Chapter 252 — Covered Rings

CHAPTER 252

Covered Rings

The rope square at Three-Road Border Market stood empty at noon.

Nobody from the Palace side had come to fight. A sign hung on one stake in Warden Gui's cramped handwriting: Today's exchanges postponed, owing to the weather. The sky was blue from edge to edge.

Shi Feng sat behind the stall, drinking tea. Beside him on a low stool, Ge Shun peeled a boiled egg one-handed with great seriousness. His left arm was in a clean splint, and his colour had returned. Every few minutes he glanced at Shi Feng as if checking that he was real.

“Senior Brother Shi,” Ge Shun said. “Those are the eggs my father brought.”

“I know,” Shi Feng said.

“You gave me half,” Ge Shun said.

“Your arm’s mending,” Shi Feng said. “Eat them. You need the strength more than I need six eggs.”

Zhu Liu came running up the lane, sandals slapping, with his receipt book flapping under his arm. He skidded to a halt and took three breaths before he could speak.

“I delivered it,” Zhu Liu said.

“And?” Sima Lan asked. She had not looked up from her ledger.

“Warden Gui read it twice,” Zhu Liu said. “Then he asked if it was a joke. I said it was an invoice, so he asked for a receipt for receiving the invoice.” He looked troubled. “I wasn’t sure which book that belonged in.”

“Did you give him one?” Sima Lan said.

“I gave him two,” Zhu Liu said. “One for the paper, and one for the stamp. Then he went red to the ears and asked me to leave.”

Sima Lan made a note.

“He sent a runner to the Palace,” Zhu Liu added. “I saw it go. It ran very fast.”

“Then the invoice will arrive before lunch,” Sima Lan said. “Good. They'll have time to digest it.”

Shi Feng drank his tea. He thought, Wei Chengyuan will see it. A man of his rank will throw the page across the room.

Then he put the thought down. He couldn't do anything about it either way.

A group of five Martial Palace disciples came down the lane toward the stall.

They were young, in outer-court robes, laughing among themselves. They hadn't been looking at the stall. They were looking at a sweet-potato seller's cart on the far side. Then the nearest one lifted his head and saw who sat behind the table.

His laugh stopped.

His laughter stopped when he saw Shi Feng. He covered his storage ring at once. The disciple beside him followed, then the other three. All five passed in a tight line, hands clamped over their rings and eyes fixed on the ground.

None of them dared to look Shi Feng in the face.

Ge Shun's egg stopped halfway to his mouth.

“Did you see that?” a girl said quietly from the queue.

“They're hiding their rings!”

“It's a deposit! He's not going to take it by force!”

“He might.”

“He wouldn't. Would he?”

“Bitten once by a snake, ten years afraid of a well rope.”

“…”

A carter hauling firewood saw two Palace disciples coming toward the stall from the other end of the lane. Before they reached him, both of them stopped, looked at one another, and without a word crossed to the opposite side. The lane was fifty paces wide. They walked the whole way around the well to avoid passing the table.

They kept their hands over their rings the entire time.

The carter looked at the empty lane and scratched his neck.

“Seventeen,” Sima Lan said.

“Seventeen what?” Shi Feng asked.

“Palace disciples avoiding the stall,” Sima Lan said, turning the page. “Seventeen since the morning bell. Foot traffic from their side is down by half. Servants sent to buy for their masters are up by a third. We’ve never taken so much.”

“That's your doing,” Shi Feng said.

“It's yours,” Sima Lan said. “I'm only recording it.”

From the roof of the tea shop across the lane, Lin Langtian looked down at the lane, and the covered fingers, and the crossing pair, and his face broke into a smile that stretched from ear to ear.

“Look at them go!” Lin Langtian called. “That, Junior Brother, is reputation! A man's name is a tree's shadow, as they say. You don't even need to say anything now. The ring covers itself!”

“I'd rather they bought pills,” Shi Feng said.

“Soon, soon!” Lin Langtian said.

A shadow stopped at the corner of the stall. Duan Yichen stood there in his outer-court badge, looking at the splinted arm, the eggs and the empty rope square, with his usual shuttered face.

“Disgraceful,” Duan Yichen said, to the air.

“I'm sure,” Shi Feng said.

“I came to buy a headache pill. For a friend.” Duan Yichen laid a coin on the table and took the pill. He didn't look at it. Under his breath, so that nobody else could hear, Duan Yichen added: “Elder Wei's deputy received your invoice an hour ago. He didn't shout.”

“What did he do?” Shi Feng asked.

“He read it standing up,” Duan Yichen said. “Then he sat down very quietly.”

Shi Feng thought, He didn’t dismiss it in anger. He sat down to consider it. That was less satisfying than a shout and more dangerous. He watched Duan Yichen disappear into the market.

In his sleeve, among the little cream cards in Lin's flourishing hand, one was still blank.