Chapter 3 — The Red Cord

CHAPTER 3

The Red Cord

“Please explain,” Shi Feng said.

Shi Zhen had planned to scold a rude junior. But a polite request gave him nothing to scold! After a pause he opened his ledger instead. A written account still carried an elder’s authority.

“The eastern courtyard belongs to the clan,” Shi Zhen said, tapping the page. “It was assigned to your father for his service. It costs far too much to keep up, and your household gives almost nothing back.”

“My father’s settlement covers two generations,” Shi Feng said.

“That agreement is under the clan’s control,” Shi Zhen said.

“Does control include cancelling it?” Shi Feng asked.

Several elders who had risen to leave suddenly decided to stay beside their chairs. Nobody wanted to miss this.

“For seven years this clan has fed and sheltered you!” Shi Zhen thundered, so loudly that the maids at the windows ducked. “A junior should remember the kindness of his elders, not count their furniture!”

Shi Feng folded his hands so the elders wouldn’t see the left one close into a fist. His father died on a clan border contract, and this house was part of the price of that death. The Second Elder was selling it back to him as charity. What a shameless old man, Shi Feng thought coldly.

“Clan Head,” Shi Feng said, turning to Shi Rong, “please have the settlement brought out. My father’s seal is on it. We can read his terms together.”

“Do you know where it is?” Shi Rong asked.

“The western strongbox. Third bundle of border records. Red cord,” Shi Feng said.

“The cord?” Shi Rong asked.

“My father asked me to tie it,” Shi Feng said.

Years ago, he sat at this very table with the loose ends between his fingers, and his father made him retie the knot twice. A document that mattered, his father said, should not be held carelessly.

The clan head sent a servant. The bundle came back with its red cord intact, and Shi Rong read the settlement in silence while Shi Zhen turned pages that did not need turning.

“Two generations,” Shi Rong said at last. “The courtyard stays with the eastern household.”

A murmur ran down the table.

“The Second Elder lost.”

“The settlement is real.”

“Quiet, quiet…”

Shi Zhen’s face turned red, and his expression twisted. Losing the courtyard was bad enough, and losing it in front of his own sons was worse. He coughed and tried another road.

“Then there’s still the matter of treatment costs.” Shi Zhen said, louder than before. “The jade-needle specialist. The winter restoratives. Several furnace fees!”

“Please read them one by one,” Shi Feng said.

Shi Zhen looked toward the clan head. Shi Rong said nothing. With no help coming, Shi Zhen read the first sum, his face growing redder.

“Paid from our household’s savings,” Shi Feng said. “Treasurer Du Cheng holds the receipt. The physician also refunded four stones for two needles he broke in my arm.”

Shi Zhen read the second.

“Forty-eight bottles of restorative arrived this winter,” Shi Feng said. “Our courtyard received twelve.”

“The shares were changed,” Shi Zhen said stiffly. “The clan’s honour comes before one household’s bottles!”

“Then our account should say twelve,” Shi Feng said.

“The rest went to the clan’s cultivators!” Shi Zhen snapped.

“For whom?” Shi Feng asked.

“Mine!” Shi Hong shouted from the doorway. “I opened one hundred and seventy-six meridians! You couldn’t use them anyway. Why waste them on a cripple?”

“Then you should pay for them,” Shi Feng said, turning toward him.

Shi Yulan appeared behind Shi Hong and elbowed him out of the doorway without a glance. A servant followed her carrying a cracked blue jar.

“Brat, I figured you’d need these.” Shi Yulan snapped.

She set the jar beside Shi Feng. Inside were folded receipts, wrapped in old prescription sheets against the damp, and every one was dated.

“Twelve stones,” Shi Yulan said as she straightened. “My share, brat. Don’t forget.”

Shi Feng nodded once. She kept the papers because a household with proof was worth more than one without it. He could trust her interests without mistaking them for affection. She probably liked it that way, he thought.

Treasurer Du Cheng was sent for, and while they waited, Shi Zhen lectured the hall about clan honour and how hard it was to manage so many households. Shi Feng listened without interrupting. When the speech ended, he turned the ledger back to the disputed page.

