signed it yet.”