Chapter 271 — The Royal Artificer's Joint

CHAPTER 271

The Royal Artificer's Joint

“Lot fourteen,” Zhu Liu read from the sheet, in a voice that cracked at the second word. “One puppet wrist joint. Provenance…”

He stopped and read it again, to make sure.

“Provenance, the royal artificer line of Great Song, by Third Prince Gongsun Ce of Artificer Hall,” Zhu Liu said. “Starting price, thirty stones.”

The trade fair crowded the road inside the outer gate. Disciples browsed swords, herbs, and talismans while chestnut sellers worked beside them. In the long auction shed, three hundred people gathered with unfinished dinners to watch the sects’ lots go up for sale.

Beside the platform, Gongsun Ce stood with his arms folded and his face turned to the roof beams.

“I never agreed to this,” Gongsun Ce said.

“You lost the bet,” Shi Feng said.

“The stake was a puppet core!” Gongsun Ce said. “I paid a puppet core!”

“The core was for the bet,” Shi Feng said. “The name is for the publicity. You said the whole region should know it.”

“You already billed me for that!” Gongsun Ce said.

“That was for the last time,” Shi Feng said. “Sima Lan, is there an interest clause?”

“Seven percent,” Sima Lan said from her stool, without looking up from the ledger. “Per night. Payable in kind.”

Gongsun Ce made a strangled noise. He couldn’t dispute the wording without drawing more attention to it. He straightened his back and stared fixedly at the beams while Shi Feng watched the auction begin.

On the platform lay a small wooden box. Inside, on black silk, sat a joint the length of a thumb. It was dull silver, finely threaded, with a hairline groove along one side. A standard puppet joint cost twenty-five stones at any market. This one moved three percent more smoothly. Shi Feng had made it in two evenings, with an old repair method from Xu Changhe's notes and a lump of scrap.

“It's a good joint,” Shi Feng had told Sima Lan. “Not a great one.”

“Then we'll sell the provenance,” Sima Lan had said.

“Thirty,” Meng Zhuo called in a bored voice from the Martial Palace benches.

Nobody had expected a voice. It belonged to a young man in a crimson robe with a gold-thread belt and a jade hairpin the length of a finger. Meng Zhuo, a Hall of Counsel elder's nephew, had come to the fair with a purse and no plan for it.

“Thirty-five,” Lin Yue said from the Valley benches.

She was an early Foundation Establishment woman in a blue sash, with a tidy braid and a cool voice. She had come to buy a talisman. She had not intended to bid.

“Forty,” Meng Zhuo said, and glanced at the Valley's side.

“Forty-five,” Lin Yue said.

“Fifty,” Meng Zhuo said.

“Fifty-five,” Lin Yue said.

Lin Langtian arrived at Shi Feng's shoulder with a fistful of chestnuts and an expression of deep contentment. He leaned over.

“Lesson twelve,” Lin Langtian said, offering him a chestnut. “The joint started the bidding. Now they’re paying to beat each other. Watch which side looks away first.”

“What if nobody cares who loses?” Shi Feng asked.

“Everybody cares,” Lin Langtian said. “That's why they have faces. A Buddha fights for a stick of incense, and a man fights for a breath.”

“Sixty!” Meng Zhuo said, and stood up.

“Sixty-five!” Lin Yue said, and also stood up, though she didn't seem to know why.

A shrill voice sliced down the shed from the Valley's section.

“Senior Sister Lin Yue! Don't let him! He's insulting the Valley!” Su Wanning cried. She had climbed onto a bench. Her sash was crooked again, and her cheeks were pink. She waved both arms over her head.

“He looked straight at us when he said sixty!” Su Wanning cried. “Senior Sister Lin Yue, don’t let him buy the Valley’s honour with that smug face. Say a hundred!”

“Wanning,” Ling Qingzhu said, at her elbow, “sit down.”

“A hundred!” Su Wanning shouted.

“…A hundred,” Lin Yue said weakly.

“Wanning,” Ling Qingzhu said again.

“What? It's not my money,” Su Wanning said.

The Martial Palace benches had gone red. Meng Zhuo shoved up his sleeve and glared across the shed.

“A joint is a joint,” Meng Zhuo snapped. “Money can make even ghosts push the millstone. One hundred and thirty. Martial Palace won't be shamed by a sister with a braid.”

“What did he say about my braid?” Lin Yue said.

“Two hundred!” Su Wanning shrieked, and Lin Yue's hand went up by itself.

The shed roared. Disciples from three sects were standing on benches. Somebody had started a rhythmic clapping. At the stall beside the platform, a chestnut seller was taking bets.

“Two hundred and fifty!” Meng Zhuo cried.

“Three hundred!” Su Wanning screamed, and Lin Yue's hand went up again.

Zhu Liu stood on the platform with a trembling brush, writing as fast as he could. Sima Lan, on her stool, had stopped writing. She was looking at the number, and her lips moved very slightly as she did the sum.

“Ten times,” Sima Lan whispered.

“Eleven in a moment,” Shi Feng said.

Ling Qingzhu stopped pulling at Su Wanning’s sleeve. Her gaze stayed on the silver joint inside its box. The shouting bids no longer seemed to matter. Shi Feng noticed how still she’d become.

At the long, plain joint inside.

She had gone very still.

“Three hundred and fifty,” Meng Zhuo said. His voice cracked.

And in the quiet before the next bid, Ling Qingzhu said something under her breath. Only Su Wanning heard it, because Su Wanning had finally stopped shouting.

“Wait,” Su Wanning said. “Big Sis Qingzhu? You know that joint?”