Chapter 241 — Elder Pang Walks Across the Street

CHAPTER 241

Elder Pang Walks Across the Street

“Elder Pang is coming!”

The cry spread through Duanyang’s market street the next morning. Stallholders pulled in their awnings. A woman dragged her child clear of the road. Thirty customers abandoned their places at Shi Feng’s stall and crowded against the shop walls.

Shi Feng poured himself another cup of tea.

“Mid Golden Core,” a herb seller whispered.

“I heard late Golden Core.”

“My cousin says he cracked a mountain with his fist!”

“Last month it was a hill,” someone muttered.

“It grows every time it's told,” another voice said. “Yesterday he was early Nascent Soul.”

Zhu Liu was standing behind the stool with the receipt book clutched to his chest. His knees were knocking so hard that the stool rattled.

“Senior Brother Shi,” Zhu Liu whispered. “Should I write a receipt for him?”

“For what?” Shi Feng asked.

“I don’t know,” Zhu Liu admitted. “I’m trying to do something with my hands before they shake the book out of them.”

“Not yet,” Shi Feng said.

Beside the table, Sima Lan kept writing. Her brush didn't slow. She was recording the day's third batch of Clear Marrow Pills, line by line, in a hand as square as a gravestone. Only a small crease between her brows showed she had heard anything.

“Forty-one sold,” Sima Lan said. “If he scares off the queue, the day will be thirty short.”

“Write down the loss,” Shi Feng said. “If he’s come to shut us down, he can hear what that costs.”

Sima Lan paused. Then she wrote a note in the margin of the ledger. Zhu Liu saw it and went a shade paler.

Across the street, the Martial Palace pharmacy had gone very quiet. The clerk who had hammered up the notice stood in the doorway wringing his hands. He had the look of a man who had written a letter and now saw the answer arriving on foot.

The crowd parted.

Seven men walked down the middle of the street. Six were retainers in black Martial Palace robes, with swords at their hips and chests thrust out. The seventh walked in front of them.

Elder Pang was a broad man with a square grey beard and a belt as wide as a plate. His robe was dark red, embroidered with a fist in gold thread. He walked with his shoulders back and his chin up, and his left hand rested on his belt as if it had always lived there.

Then his pressure rolled out.

It struck the street like a wave. A herb seller sat down hard on the ground. A boy in the crowd dropped his basket. Two customers near the stall staggered and caught each other's sleeves. Zhu Liu's stool gave a final rattle and went over, and Zhu Liu went with it.

“Early Golden Core, at least!” a man gasped.

“It's heavier than the sect gate guard's!”

“That's a real Elder of Martial Palace...”

“I can't breathe.”

“…”

Shi Feng set his cup on the table.

The pressure pushed hard against Shi Feng’s chest, then passed around him. He stayed seated. After enduring the Flame Cavern’s eighth ring, he could bear this much. He watched the elder instead of the frightened crowd.

He thought, Early Golden Core. Not mid. The rumours had added a whole stage along the way.

Elder Pang stopped three paces from the table. His retainers fanned out behind him, hands on their sword hilts.

“You are Shi Feng,” Elder Pang said. His voice was deep and slow. “The champion of the great tournament.”

“I am,” Shi Feng said.

“You do not stand?” Elder Pang said.

“I'm working,” Shi Feng said. “Tea's on the left, if you'd like some.”

A hiss ran through the crowd. A retainer with a scarred cheek named Hu Kai stepped forward, his sword half drawn.

“Insolent! Having eyes and failing to see Mount Tai!” Hu Kai shouted. “Do you know whose presence you are in?”

“Hu Kai,” Elder Pang said.

The retainer froze, then slid his sword home and stepped back.

Elder Pang inspected the trays, the cheap cauldron, and Sima Lan’s brush. His expression grew contemptuous. Then he looked back at Shi Feng, displeased that the young man still hadn’t risen.

“So this is the stall,” Elder Pang said. “So this is what Artificer Hall does with its champion. It sells pills in the dirt, across from a pharmacy that has been honest for eighty years. You won one tournament and took yourself for the sky. A frog at the bottom of a well!”

“It's been honest for eighty years,” Shi Feng agreed. “It's only been fair for the last four months.”

“What does that mean?” Elder Pang asked.

“Customers can work it out,” Shi Feng said.

The crowd choked. Somebody laughed and clamped a hand over their mouth. The clerk across the street covered his face with his sleeve.

Elder Pang's beard bristled. He took a step forward, and the pressure doubled.

Shi Feng didn't move. But while the old man's weight pressed down, he was looking at something else. A thread of qi ran through that pressure, wide and strong and red as the embroidery on his robe. Near the left side of the belt it wobbled, once, like a rope that had been spliced badly.

Shi Feng's eyes narrowed.

“Left,” Shi Feng said to himself.

“What was that?” Elder Pang asked sharply.

“Nothing,” Shi Feng said, and picked up his tea. “Please go on, Elder.”