Chapter 275 — The Idle Week

CHAPTER 275

The Idle Week

“What list?” Li Changyuan asked.

He was sweeping the stone yard in front of the sect master's hut, and he didn't stop. Shi Feng stood at the edge of the swept patch, holding out the paper Lin Langtian had written. The broom went left, then right. A single dead leaf was herded gently toward the drain.

“Thunder-Marrow ore, a Golden Core-grade beast heart, and Thunder-Calming herbs,” Shi Feng said. “The Chief Disciple wrote it.”

“Lin Langtian wrote it?” Li Changyuan said, continuing to sweep. “Then I don’t read it. Those curls give me a headache. Hold it farther away.”

“There are three items,” Shi Feng said.

“There are no items. I'm an old man sweeping a yard,” Li Changyuan said. The broom paused. “The Gathering cost me eleven hundred stones in lanterns and tea. My face got thinner.”

“It looks the same,” Shi Feng said.

“Thinner on the inside,” Li Changyuan said, and began to sweep again. “Go and be idle, boy. Sharpening the axe never delays the chopping of firewood. Cultivators need rest. I've read that somewhere.”

Shi Feng waited a moment longer. The broom did not stop, and the paper was not taken. Finally he folded it and put it away in his sleeve.

Idle was a word he had little practice with.

He tried resting for an afternoon. He mopped hut nine, accepted Sima Lan’s bill for the mop, and sat down again. By evening he’d counted the ceiling beams twice. Shi Feng was bored enough to look forward to another lesson.

The next morning he went to the Sword Pagoda.

Keeper Ou was sitting at the door with his tea. He saw Shi Feng come up the path between the bamboo and, without a word, set the cup down on the step beside him instead of holding it. Then he picked up his brush and opened the visitor book.

“Date,” Keeper Ou said. He looked at the page and stopped. “I stopped writing dates. Nobody's checked in two months.”

“Why did you stop?” Shi Feng said.

“Because the Treasury kept asking why you finished before noon,” Keeper Ou said, shutting the book. “Three times I wrote it, three times they asked. Go in. I’d rather not know today.”

The first floor was quiet. Forty circles waited in the pale hall, and thirty-three of them already held a dim, finished tablet. Shi Feng had spent his spar takings on seven more days of points. Now he walked from circle to circle and touched each remaining tablet once.

Cloud Parting Cut. Entry.

Pine Needle Sweep. Entry.

Broken Bridge Step. Entry.

Behind him, a junior keeper stood frozen at the entrance with a dustpan.

“That's the fortieth circle,” the junior keeper whispered. “The Sixty-Cut Mountain Form. It has stopped every student for nineteen years.”

“Is it hard?” Shi Feng asked.

“The tablet cheats,” the junior keeper said. “It changes the angle every sixth cut.”

“It did,” Shi Feng said. “I counted.”

He stepped out of the circle. A long, weary chime rolled down the hall, and every lamp on the floor flickered once and burned steady.

The junior keeper dropped his dustpan.

Keeper Ou had come in behind them with his tea. His mouth opened and closed, and the cup stayed carefully upright in his hand.

“Floor one,” Keeper Ou said slowly. “Cleared.”

“Is that all of them?” Shi Feng said.

“All forty.” Keeper Ou swallowed. “Beyond the sky there is another sky. How long did you say that would take?”

“So-so,” Shi Feng said. “Chief Disciple Lin would've done it in a morning.”

“Chief Disciple Lin has never been seen in this pagoda!” the junior keeper cried.

“Hush,” Keeper Ou said wearily. “Nobody's seen him. That's different.”

At the back of the hall, a narrow stair climbed into shadow. A stone door stood at the top, plain and heavy. Above it, in old characters, were five words: Golden Core. Enter by leave.

“Floor two is for Golden Core,” Keeper Ou said. “The door reads your qi. It has never opened for a Foundation Establishment, even a peak one.”

“I'm not a Golden Core,” Shi Feng said.

“Then let the door refuse you,” Keeper Ou said. “After everything you’ve done on this floor, I could use one ordinary result.”

Shi Feng climbed the stair and laid his palm on the cold stone.

The door hummed. A pale glow ran along its seams and lingered a long time over the place his palm touched. Then, with the grinding sigh of something ancient, it swung inward.

Behind him, the cup hit the floor and broke.

“It said yes,” the junior keeper whispered. “Keeper Ou, it said yes!”

“I can see it opened,” Keeper Ou said weakly. “It must read how full the foundation is, not just the realm. Yours…” He stopped trying to explain. “Forty points a day. Please tell me you haven’t brought forty points.”

“I have the spar takings,” Shi Feng said.

“Of course you do,” Keeper Ou said.

Inside, there was only one circle on the floor, lit by a ring of small red lamps. Its tablet showed a pale figure that raised a sword, and the blade began to shed sparks, slow at first and then falling thick and bright, like a summer storm made of embers.

Ember Rain Sword, the tablet read. Golden Core-grade.

He stepped into the circle and watched it once. Then he copied it.

Below, Keeper Ou swept up the broken cup. The tablet flickered, and a faint spark fell from the tip of Shi Feng's knife. Entry.

“Junior Brother! There you are!” Lin Langtian called, coming up the stair three steps at a time with a sheet of paper in his hand and a potato in his teeth. He read the price column aloud as he walked.

“Thunder-Marrow ore, six thousand. Beast heart, nine thousand. Herbs, two thousand four hundred,” Lin Langtian said. He took the potato out of his mouth. “Seventeen thousand four hundred spirit stones, Junior Brother. The sect's whole treasury is nine hundred and ninety.”

“I know,” Shi Feng said, from inside the circle.

“So we don't buy.” Lin Langtian folded the paper, smiling. “We borrow them. Politely.”