Chapter 319 — A Cold Room

CHAPTER 319

A Cold Room

Shi Feng's breath showed white in the lamplight.

The room at the stable end of the Copper Kettle Inn had one window, one blanket and one wall that leaked. It had no stove. The stove was in the back room, three doors down, where a very warm man was singing something about a sweet potato.

He sat on the bed with the blanket around his shoulders and Zhu Liu's receipt book on his knee. The margin still read One. Two. Three. He added a fourth line. Then he crossed it out.

A knock came at the door, two sharp raps.

“Come in,” Shi Feng said.

Sima Lan came in with the warehouse ledger held flat against her chest. She wore her travelling robe, and her sleeves were rolled once at the wrist, the way she did when she'd been working past midnight. She stopped one step inside the door.

“It's cold,” Sima Lan said.

“I noticed,” Shi Feng said, drawing the blanket closer. “The stove room sounds very comfortable through that wall.”

“The innkeeper has another blanket for four stones,” Sima Lan said. “Why are you sitting here freezing?”

“I asked the price already,” Shi Feng replied.

“And you still haven’t bought it,” Sima Lan said impatiently.

“I paid twenty-six stones for the Chief Disciple's room this morning,” Shi Feng said. “I'm saving.”

“That’s stupid,” Sima Lan said. “You’ll make yourself ill trying to save on a blanket. I’m not explaining that to the healer for you.” She held out the ledger. “I've read it. All of it. Three hours.”

“Did you find the missing stock?” Shi Feng asked, making room for the book.

“The east warehouse accounts are honest for the first four pages,” Sima Lan said. “Qiao Shou is careful. After that the figures stop matching the deliveries.” She turned the book and tapped a line with one finger. “Bought in three months: twenty-three hundred bars. Sold to the smiths: three hundred and eighty. The east warehouse holds five hundred and twenty.”

“So fourteen hundred bars are somewhere else,” Shi Feng said, studying the totals.

“Yes. He hid more than he let us inspect,” Sima Lan replied.

Shi Feng followed the entries she had marked. She hadn’t just checked the totals; she had traced which deliveries never reached the inspected warehouse.

His breath made a little cloud over the paper.

“It's very cold in here,” Shi Feng said.

“Then listen to me about the blanket,” Sima Lan said.

“Do you know,” Shi Feng said, in exactly the voice a man would use to ask whether it might rain tomorrow, “I think it would be warmer if you warmed my bed.”

Silence.

Sima Lan did not move. Her face did not change for the space of two heartbeats. Then it began to change, slowly, from the ears inward, until her whole face and neck had gone the colour of a ripe persimmon.

“I…” Sima Lan said.

Shi Feng waited, politely.

“That is not…” Sima Lan stopped. “That is outside… the contract.”

“Which clause?” Shi Feng asked, enjoying her sudden embarrassment.

“There’s no clause!” Sima Lan snapped.

“Then I’ll draft one,” Shi Feng said, keeping his face straight.

Sima Lan opened her mouth. Nothing came out. She looked at the blanket, at the window and at the ledger in her own hands, as though she had never seen a ledger before. Then she walked forward, put the book on the bed beside his knee, squared it carefully with the edge of the blanket and turned around.

She left. The door shut behind her, quietly and with great dignity.

Her footsteps went down the corridor much faster than they had come.

Shi Feng sat still.

He thought, That went about the same as last time.

A thump came from the wall on his left, then a second one. Through the plaster, in the unmistakable voice of a man who had been listening with a cup pressed to the wall, came a shout of pure joy.

“Junior Brother! That was nearly decent!” Lin Langtian shouted through the wall.

Shi Feng looked at the wall.

“Go to sleep, Senior Brother,” Shi Feng said.

“Nearly! Ten out of ten for delivery! Minus two for the lack of a smile!” Lin Langtian called.

“Go to sleep,” Shi Feng said, raising his voice toward the wall.

“And minus one for forgetting to blush! You were meant to blush a little! It’s the finishing touch! A fall into the pit, a gain in your wit!” Lin Langtian added, delighted with his own advice.

“Good night, Senior Brother,” Shi Feng said.

The wall gave a long, delighted creak and went quiet. A moment later, the singing about the sweet potato started up again, a little softer.

Shi Feng pulled the blanket tighter. He took up the ledger and turned to the page where Sima Lan's finger had stopped.

She had left a mark there, a tiny dot of chalk beside one line. The line was in Qiao Shou's neat hand, written on the last page of the book and almost hidden by the binding. It read: Store Two. West Granary, behind the dyers' row. Bar iron, 1,100. Bronze, 300.

Beneath it, in Sima Lan's small precise writing, was a single note. It said: Second warehouse. He kept it off the inspection list. Do not tell the Chief Disciple until you have a plan.

And below that, in a very slightly different hand, as though written afterwards with a shaking pen: Charge for ledger delivery after hours: nothing.

Shi Feng read that last line twice.

“Hm,” Shi Feng said to the empty room.

Then he blew out the lamp and began to plan.