Chapter 293 — So-So

CHAPTER 293

So-So

The Sword Pagoda was dark except for one lamp by the door.

Keeper Ou sat under it with his tea, sweeping a few leaves off the step with a short broom, and not looking up. He had stopped asking Shi Feng why he came at night. It saved them both time.

“Floor one's paid for,” Shi Feng said, holding out the token. “Tomorrow I won't be here. It's for a month.”

“You're dying?” Keeper Ou asked.

“No. The Thunder Cliff,” Shi Feng said.

“Ah.” Keeper Ou swept three more leaves. “The tribulation chamber. The whole peak's been talking about it for a week. Most of them think you'll come out in a bag.”

“Most of them?” Shi Feng said.

“The ones who've met you think a smaller bag.” Keeper Ou took the token and waved at the dark hall. “Third circle, left wall. Don't break the tablets.”

“I haven't broken one yet,” Shi Feng said.

“Yet,” Keeper Ou said darkly.

Shi Feng didn't go to the third circle. He went past the tablets to the end of the hall, where an old iron-wood post stood alone in a bare square of floor. It was the practice post. Disciples cut it to test an art, and it healed itself overnight.

There was no tablet for Iron River Sword Art. Xu Changhe had left notes, and Shi Feng had practised them every night since the tournament. Major Success had come during the spar series. Since then, repeating the form hadn’t taken him any farther.

Tonight he drew the plain knife and stopped thinking about forms.

Xu Changhe described a slow river carrying iron sand. It never rushed, but it never stopped. Shi Feng had read the line about a sword that ‘only arrives’ forty times. Tonight he concentrated on keeping each cut part of the same movement.

He cut once.

The post shivered. Nothing else happened.

He cut again, and a third time. The knife went through the same line each time, a little deeper than before, and his feet stayed where they were. By the tenth cut he stopped counting. By the fiftieth the old rhythm from the Flame Cavern and the Pagoda and the spar series had joined into one long motion, and he stopped steering it.

The blade arrived.

There was no sound. The iron-wood post stood still for the space of one breath. Then the top of it slid sideways, very slowly, and fell to the floor in a clean slice. It didn't bounce. The cut face was as smooth as a mirror.

Shi Feng looked at the post.

Behind him, the sweeping had stopped.

Keeper Ou stood at the end of the hall with his short broom held in both hands. The tea was still in his cup. For once he had not dropped it, and that seemed to cost him real effort.

“That,” Keeper Ou said slowly. “That was not Major Success.”

“No,” Shi Feng said. “I think it's Perfection.”

“You think,” Keeper Ou said.

“I’m not correcting each movement anymore,” Shi Feng said. “The cut follows through without me forcing it. That feels different from Major Success.”

Keeper Ou put the broom down very carefully. Then he walked to the post, knelt, and ran a thumb along the cut. The surface was so smooth it left no mark on his skin.

“Foundation Establishment-grade,” Keeper Ou muttered. “Perfection. In…” He counted on his fingers, lost count, and tried again. “You paid for floor one two months ago.”

“It's not a Pagoda art,” Shi Feng said. “It's Xu Changhe's. A former Artificer Hall elder.”

“I know who Xu Changhe was,” Keeper Ou said. “Ten years to grind a single sword, the saying goes. He took forty years to reach Major Success on his own. Forty.”

“He was busy,” Shi Feng said. “He repaired things.”

Keeper Ou looked up, visibly moved. His eyes shone with tears.

“How is this for you?” Keeper Ou asked. “Tell me honestly. How do you rate it?”

Shi Feng considered the post, the knife and the strange, empty feeling in his arm.

“So-so,” Shi Feng said.

“So-so,” Keeper Ou said.

“Chief Disciple Lin learns an art in one look,” Shi Feng said. “I needed fifty cuts. So I'm slow.”

Keeper Ou fell silent. He took down the old plaque with its eleven-day record and wrapped it in his sleeve. The keeper looked embarrassed on its behalf as he carried it into the back room.

Shi Feng sheathed the knife and went out.

The night air was cool. The bamboo grove hummed faintly around the Pagoda, as if the sword intent had reached the leaves. Someone was sitting on the lowest step with a bundle on his knee.

“You're late,” Lin Langtian said. “I've been keeping this warm for an hour. With my own body heat.”

He held out a roasted sweet potato wrapped in a leaf. It was fat and black at the skin and smelled wonderful.

“For the road,” Lin Langtian said.

“What road?” Shi Feng asked.

“The one into the cliff.” Lin Langtian pushed it into his hands. “Keep it in your sleeve and eat it at dawn, before you go in. It's lucky. I made that up just now, but it's still lucky.”

Shi Feng took it. It warmed his palms.

“You didn't charge me,” Shi Feng said.

“Afterwards,” Lin Langtian said, standing and brushing his robe. He looked toward Thunder Cliff. “When you come out, Junior Brother, there may be a crowd. Don’t let that surprise you.”

“For the stall?” Shi Feng said.

“For the bet,” Lin Langtian said, and walked away whistling.