Chapter 302 — The Procession Finds an Empty Room

CHAPTER 302

The Procession Finds an Empty Room

“They're coming!” Zhu Liu shouted, running down the stone stair with the receipt book flapping in his hand. “Senior Brother Shi, they're coming up the eastern lane! All six elders! With trays!”

“Who's coming?” Shi Feng asked, not looking up.

Shi Feng sat at the gate stall, checking a customer’s herbs on the brass scale. It was the third morning after the tribulation. He was glad to be doing ordinary work again, with a queue to serve instead of a cloud to endure.

“The elders! With the gifts!” Zhu Liu gasped. “They're going to your hut! I ran ahead!”

“I'm not in my hut,” Shi Feng said.

“I know! That's why I ran!” Zhu Liu said.

Sima Lan, standing behind the table with the ledger, closed her eyes for a moment. “Zhu Liu. Breathe. Then write: Elders, arriving, six.”

Zhu Liu breathed, then wrote.

Wu Qiang hurried through the queue with a cloth bag. Since running the pool, he’d grown used to carrying other people’s stones. Delivering the champion’s winnings made him much less comfortable. He bowed before setting the bag down.

“Senior Brother Shi!” Wu Qiang said, bowing so fast his hair fell forward. “Your winnings! Ten stones at four to one! It was placed in your name!”

“I didn't place it,” Shi Feng said.

“Senior Brother Lin placed it! He said he was your manager!” Wu Qiang put the bag on the table. It clinked. “He said a man who won't bet on himself shouldn't be bet on by anyone else.”

“Forty stones,” Sima Lan said, tipping the bag out and counting. “Plus the stake. Fifty.”

“Less the manager's fee,” Wu Qiang said weakly. “Senior Brother Lin said there'd be one. He didn't say how much.”

“Then it's zero,” Sima Lan said, and swept the stones into the cash box.

Down the lane, a gong sounded, slow and solemn. Two disciples carrying a red banner came into view, then a line of attendants with lacquered trays, and behind them, walking with great dignity in their best robes, the six elders of the inner court.

He Zhen led, holding a scroll. Elder Qian Mo walked at the back, thin as a ruler and gripping his abacus like a shield.

“Is that a procession?” someone whispered.

“For one disciple? That's adding flowers to brocade!”

“He formed a core under nine bolts! The Hall's never had a day like it!”

“Then why is he selling pills?”

The procession halted before the stall. He Zhen looked at the queue, then at the disciple they’d come to honour. Shi Feng finished handing over a packet. “Two stones,” Shi Feng told the customer before turning to the elder.

“Disciple Shi,” He Zhen said at last. “We went to your hut.”

“I heard,” Shi Feng said.

“It was empty,” He Zhen said.

“Yes,” Shi Feng said.

“The door wasn't there,” He Zhen said.

“Stolen,” Sima Lan said. “It's on the tally wall.”

He Zhen cleared his throat and unrolled the scroll. “On behalf of the inner court of Artificer Hall, we, the elders, in recognition of a tribulation which has astonished the heavens—”

“And cost us a cliff,” Qian Mo muttered.

“—offer these gifts, pooled from our own private holdings, as a sign of the Hall's gratitude.” He Zhen lifted his chin. “The first tray!”

An attendant stepped forward. On the tray lay a Treasury voucher stamped with a red seal, a coiled belt of thunder-resistant silk, and a small sealed box. Qian Mo's eyes followed the voucher the whole way.

“The second tray!” He Zhen said.

The second tray held a set of etched jade cups and a folded roll of Duanyang cloth. The third held a tall bamboo case of herbs and a single flat package wrapped in pale green silk, embroidered at the corner with a small white flower.

Shi Feng's eyes rested on the silk for exactly as long as it took to blink.

“Thank you, Elder,” Shi Feng said. “Put them on the table.”

“Here?” He Zhen asked, offended. “You’re supposed to receive these in the hall. Three bows, with witnesses. We’ve put on a procession, Disciple Shi!”

“There are witnesses,” Shi Feng said. “The queue is long.”

The queue nodded in unison. A woman at the front added, “And the pills are going up at noon.”

He Zhen's moustache trembled.

A broom scratched the stones.

“Move,” Li Changyuan said mildly.

The elders parted like grass. The sect master came through them in his patched brown robe, pushing a heap of leaves in front of him, and stopped his broom exactly at the foot of the stall.

“Sect Master,” the elders said, bowing as one.

“You're blocking the customers,” Li Changyuan said. He leaned the broom against the table, reached into his sleeve and took out a thin booklet wrapped in oily paper. He dropped it on the scale pan.

The scale tipped.

“The Thousand Forge Flame Art,” Li Changyuan said. “Golden Core-grade refining fire. It's been in my sleeve for twenty years. I'm tired of the smell.”

The queue stopped breathing. Qian Mo's abacus slid out of his hand and clattered on the stones.

“Your old fire isn’t enough for this core,” Li Changyuan said, looking at his leaves. “Learn the new art. Entry by tonight. Strike while the iron is hot. The booklet won’t improve you just sitting on the table.”

“Tonight,” Shi Feng said.

“Tonight. Or the furnaces I saved for you go to He Zhen,” Li Changyuan said.

“Sect Master!” He Zhen said, scandalised.

“I'm joking,” Li Changyuan said. “They're not saved. I just haven't sold them.”

He took up his broom and shuffled away, leaving a long silence and a very expensive booklet in a brass pan.

Shi Feng picked it up. The oiled paper was warm.

“What do we do with the trays, Sect Master?” He Zhen called, a little desperately, after the retreating back.

“Leave them,” Li Changyuan said, without turning. “Qian Mo, count them.”

Behind Shi Feng, Elder Qian Mo made the sound of a man watching his own voucher walk away.