Chapter 315 — The Inspector's Banner

CHAPTER 315

The Inspector's Banner

Gray Ear stood planted in the workshops’ lane, refusing to pull the inspector’s cart.

It stood in the middle of the outer workshops' lane with a flat cart behind it and its head turned away from the sect. Master Dai, the charcoal hauler who owned it, held the rope and sweated. Zhu Liu stood beside him with the abacus under one arm and a receipt book open.

“Four stones a day,” Master Dai said. “That's the rate. The ox eats a lot.”

“Four stones,” Zhu Liu repeated, writing. “And the sect's inspector pays at the end?”

“Who's the inspector?” Master Dai said.

“The Chief Disciple,” Zhu Liu said.

Master Dai paled. “The one who borrowed my ox last spring and returned it with a ribbon on its horn?”

“He bought you a ribbon,” Zhu Liu said.

“He bought it with my money!” Master Dai said.

“Senior Brother Shi will pay,” Zhu Liu said quickly, and pointed at Shi Feng, who had just arrived with his bag. Master Dai looked at him with great hope. Shi Feng looked at the ox. The ox looked away.

“Fine,” Shi Feng said.

Sima Lan came down the lane a moment later. She wore a plain travelling robe and carried the ledger in an oilcloth, a roll of chalk, and a covered basket that hissed. She set the basket on the cart as far from herself as she could.

“What is that?” Shi Feng asked.

“Old Soot,” Sima Lan said. “It wouldn't stay in the furnace. It sat on my doorstep all night and watched me.”

“It likes you,” Shi Feng said.

“It ate my bracelet,” Sima Lan said. “Don't use the word 'likes'.”

The basket gave a low, satisfied croak. Sima Lan moved the basket another hand's breadth away.

“Is everyone here?” Lin Langtian boomed.

Lin Langtian strode down the lane with a long bundle on his shoulder. Clean robe, new boots, and a grand expression announced that he’d prepared for the departure. He waved to the outer disciples gathering at the gate.

“Behold!” Lin Langtian said.

He swung the bundle off his shoulder and shook it out. A banner unrolled. It was red silk, taller than the ox, with a border of gold thread. Two enormous characters had been stitched in the middle in the same gold: INSPECTOR.

The crowd went quiet. Someone coughed.

“What a banner!” a disciple cried. “That's real gold!”

“Real silk!”

“Where did he get the money?”

“Maybe the sect gave it to him.”

“Elder Qian Mo would die first. An iron rooster won't shed a single feather.”

“…”

“Where did you get the money?” Shi Feng asked.

“A fine question,” Lin Langtian said, hammering the banner pole into a socket on the cart. “The seamstress at the south workshops wanted forty stones. I told her an inspector's banner is an honour. She was moved. I put the forty on your account.”

“Why mine?” Shi Feng said.

“Because it was your idea,” Lin Langtian said.

“It wasn't,” Shi Feng said.

“Close enough,” Lin Langtian said firmly. “It’s on your cart, isn’t it? Stop looking so wounded, Junior Brother. We can’t announce an inspection with a strip of old sackcloth.”

Sima Lan opened her ledger. She wrote a line, tore a corner off the page and put the scrap into Shi Feng's hand without a word. The scrap said: Banner, forty. Seamstress's tip, five. Fool's tax, one.

“What is the fool's tax?” Shi Feng asked.

“That's mine,” Sima Lan said. “I charge it when you let him.”

Lin Langtian climbed onto the cart's driving board and picked up the reins. Gray Ear flicked one ear and did not move. He clicked his tongue. The ox did not move. He leaned back and said, with enormous dignity, “Junior Brother. Push.”

Shi Feng put a hand on the tailboard and pushed. He thought, We haven’t reached the first town, and I’ve paid for an ox that won’t move. The cart rolled, Gray Ear finally walked, and Zhu Liu jumped aboard amid the disciples’ cheers.

Dust. Wheels. A red banner flapping over the Duanyang road.

By noon they had passed two checkpoints. At the first, the guard bowed, because the banner was enormous. At the second the guard bowed again, because the first guard had bowed. Lin Langtian waved at both. He sat on the driving board eating a sweet potato, and he hadn't touched the reins in an hour.

“Inspector's lesson one,” Lin Langtian said. “An inspector never walks into a town. He is announced.”

“By whom?” Shi Feng asked.

“The banner gets there before your name does,” Lin Langtian said, waving the potato. “As the saying goes, the fox borrows the tiger’s might. By the time they see your face, the local officials know someone has come to inspect them. That makes them listen before they start arguing.”

“And if the town has no fear?” Shi Feng said.

“Then you lend it some,” Lin Langtian said.

Sima Lan, sitting very straight with her ledger on her knees, wrote something down. Zhu Liu, on the tailboard, wrote it down too.

Late in the afternoon the road climbed a low ridge, and below it lay Qingtong Town. Shi Feng had expected smoke. A smith town should have forty chimneys breathing black into the sky, and a thousand hammers beating a steady ring.

He heard nothing.

The cart rolled down toward the gate. The furnaces were cold. The chimneys stood empty and clean. A few apprentices sat on the road with their hands on their knees, staring at the dust.

At the gate itself, a man in a Qiao merchant house tabard stood on a ladder with a hammer in one hand. He was nailing a large wooden board to the gatepost. The board was freshly painted. Across the top it read: NEW PRICE LIST. Under it, in a column, were the names of metals.

Every price was triple.

Lin Langtian stopped chewing. The banner flapped overhead.

“Junior Brother,” Lin Langtian said, very softly. “I do believe we've found our first inspection.”