Chapter 290 — The Needle

CHAPTER 290

The Needle

The needle came out of the cauldron bent.

Shi Feng lifted it from the cooling water. The Grade 1 lightning-grounding needle should have been hair-thin and straight. A proper one could lead the first tribulation bolt into the earth before it touched him. He’d intended to make three, not another tray of failures.

This one looked like a pig's tail.

“Senior Brother Shi,” Zhu Liu said from the doorway. “Is it supposed to curl?”

“No,” Shi Feng said.

“Should I write 'attempt'?” Zhu Liu said.

“Write 'lump',” Shi Feng said.

The Ledger agreed with him a moment later.

[Ledger: Attempt 1. Result: lump. Note: curled.]

It was the fortieth failure since he'd started on the Thunder-Marrow fist. Half of it was gone already, a third had become a sticky blue slag at the bottom of the cauldron, and the rest hummed on the table like a bad conscience. The refining shed smelled of storm and singed hair. In the corner, a soot-grey toad the size of a rice bowl sat on top of a bucket and watched him with its flat gold-rimmed eyes.

“Old Soot, no,” Shi Feng said.

The toad blinked and did not move.

“It means yes,” Zhu Liu said sadly. “It always means yes.”

The slag still held some Thunder-Marrow. Shi Feng wasn’t willing to discard it after so many failures. His physique could take its remaining worth, just as it took the ingredients from a waste pill. He reached for the knife.

Zhu Liu gave a small, hopeless whimper.

“Senior Brother Shi, the Sect Master said the ore is for the cliff,” Zhu Liu said.

“This isn't ore,” Shi Feng said. “It's slag.”

“It was ore a minute ago!” Zhu Liu said.

“Write 'used',” Shi Feng said, and peeled a curl of blue slag off the edge.

It tasted like a coin that had been struck by lightning. He swallowed it, then the next, then the next. Each curl went down with a faint crackle, and little blue sparks ran along his arms. When he finished the last piece, he put down the knife and waited.

[Devoured: Thunder-Marrow slag | Gain: its worth, exactly | Note: ringing]

For a moment, the heat felt wonderful. Power settled through his bones and filled his meridians. Shi Feng thought, Perhaps the failures have made this easier to absorb. He straightened cautiously, hopeful that this attempt would be different.

Then it reached his stomach.

A sound like a gong being struck from the inside rolled through his body. Shi Feng folded in half and sat down on the shed floor with his arms around his belly. Every breath made his ribs ring. He could feel his own teeth vibrate.

“Senior Brother Shi!” Zhu Liu cried.

“I'm fine,” Shi Feng said, in a voice that rattled.

“You're glowing!” Zhu Liu said.

“Slightly,” Shi Feng said.

Zhu Liu ran, which was what Zhu Liu did.

It took only a short time for the news to cross the mountain. First came the sound of Lin Langtian laughing, then the sound of a broom being thrown, then the shed door flew open and Li Changyuan stood in it with his robe half-tied and his face the colour of a ripe persimmon.

“Nine days!” Li Changyuan shouted. “NINE DAYS before closed-door! I counted! The foundation is full, the herbs are ready, the cliff is swept, and you swallowed tribulation material because a needle bent? More haste, less speed!”

“It was slag, Sect Master,” Shi Feng said from the floor.

“Slag of my ore!” Li Changyuan said.

“Of the fee,” Shi Feng said.

“Of MY FEE!” Li Changyuan said. His voice cracked. “I paid you a fist of Thunder-Marrow so you would refine one needle, and instead you've turned yourself into a temple bell! Six days! It's a six-day ache! Do you know how much time that leaves for the cliff?”

“Three days,” Shi Feng said.

“Don't be reasonable at me!” Li Changyuan said.

Behind the old man, Lin Langtian squeezed in with a sweet potato in one hand and a bucket of ginger water in the other. He wiped a tear from his eye.

“Sect Master,” Lin Langtian said, in a trembling voice. “Please. He's just a child.”

“He's nineteen!” Li Changyuan said.

“Nineteen. Just as I said,” Lin Langtian replied, setting down the ginger water. He put an ear to Shi Feng’s belly, listened, and grinned. “Oh, that’s a fine noise. Sect Master, come and hear it. Almost in tune!”

“It's not in tune,” Li Changyuan said, and then, in a smaller voice, “Is it?”

“Very nearly!” Lin Langtian said. He turned to the doorway, where a crowd of outer-court faces had started to pile up, and raised his voice. “Attention, everyone! A wager! I'll bet ten stones that Old Soot can digest a bar of iron faster than the champion digests his slag!”

“What?”

“Against the toad?”

“Who'd bet on the champion?”

“Who'd bet on the toad?”

“…I'd bet on the toad.”

Old Soot, hearing its name, hopped down from the bucket and dragged a rusted hinge in from the corner of the shed. It swallowed it in a single gulp, hiccupped, and breathed a small cloud of black smoke at the ceiling.

Li Changyuan stared at the toad, then at the ringing disciple on the floor. He seemed unable to choose which offended him more. Finally he picked up his broom, marched out, and shut the shed door.

His voice carried across the yard a moment later, high and strangled.

“Nine days!” Li Changyuan said.