Chapter 310 — Seventy-Eight Stones

CHAPTER 310

Seventy-Eight Stones

The gatekeeper at the Martial Palace border post stepped aside before Shi Feng reached him.

The white-jacketed gatekeeper held his halberd across the entrance until he recognised Shi Feng. A plain robe, plain knife, and a boy carrying receipts were enough. He remembered yesterday’s market and hurried aside before anyone asked him to.

“Go in,” the gatekeeper said. “Please.”

“I haven't said where I'm going,” Shi Feng said.

“Anywhere,” the gatekeeper said. “It's fine.”

Zhu Liu looked back at him with awe, and nearly walked into the post.

The border post was a yard of packed earth with white tents on three sides. A line of traders waited at a stamp table. Beyond them, under an awning, Elder Shen Tuo sat behind a low desk with a pot of tea and a stack of travel permits. Two attendants stood behind his chair. One held a tray. The other held a fan.

The attendant with the tray saw Shi Feng and stepped back from the desk.

The tray bearer retreated as soon as he saw the visitors. His teacup rattled. The attendant with the fan noticed, recognised Shi Feng, and moved too. Neither wanted to be the one who delayed him.

“Look,” a trader whispered. “Even the elder's servants.”

“I heard Hou Ping can't open his eyes.”

“I heard he asked for his mother.”

“…”

Shen Tuo put down his brush. He looked at Shi Feng, up and down, once. Whatever he was hoping to find, he didn't. The boy walked as if nothing had cracked last night.

“You're healed,” Shen Tuo said flatly.

“Mostly,” Shi Feng said. “I brought the invoice.”

“Invoice,” Shen Tuo said.

“Zhu Liu,” Shi Feng said.

Zhu Liu unrolled a sheet as long as his arm. His hands shook only a little. He cleared his throat and read it in a high, clear voice that carried across the whole yard.

“To Martial Palace, border post, Elder Shen Tuo. For the matter of the market scale and the matter of the fight. One. Forty catties of red lantern root, owed for the threat made in the market, at one and a half stones per catty, sixty stones. Two. Healer's salve, bandage and attendant's time for one cracked rib, eleven stones. Three. Compensation to Herb-carrier Mei Dong for fright, seven stones.” Zhu Liu took a breath. “Total, seventy-eight spirit stones.”

The yard went very quiet.

It was a tiny sum. A single Martial Palace inspection wagon earned that in an afternoon. But as the saying goes, black ink on white paper leaves no room to argue, and the invoice had been read out loud, in front of forty traders, and every one of them was now doing the arithmetic of what Elder Shen Tuo's disciple had cost his sect.

“Is that all?” Shen Tuo asked.

“I left off the crate,” Shi Feng said. “It was yours.”

Someone in the line made a sound like a strangled laugh and turned it into a cough.

Shen Tuo could dispute the threat charge or insist the fight settled everything. But forty traders would hear an early Golden Core elder bargain with a junior over seventy-eight stones. Paying would be humiliating too. He weighed both choices in silence.

He could pay, and forty traders would hear that too.

Neither choice was good. But one cost less.

“Fine,” Shen Tuo said.

He took a pouch from his sleeve and counted the stones onto the desk himself, one handful at a time. Nobody helped him. Zhu Liu received them, checked each stack twice, and wrote the receipt. Shen Tuo pressed his thumb to it with the expression of a man pressing a boil.

“You will regret making a habit of this,” Shen Tuo said.

“Then settle this one,” Shi Feng said. “Mei Dong’s still waiting for his compensation.”

“Hm.” Shen Tuo didn't smile. He picked up his brush. “Do not come to this post again.”

“Only if there's something to bill,” Shi Feng said. “Good day, Elder Shen.”

He turned and walked out through the yard. The line of traders opened for him like a river for a rock. A boy at the end of the line actually bowed. The gatekeeper shifted his halberd to the other side of the gate, a full yard farther than he needed to.

On the road, Zhu Liu let out a breath that whistled.

“Senior Brother Shi,” Zhu Liu said. “They're afraid of you.”

“They're afraid of the bill,” Shi Feng said.

“They stepped aside!” Zhu Liu said.

“They saw what happened yesterday,” Shi Feng said. “That doesn’t mean I should expect every gate to open for me.”

He didn't fully believe that himself. But he had no wish to get used to it, and he put the thought away.

They had walked two hundred paces when the knife on his belt gave a small, sad sound.

Tink.

Shi Feng stopped. He drew the blade. A pale line ran from the guard halfway up the spine, thin as a hair. Months of Ember Rain sparks, one Thunderhide and one hard fight had finished it.

“It's cracked,” Zhu Liu whispered.

“Yes,” Shi Feng said.

“Do I write it down?” Zhu Liu said.

“Write down that I need a sword,” Shi Feng said.