Chapter 33 — Food Costs Extra

CHAPTER 33

Food Costs Extra

Shi Feng stirred the porridge and counted three grains of rice. He waited for the rest to rise. None did.

Across the convoy's first roadside camp, Pei Rong held out his bowl with a pleased smile. The carts left Shuanghe's western warehouse that morning, and their afternoon stop was apparently an excuse to sell hot water.

“Food costs extra,” Pei Rong said.

“So does the rice?” Shi Feng asked.

The nearest porters laughed. Tian Laowu turned from the cooking pot with his ladle raised.

“There's rice in it!” Tian Laowu snapped.

“I found three grains,” Shi Feng replied.

“It settles at the bottom!” Tian Laowu said.

“Then give me the bottom,” Shi Feng said.

Tian Laowu looked into the pot. His face reddened.

Pei Rong suddenly became busy with a cart rope. Shi Feng drank the hot water, ate a cake from his own supplies, and decided he'd cook tomorrow.

When the carts started again, he sat beside a grain bale on the third cart. The road wound between fields of young green shoots. At one bend, four children threw dirt clods at a painted wooden target. They shouted every time someone missed, which was often.

The slow pace suited his shoulder. It also gave him time to read the ordinary Bone Refinement manual without a beast trying to eat the page.

Xue Kun rode beside the second cart. The Bone Refinement guard kept his saber where everyone could see it and shouted whenever a porter took too long at a stop. His gaze often returned to Shi Feng's belt.

Shi Feng ignored it. Looking wasn't an attack. If the guard wanted more than that, he could say so.

At the next village, Shi Feng bought rice, bean paste, spring onions, and a little salt. That evening, he set his own pot over a small fire beyond the cart wheels. He rinsed the rice, cut the onions, and let the bean paste dissolve in hot water before bringing it together.

The pot needed proper ingredients and someone to watch the heat.

Pei Rong wandered over with a bowl.

“Smells good!” Pei Rong said.

“It isn't finished,” Shi Feng replied.

“I can wait,” Pei Rong said, sitting down.

Shi Feng looked at the empty bowl.

“One spirit stone,” Shi Feng said.

Pei Rong's smile paused.

“We're traveling together,” Pei Rong said.

“Food costs extra,” Shi Feng replied.

The porters nearby laughed again. Pei Rong glared at them, then paid and held out his bowl.

Shi Feng filled his own first.

The merchant took a cautious mouthful, then another. Soon he was scraping the bottom with enough effort to make the spoon squeak.

Tian Laowu watched from the convoy pot.

“It's just bean paste,” Tian Laowu muttered.

“Then put some in yours,” Pei Rong said.

The cook's expression changed. The porters looked away before he could blame them for smiling.

Three men bought bowls. Another asked for credit until the capital. Shi Feng shook his head and ate the remaining portion himself.

Bu Tie squatted nearby and looked into his empty bowl.

“How long did you learn cooking?” Bu Tie asked.

“Long enough to stop burning it,” Shi Feng said.

“I cook every day,” Bu Tie said. “Mine still tastes bad.”

“Do you leave it on the fire while you load the carts?” Shi Feng asked.

Bu Tie looked embarrassed.

“Only when someone's shouting for me,” Bu Tie said.

“Someone's always shouting for you,” Shi Feng replied. “Move it off the fire first.”

The porter nodded and stood. He didn't suddenly become a better cook, but he took the empty bowl to the pump instead of leaving it for Shi Feng to wash. Across the camp, Tian Laowu tasted his own porridge and quietly added salt.

A few paid bowls covered his ingredients. Feeding thirty men would leave no time for cultivation.

After the fires settled, he took the sword and walked beyond the lanterns. He practiced each day since the quarry fight. Tonight he could repeat the same movements without stopping halfway to rest the shoulder.

A clear patch stood beside a shallow stream. Shi Feng practiced there with no bright edge along the blade and no qi spilling from his body.

Three cuts, a turn, a shortened thrust.