Du Cheng arrived carrying his abacus upside down. He turned it over, read three receipts, and stopped moving the beads.

“Who wrote forty-eight under this household?” Du Cheng asked.

Shi Zhen stared at him.

Du Cheng looked down at the brush tucked in his own belt. His face turned pale.

“I’ll correct it,” Du Cheng said quickly.

“Thirty-six spirit stones,” Shi Rong said.

“A mistake in the accounts,” Shi Zhen said, red to the ears. “A small matter. No need to bother the whole household.”

Shi Feng stayed seated. The Second Elder closed the ledger, and still Shi Feng did not rise.

“What more do you want?” Shi Zhen shouted.

“The corrected payment,” Shi Feng said.

“It’ll go into the accounts!” Shi Zhen said.

“Please write it down after it’s paid,” Shi Feng said.

There was no accusation in his voice. It needed none.

The clan head nodded to Du Cheng, who counted out the stones. Shi Feng took each one and turned it over before setting it down. Shi Hong watched with open disgust.

“Look at him!” Shi Hong sneered. “Cripple! He’s dragging this out for the pleasure of it.”

In truth, Shi Feng was checking for cracks. Once, Shi Yulan took three cracked stones as rent, and the loss landed on his account. He said nothing and put the purse away.

Shi Rong set his cup down. The elders were stunned that Shi Feng knew the exact price of every bottle.

Shi Feng stood.

“The year-end clan test is in nine months,” Shi Zhen said before his nephew reached the door. “The eastern household will lose its allowance unless its heir demonstrates Qi Condensation. Your precious settlement doesn’t change that rule.”

Shi Feng stopped. The Second Elder was making a new condition for an allowance already owed. Whether he returned for that test would be his own decision.

“Will this be written down?” Shi Feng asked.

“It will,” Shi Zhen said.

“Then I want a copy,” Shi Feng said.

“You think paper can protect you from everything?” Shi Zhen barked.

“No,” Shi Feng said. “Only from the people who sign it.”

He bowed to the clan head and left. Behind him nobody spoke until the door closed, and then everybody did.

Outside, Shi Yulan took her twelve stones before she’d let him put the purse inside his robe.

“For a few receipts,” Shi Feng said calmly.

“For keeping them when everyone else wanted to forget, brat!” Shi Yulan said, and tucked the stones into her sleeve.

He didn’t argue.

At the eastern courtyard she went in to put the money away, and Shi Feng sat under the plum tree. He thought about his next trip to the physician. The engagement was finished. He didn’t intend to waste another afternoon thinking about it.

He sat until the shadow of the wall reached his boots. When his aunt came back out, she asked if he’d finished his breakfast.

“No,” Shi Feng said.

“The kitchen won’t give you another, you know,” Shi Yulan said gruffly.

“I know,” Shi Feng said.

He went in and ate the cold rice, then washed the bowl himself. He was still hungry. Refusing three hundred spirit stones didn’t fill his stomach.

That afternoon he went down into the chamber beneath the house. Scratches marked the stone around the meditation platform, where his own nails had dug in eighteen months ago. He knelt beside them and unrolled his father’s diagram on a dry cloth.

Three hundred and sixty paths. Five curves joining places that should never touch.

I was sure I understood these, he thought. I was wrong, but I wasn’t stupid. He compared the faded lines with the pattern in his memory until the lamp guttered, then rolled the sheet into its tube and climbed back up.

He packed one spare robe, a knife, and the twenty-four stones that remained, with the diagram wrapped against rain between them. At dusk a boy from the clinic in town brought a note. Physician Meng Shou has found one more possibility.

Below that, in smaller writing, Meng Shou had added: Come alone. Don’t bring your aunt, she’s too loud. Shi Feng folded the message and laid it beside the bundle.

Shi Feng read the note again.

“A possibility?” Shi Feng murmured. “Then I’ll hear it.”

He set his pack beside the door. If the physician gave him a road, he was ready to take it.