Chapter 321 — Whose Ore Is This

CHAPTER 321

Whose Ore Is This

Hooves hammered the lane. Dyers scattered, a vat tipped over, and a stream of blue ran under the granary door.

Eight riders swung down in front of the West Granary. They wore the Qiao house's green tabards over hard leather, and every one carried a sword. At their head rode a young man in a robe of cloud-white silk, so new that it still showed the creases from the shop. A bronze plaque hung from his belt. It was stamped with a clenched fist.

Shi Feng stood in the doorway. Behind him two Hall porters were loading the first bars onto a hired cart. Zhu Liu was counting aloud and had lost count twice.

“You,” Qiao Wenyan said, pointing his fan at Shi Feng. “Are you the one moving my ore?”

“Who are you?” Shi Feng asked.

“I am Qiao Wenyan! Young Master of the Qiao house!” Qiao Wenyan declared, lifting his chin. “And this—” Qiao Wenyan tapped the bronze plaque, “is a Martial Palace token. Do you know whose ore this is?”

“Mine,” Shi Feng said. “Here's the receipt.”

Zhu Liu, trembling, held up the paper.

Qiao Wenyan looked at it. He did not read it. He looked at Shi Feng's plain clothes, the grey Sword on his back, the stooped boy with the ink-stained sleeves.

“Wait,” Qiao Wenyan said slowly. “You're the cliff boy. The one the grading jade couldn't read.”

“I am,” Shi Feng said.

“A blank core!” Qiao Wenyan cried, laughing at him. “A pearl with nothing inside! Everyone in Duanyang says so!” He turned to his men. “Hear that? The jade couldn't find a word for him! It was too embarrassed!”

The enforcers laughed loudly, eager to please their young master.

“It's still my receipt,” Shi Feng said.

“Leave it,” Qiao Wenyan said, wiping his eye. “Zhai Kun. Take my ore back. Break his legs if he argues. Say they slipped.”

Zhai Kun, a thick man with a flat nose, drew his sword. Seven more blades came out behind him.

“You should have handed it over while he was asking,” Zhai Kun sneered. “Overestimating your own abilities is courting death! Give the young master that receipt and kneel!”

Shi Feng set a hand on the hilt behind his shoulder and looked at the wet floor, the stacks of rotten planks and the eight men. Shi Feng thought, Foundation Establishment. Two at the peak, and a narrow door. Their numbers wouldn’t help if he made them crowd each other. He didn’t want to flood the lane with blood or smash the stock he’d just bought.

Then again, he thought, someone would be paying for it.

He drew the Sword.

“Kill him!” Qiao Wenyan shouted.

Zhai Kun charged first. His blade came down in a hard diagonal, aimed at the shoulder. Shi Feng stepped sideways. The Drifting Ash Step carried him half a stride left, and the blade missed his collar by a hair and sank into the nearest stack.

Crash.

A tower of bronze bars slid off the rotten planks and fell. The planks snapped. The enforcer behind Zhai Kun leaped back, shrieking, with a bar across his boot.

“Idiot!” Qiao Wenyan shouted. “That's my—”

Shi Feng raised the Sword once. Ember Rain spread from its edge, dropping sparks onto three enforcers’ sleeves. Their robes began to smoke. They dropped their swords and danced about, slapping at their arms.

“Fire! Fire!”

“It's my beard!”

“Put it out! Put it in the vat!”

Two men dived headfirst into the nearest vat. They came out blue.

Four left. They came together, and Shi Feng backed into the doorway so that only two could reach him. The first thrust at his belly; he knocked it down with the flat of the Sword, and the weapon spun away across the floor. The second kicked. Shi Feng turned, and the kick hit a crate instead.

Crack.

Another stack came down, bars ringing as they struck the planks.

The two enforcers were sitting in the puddle among the broken rust with their hands up, and the third lay with a bronze bar on his leg, groaning.

Only Zhai Kun was left standing. He lunged. Shi Feng slid inside the thrust, put his shoulder in the man's chest, and a short, heavy strike sent him backward through the door and out into the lane. He landed on his back in a blue puddle.

The remaining riders fell silent. None dared help Zhai Kun up.

The dyers had gathered at the end of the lane. A girl held a half-wrung cloth. An old man whistled softly.

“He took eight men?”

“In one breath!”

“That's the cliff boy?”

“A blank core? With that sword? The young master has eyes but failed to see Mount Tai!”

“…”

Qiao Wenyan had backed up against his horse. His fan was pointing at nothing. The plaque on his belt swung against his thigh.

“You,” Qiao Wenyan said. “You dare. This token—”

Shi Feng walked toward him, unhurried, with the Sword held low at his side. He stopped one pace away and looked down at the white silk robe.

“Zhu Liu,” Shi Feng said.

“Here, Senior Brother Shi,” Zhu Liu answered, hurrying to turn the receipt book.

“Count what his men broke,” Shi Feng told Zhu Liu. “Include the vats outside.”

Zhu Liu flipped pages with shaking hands. “Eleven stacks of bar iron and bronze, thrown down by the Qiao house's own men. Nineteen planks. One door hinge. Two dye vats, both blue. Handling of rust, one stone.” He swallowed. “Total, one hundred and sixty-two stones.”

“Whose damage?” Shi Feng asked.

“The party that broke it,” Zhu Liu said.

“Pay,” Shi Feng said to Qiao Wenyan.

“Me?! It's your…!” Qiao Wenyan's voice cracked. “It's my men's…!”

“Your men broke it after you ordered them in,” Shi Feng said. “You’ll pay for their damage.”

Qiao Wenyan fumbled at his belt. He found a heavy purse, looked at it, and threw it on the ground. Then he scrambled into his saddle, wobbling, and yanked the reins round. His men were already limping behind him, blue to the elbows.

“Martial Palace will hear of this!” Qiao Wenyan shrieked, from halfway down the lane. “I'll tell the Palace! You'll regret this!”

“Please do,” Shi Feng called after him. “The receipts are numbered.”