Chapter 261 — The Overseer's Pick

CHAPTER 261

The Overseer's Pick

“The wager is between two chief disciples,” Dai Mu said. “It does not bind my mine.”

Dai Mu stood squarely in the yard with the pick over his shoulder. His black beard shifted as he spoke, slowly and stubbornly. Behind him, Tuoba Hong stopped brushing dust from his robe. The overseer had found a reason not to honour the wager.

“Excuse me?” Lin Langtian said from the stretcher. Two miners had carried him there, and he was lying with a wet cloth over his forehead. “I signed. He signed. You watched.”

“You signed the chiefs' wager,” Dai Mu said. “A strong dragon doesn't crush the snake of the land, and this is my land. Ore leaves Wujin through my gate. My gate has a rule. Nobody carries a cart past it until they've beaten the pick.”

“Is that a real rule?” Zhu Liu whispered, flipping through the receipt book.

“It is now,” Dai Mu said. He looked straight at Shi Feng. “The champion is here. He can test it for his sect.”

The miners buzzed.

“Early Golden Core against late Foundation Establishment?”

“That's not a test. That's a flattening.”

“Overseer Dai Mu broke a bandit's chest with that pick last year!”

“…”

Shi Feng looked at Lin Langtian. Lin Langtian lifted the cloth from his eyes just long enough to give him a tiny, delighted nod.

“Junior Brother,” Lin Langtian said weakly. “I'm injured. You'll have to go. For the sect.”

“You're not injured,” Shi Feng said.

“I'm deeply injured,” Lin Langtian said. “In the heart.”

Shi Feng sighed. He put his bag down beside the stretcher and drew the plain knife from his belt. Then he walked out into the yard and turned to face the overseer.

“Say your conditions,” Shi Feng said.

“If I win, you pay the inspection fee and take down the notice,” Dai Mu said. “Plus the repair of my gate.”

“Your gate is open,” Shi Feng said.

“It will need repair,” Dai Mu said, and swung.

The pick came down like a falling roof.

Shi Feng stepped aside. The head struck the slag where he'd been standing, and the whole yard shook. A crack opened and ran six paces, and black dust jumped as high as his knee. Dai Mu's refined artifact was a Grade 3 pick, heavy enough to split ore veins, and he wielded it as if it were a spoon.

Shi Feng cut at the haft. The knife rang off the wood and bounced away, leaving a white scratch and a numb wrist.

“Is that your sword art?” Dai Mu asked. “I've seen better in a kitchen.”

He swung again.

Shi Feng turned the knife flat and guided the pick past him with Iron River Sword Art. He ducked beneath the arc, recovered his stance, and gave way again. For six exchanges he stayed clear of the head. The miners began to murmur.

At the seventh, Dai Mu changed his grip. The pick's butt end whipped round and hit Shi Feng low on the left side.

Crack.

Pain bit through him. The Ledger sounded in his mind, flat as ever.

[Devoured: blunt blow, Golden Core qi | Gain: small | Note: it still counts as a rib]

He kept his feet. Dai Mu didn't give him time to breathe. The butt came again, then a backhand, then a third blow that rang against his side like a bell. Three cracks, one after another. Shi Feng stumbled, and for the first time in the fight his knee touched the slag.

“He's down!” a miner shouted.

“Finish him!”

“Don't kill him, we have to carry the wagons!”

Sweat ran down Shi Feng’s face. The stretcher was mostly hidden from this angle, but he knew Lin Langtian would be watching. That knowledge didn’t ease his broken ribs. He had to finish the fight himself.

He thought, Three ribs. A late Foundation Establishment cultivator can't outrun early Golden Core qi. I can't outrun him. So I won't.

He put his left hand into his sleeve.

The Slag Weight was the length of his palm, thick and ugly and the colour of wet slate. He had carried it since the day Zhu Liu named it, because it was a paperweight, and because he hadn't thought of a better use.

Dai Mu raised the pick for the last blow.

Shi Feng didn't dodge. He lifted the Slag Weight in one hand and the knife in the other, and he let the pick come down on both.

“Idiot!” somebody screamed. “He's courting death! It's a rock!”

The pick's head met the crooked edge of the ingot. There was no sound at all.

The Grade 3 head of the pick slid off the haft in two clean halves and fell into the slag. The haft itself dropped from Dai Mu's fingers. Dai Mu stared down at the stump of his artifact, then at the grey ugly lump in Shi Feng's hand.

“What,” Dai Mu said.

Shi Feng stepped inside his reach. The Iron River Sword Art, Major Success, was a simple thing at this distance. The flat of the knife touched the overseer's collarbone, slid over to the neck, and stopped there.

“Yield,” Shi Feng said.

Dai Mu's face worked. “It's—this is a trick! That thing is not a weapon!”

“It holds my papers down very well,” Shi Feng said, keeping the knife at Dai Mu’s neck. “You haven’t yielded yet.”

“…” Dai Mu said.

Nobody in the yard spoke. Two hundred miners and sixty guards were frozen like a painting. Then a very small voice came from the back.

“He cut a Grade 3 pick with a paperweight.”

“And broke three ribs doing it.”

“Whose ribs?”

“His own!”

“Then who won?”

“…”

“I yield,” Dai Mu said at last, in a voice like gravel in a bucket.

Shi Feng lowered the knife. His left side hurt sharply as he drew breath. He steadied himself for a moment, then stood upright. Zhu Liu was already running toward him, almost losing the abacus in his haste.

“Senior Brother Shi! Senior Brother Shi, your ribs!” Zhu Liu said.

“Three,” Shi Feng said. “Write it down. Forty stones a rib, plus one pick.”

“Pick?” Dai Mu croaked.

“Yours,” Shi Feng said. “Grade 3. I'll take the head in lieu.”

On the stretcher, Lin Langtian lifted the wet cloth from his eyes and, without sitting up, gave one slow nod.

“Lesson eight,” Lin Langtian sobbed. “He's ready.”