Chapter 244 — Clause Seven

CHAPTER 244

Clause Seven

By the time the stall closed, Shi Feng was grey from head to foot.

Duanyang City's market had been dry for a week. Every cart that passed had thrown up dust, and the cauldron fire had added a layer of smoke on top. Part of it was pill smoke, part was road, and the rest, he suspected, was Elder Pang's pressure, which had left a stale taste in the air for an hour.

He climbed the eastern lane to hut nine with his sleeves stiff and his hair gritty. The sun was low. Zhu Liu had been sent ahead with the receipt book, and Sima Lan walked three steps behind him with the folded stool.

She stopped at his door.

“Stand there,” Sima Lan said.

“Why?” Shi Feng asked.

“Because I’m trying to work out how you got this dirty,” Sima Lan said, folding her arms.

He stood. She walked around him once with her arms folded, the way a steward inspects a wagon.

“Your collar is black,” Sima Lan said. “So are your ears. You have a cabbage leaf on your shoulder.”

Shi Feng looked. There was a cabbage leaf on his shoulder. He didn't remember how it had got there.

“I'll wash,” Shi Feng said.

“You will wash badly,” Sima Lan said. “You did it badly last week, and I wrote it down.” She pushed his door open and went in ahead of him. “Clause seven. The Attendant keeps the Employer's person in presentable condition at all public occasions. A stall counts as a public occasion.”

“I don't remember clause seven,” Shi Feng said.

“You signed it,” Sima Lan said, pulling the tub out. “Below six, above eight. Don’t pretend you only remember the clauses you like. Sit down.”

He looked at the tub. He looked at her. Sima Lan's face was perfectly flat, and her ears, he noticed, were the same colour as the tabletop.

He sat on the low stool with his back to her.

Water splashed. He heard her roll back her sleeves, wring a cloth, and set a bar of soap on the tub's edge. The cloth landed between his shoulder blades, hot and rough, and he almost flinched.

“Hold still,” Sima Lan said.

“It's hot,” Shi Feng said.

“It's supposed to be hot. You're dirty,” Sima Lan said. The cloth scrubbed in a slow circle. “Your shoulders are a disgrace. Sit still.”

“They're only shoulders,” Shi Feng said.

“They're knotted. Here, and here,” Sima Lan said. She pressed two thumbs under his shoulder blade, and he made a sound he hadn't planned. “That's from sitting on a stool for nine hours with your arms forward. Next time I will move the cauldron.”

“Are you going to say that every time?” Shi Feng said.

“Yes,” Sima Lan said.

Shi Feng stared at the wall while she worked. He was embarrassed by how pleasant the hot cloth felt after the dusty road. He thought, I should ask her to stop. But she had cited the contract, and he didn’t quite want to argue.

“Elder Pang,” Sima Lan said, and her voice was a little lower. “How did you know?”

“The qi went round something. It had to be cracked,” Shi Feng said.

“You had never seen him before,” Sima Lan said.

“No,” Shi Feng said.

“And you said it in front of a hundred people,” Sima Lan said.

“He asked me to close the stall in front of a hundred people,” Shi Feng said.

The cloth paused. Then it went on again, a little firmer.

“You could have waited until he wasn’t threatening the whole street,” Sima Lan said, scrubbing a little harder. “Do you ever choose an easy moment?”

“Is that in the contract?” Shi Feng said.

“It'll be in the next draft,” Sima Lan said. She wrung the cloth again. “Two stones. Water, soap, labour. I'm charging it to you.”

“Two stones,” Shi Feng agreed.

The door banged open.

“JUNIOR BROTHER! I have heard the most magnificent…” Lin Langtian said.

Lin Langtian stopped. He stood in the doorway with a sweet potato in his raised hand and his mouth open.

On the stool, Shi Feng sat with his robe down at his waist and his back to the room. Behind him, Sima Lan knelt with her sleeves rolled and a steaming cloth in her hand.

Nobody spoke.

“Clause seven,” Sima Lan said at last, without turning her head.

“SHE'S WASHING HIS BACK!” Lin Langtian shrieked.

The shriek went through the walls like a thunderclap through paper. A bird fell off the roof. Down the lane, a window banged, and another, and a third.

“She's washing his back!” Lin Langtian cried, flinging out both arms. “The princess! The princess is washing the champion's back! I'm going to cry! Somebody tell the elders! Good things take their time, as they say! I've been hoping for this since the day I met you!”

“You met me in a cave,” Shi Feng said.

“It was a very romantic cave!” Lin Langtian said.

“Lin Langtian,” Sima Lan said. “Close the door.”

“Absolutely not. I'm witnessing,” Lin Langtian said.

“Clause eleven. Anyone who talks about the contract before it's stamped pays ten stones per mouth,” Sima Lan said.

“It's been stamped for weeks!” Lin Langtian said.

“Then clause seven stands,” Sima Lan said, “and so does the door.”

Lin Langtian looked at her, then at the cloth, then at the window, where a row of heads was now lined up like turnips on a market stall. Wu Qiang was in the middle, his jaw hanging wide.

“…” Lin Langtian said.

“She's really washing him,” someone whispered.

“The princess scrubs backs?”

“I've never been that jealous in my life.”

“A toad lusting after swan meat, and the toad gets the swan!”

“Close the shutter!” another voice hissed. “They'll see us!”

“You close it!”

Sima Lan kept scrubbing despite the watching faces. Her ears were red, and she was furious with Lin Langtian for shouting. Shi Feng couldn’t see her expression, but he could feel how firmly she pressed the cloth.

Lin Langtian saw it too. His grin spread until it nearly met his ears.

“Ten stones,” Sima Lan said, “for the shriek.”

“I'll pay it in potatoes,” Lin Langtian said.

“Not accepted,” Sima Lan said.

He dug out ten stones and put them on the floor with a flourish. Then he sat down cross-legged in the doorway and began to peel his potato, watching the two of them like a man at the best play of his life.