Chapter 307 — Borrowed Scale

CHAPTER 307

Borrowed Scale

“Fifty-six catties,” Hu Gui said, sliding the weights off the pan.

Mei Dong's mouth fell open. The herb-carrier had spent two days carrying sixty catties of red lantern root down from Cuiping, and he had weighed it himself at the sect gate with Zhu Liu watching.

“It was sixty,” Mei Dong said weakly.

“Fifty-six,” said Hu Gui, the Martial Palace pharmacy's stall clerk. He didn't look up from his abacus. “The scale is stamped by the Sky Pavilion. Take the price or take your roots home.”

The border market was crowded that morning. Duanyang herb houses kept lowering their offers to Artificer Hall, so the surplus came to the stalls beside the Wujin road. Martial Palace’s pharmacy had the biggest stall and the only scale carrying a Sky Pavilion stamp.

“Eighty-four stones for fifty-six,” Hu Gui said, bored. “Next.”

Shi Feng stepped up beside Mei Dong. Zhu Liu came with him, clutching his receipt book.

“May I borrow your scale?” Shi Feng asked.

Hu Gui finally looked up. “What for?”

“Inspection,” Shi Feng said.

A few nearby traders turned their heads. Hu Gui gave a short laugh.

“Leave the inspection to Martial Palace, little brother,” Hu Gui said with a short laugh. “Not knowing the height of heaven or the depth of the earth. Your sect doesn’t run this market.”

“Article six of the market rules says any seller may ask to inspect a buyer's scale before witnesses,” Shi Feng said. He pointed at the board nailed to the post by the entrance. “If the buyer refuses, the market warden treats the scale as false.”

The laugh stopped.

“Is that true?” a trader whispered.

“It's on the board,” another said. “I never read it.”

Hu Gui looked at the rules, then at the twenty people watching. His smile vanished. Refusing would condemn the scale before Shi Feng touched it. He reluctantly pushed it across the counter.

Behind the crowd, Lin Langtian sat on an upturned barrel peeling a sweet potato. Zhu Liu glanced at him, and Lin Langtian shook his head very slightly. Don't help. Zhu Liu swallowed and wrote nothing.

Shi Feng set the scale on a flat crate. He took Mei Dong's bundle and laid it in the left pan. Then he took the sixty-catty counterweight from the stall's own box and put it in the right. The beam dipped, wobbled, and settled on the roots' side.

“Left pan, roots,” Shi Feng said. “The beam says fifty-six.”

He lifted both pans, swapped their places, and set them down again. Roots on the right. Weight on the left.

This time the beam sagged towards the roots.

“Sixty-four,” Zhu Liu read from the mark, and gasped. “The same roots! They were fifty-six a moment ago!”

“The roots didn't change,” Shi Feng said. “The beam did. The pivot sits a finger-width off centre. Whatever goes on the left is always read as less. Sixty is the real weight, halfway between.”

He took out his plain knife, slid it under the stamp on the beam and flicked. The Sky Pavilion seal came away in one piece. Under it was fresh wax.

“Waxed on,” somebody in the crowd said. “They stuck the stamp on with wax!”

“It's Martial Palace! Of course they did!”

“My herbs were four catties short every month! Heaven has eyes!”

“Four catties every month, for how many years?”

“…”

Hu Gui's face went from pink to grey. “That's a misunderstanding,” Hu Gui said quickly. “The scale was repaired last week. Perhaps the repairman—”

“Article six, clause two,” Shi Feng said, reading from the board without raising his voice. “Short weight is fined ten times the shortfall. In goods. To the seller.”

Zhu Liu was already flipping pages. “Four catties short,” Zhu Liu whispered. “Ten times is forty.”

“Forty catties of the stall's best red lantern root,” Shi Feng said. “Or its equivalent.”

Hu Gui started to object. Then he saw how closely the other traders were listening and shut his mouth. At the neighbouring stall, a woman quietly covered her own scale. Nobody wanted Shi Feng to inspect another one.

“I'll… fetch the stock,” Hu Gui said.

He fetched it. Zhu Liu counted forty catties twice, wrote a receipt in his neat round hand, and had Hu Gui press his thumb to it. The crowd cheered. Mei Dong, who had been standing with his hands pressed to his chest the whole time, burst into tears.

“Young Master Shi,” Mei Dong said. “I'll carry for you for ten years.”

“Weigh it again,” Shi Feng said. “On my scale.”

Zhu Liu pulled a small brass scale from his sleeve, one he had carried for a month for exactly this kind of morning. It read sixty. Mei Dong was paid in full on the spot.

Shi Feng turned and found Lin Langtian standing right behind him. The potato was gone. So was the grin, for a moment.

“No lies,” Lin Langtian said. “No bluster. Not one bluff.”

“The fault was there for everyone to see,” Shi Feng said. “I only had to swap the pans.”

“Hm.” Lin Langtian studied him for a moment, the potato quite forgotten. “Good. Very annoying.”

A boy in a Martial Palace jacket had slipped out the back of the stall. He was running along the Wujin road toward the pass, toward the white tents of the border post, as hard as he could.

Lin Langtian watched him go.

“Well,” Lin Langtian said. “I'm going to the noodle stall. Handle whatever comes, Junior Brother. If you're alive by the second bowl, I'll pay for it.” He was already walking.