Chapter 277 — Why the Marsh Is Cheap

CHAPTER 277

Why the Marsh Is Cheap

The first ash boar came out of the reeds at a run.

It was the size of a calf, with a hide the colour of cold hearth stone and tusks crusted with dried mud. It hit the path between two outer-court girls, and neither of them screamed. Both were too busy sinking to the knee.

“Move!” Wu Qiang shouted from the back. “It's a boar! Why isn't anyone moving?”

One girl yelled that her feet were stuck. She tried to wrench a leg free, but the mud held her to the knee and the boar was already on the path.

Wu Qiang shouted at her to move anyway, as if repeating himself would make the ground firmer. He didn’t venture close enough to pull her out.

Her companion angrily pointed out that she was stuck too. Neither could dodge, and they had barely enough balance to draw their weapons without falling.

Shi Feng drew his knife and took one step through the grey slop. The boar turned its head toward him. His blade went in under the left tusk, a short thrust, and came out again.

The boar ran on three more strides and fell over. Where it fell, its hide cracked, and a puff of pale ash rose from the split. The body went light and dry, like a burnt log.

“That's it?” a boy whispered. “It just turns to powder?”

“That's an ash boar,” Sima Lan said. She stood on a root, perfectly clean to the ankle, and had not drawn her blade. “Kill it and it goes to powder. The core is the size of a bean and sells for one point. Digging it out of the ash takes longer than the fight.”

“One point?” Wu Qiang said, horrified.

“Your robe is worth more than that,” Sima Lan said. “It's ruined.”

It had been raining since the barrier pole. The rain was grey, thin and almost warm, and where it touched skin it left a film that did not wash off. Every drop carried ash. By the first li, the cohort looked like a row of scarecrows. By the second, they were breathing through their sleeves.

Shi Feng wiped his face. His fingers came away grey. When he tried to push his qi through his arm, it moved like honey.

He thought, So that's the real price. The fee was the cheap part.

“The ash slows your qi,” Lin Langtian said, wading beside him and peeling a potato. “By evening, a Bone Refinement disciple can be fighting at Qi Condensation strength. It catches people who think the mud is the only problem.”

“Who wrote that on the fee board?” Shi Feng asked.

“Nobody! That's the beauty of it!” Lin Langtian said. “Martial Palace sells permits for six stones. Ten thousand hunters have come in. Eight thousand have gone out poorer and wetter and sworn never to return. The permit isn't the price, Junior Brother. The marsh is the price. Cheap places are cheap for a reason.”

“Then why are we here?” Qiu Bao panted. The cauldron on his back clanked at every step.

“Because the Palace thinks nobody comes back,” Lin Langtian said. “Which makes it the least-watched piece of ground in the region. The most dangerous place is the safest place, as the saying goes. And because there's a certain thing in the middle of it that I would very much like Junior Brother to have.”

“A certain thing,” Sima Lan said.

“A thing with a heart,” Lin Langtian said.

Zhu Liu raised his hand, as if in class.

“Senior Brother Lin,” Zhu Liu said. “What kind of heart?”

“A big one,” Lin Langtian said.

The juniors exchanged anxious looks. They’d agreed to earn contribution points, not help hunt an unnamed beast with a ‘big’ heart. Lin Langtian’s cheerful evasions made the marsh seem more dangerous with every answer. As the saying goes, it is easy to board a thief's boat and hard to get off it.

By afternoon they reached a rise of solid ground three li in. A few dead trees leaned over it, and the rain seemed thinner above the grass. Lin Langtian stamped on the dirt twice, nodded as if the earth had confirmed something, and swung his pack down.

“Camp Ridge,” Lin Langtian said. “The only dry ground for ten li. I'll stay here with the charter and the potatoes. Somebody has to hold the founder's honour.”

“You're not coming with us?” a boy asked.

“I'm the supervising elder!” Lin Langtian said. “I supervise from a seat.”

Lin Langtian settled on a flat stone. Zhu Liu hurriedly checked the bamboo tube, tipped out its water, and found the charter dry inside. He kissed it in relief, then looked ashamed and recorded that as well.

“Eleven juniors and one cauldron,” Sima Lan said, closing her ledger. “We split in two. Half stay near the ridge on boar duty. Half go with Shi Feng and me to the reed line. Tomorrow we reverse.”

“Why does she get to decide?” Wu Qiang muttered.

“Because she's the only one who brought a plan,” Qiu Bao said.

Wu Qiang opened his mouth, looked at the cauldron on Qiu Bao's back and shut it again.

Shi Feng helped two juniors tie a rain sheet between the dead trees. The cloth sagged, then held. He was pulling the last knot tight when something red flicked at the edge of his sight.

He looked north.

Across a strip of black water, on the next rise, a line of figures stood in the rain. They wore red and black sashes. Eight or nine of them, perhaps ten. The one in front was young and sharp-faced, with a thin sneer already in place, and he was waving cheerfully.

It was Hou Ping.

Beside him stood a taller man in a clean robe with a gold-thread collar. The rain slid off his shoulders as if the ash did not dare land on him.

Hou Ping's wave grew larger. The tall man did not wave. He only watched.

“Friends of yours?” Qiu Bao asked nervously.

“Customers,” Shi Feng said.