The shoulder no longer pulled sharply during the turn. His wrist still ached if he changed direction too fast. He slowed the movement, kept the point steady, and repeated it until his feet found the right places without thought.

Then he sat beneath a tree and cultivated. The strength from his earlier hunts was settling properly now. He guided it through the small bones in his hands and feet, refining one section before beginning another.

About five percent of the ordinary Bone Refinement work was done. That meant roughly ten small bones out of two hundred and six. The larger bones still needed far more resources.

It wasn't a high percentage. It was already enough to make a Foundation Establishment cultivator regret coming alone.

Shi Feng thought: I'll finish every bone. There's no point rushing into the next realm with half the work left. He returned before the watch changed and slept beside his pack.

On the sixth evening after the quarry fight, the convoy stopped at a roadside warehouse. The capital was still beyond the next two days of walking, but Pei Rong wanted to unload part of his goods here. Shi Feng washed his pot at the yard pump and started supper beneath an open shed.

Xue Kun sat down beside the fire.

“Kid,” Xue Kun said. “You forgot someone yesterday.”

Shi Feng put the lid down.

“Who?” Shi Feng asked.

“The man protecting this convoy,” Xue Kun said, tapping his saber.

“Pei Rong's over there,” Shi Feng replied. “Ask him for your pay.”

Xue Kun's ears reddened.

“Travelers show respect,” Xue Kun said. “A fellow carrying a fat purse should be grateful someone stands watch.”

“A bowl costs one stone,” Shi Feng said.

The guard leaned closer. He smelled of cheap wine and Tian Laowu's onions.

“What if a beast comes for the third cart?” Xue Kun asked. “I've only got two hands. Maybe I'll be busy elsewhere.”

“Then stay elsewhere,” Shi Feng said.

Xue Kun stared at him.

The nearest porter stopped splitting wood. Another lowered the bucket he was carrying.

“He said that to Xue Kun?”

“He didn't even move the pot.”

“The cripple really has a temper!”

“…”

Xue Kun had expected a frightened apology.

His hand closed on the saber's hilt.

Shi Feng looked at it.

The guard hesitated. Nothing in the youth's face suggested he cared whether that blade came out. Xue Kun didn't know why that made him uneasy, but it did.

“Hmph! I'm giving advice,” Xue Kun said.

“I didn't order any,” Shi Feng replied.

Xue Kun stood abruptly and strode toward the convoy kitchen. He shouted for a bowl loud enough to make Tian Laowu drop the ladle. Shi Feng took the lid off his own pot.

He filled a bowl for himself, then accepted the stones from two waiting porters. Neither mentioned Xue Kun.

Across the yard, Pei Rong checked his stacked crates while pretending he saw nothing. Tian Laowu finally put a proper scoop of rice into the convoy pot.

Before the cookfire died, a single covered silk-cart rolled into the warehouse yard and a familiar figure swung down with a spear in hand. Lin Shuang spotted Shi Feng beside the pot and walked over, dusting road grit from her cuffs.

“You didn’t get eaten in the kiln,” Lin Shuang said, looking from his healed shoulder to the pot. “Got a bowl left?”

“One stone for the carter, free for the warning on the roof,” Shi Feng said, filling a bowl for her and another for her grey-bearded carter, Zou Sheng.

“Fair trade,” Lin Shuang said, sitting on an upturned bucket. She jerked her chin toward the sealed brocade chests on her cart. “We’re hauling rejected tribute cloth back from the southern dye-works to the capital. Last month Crown Prince Sima Yu sent forty bolts of cloud brocade to the Ling household for Fairy Ling Qingzhu. My carter here drove the wagon—she didn’t even untie the ribbons before sending all forty bolts back out the gate.”

“Forty bolts of royal cloud brocade!” Zou Sheng grumbled over his bowl. “Worth enough to buy a street, and the First Fairy treated it like wet straw!”

Shi Feng listened with mild interest as he cleaned his blade. While the carter went back to check the mules, Lin Shuang lowered her voice and glanced toward the dark well near the side gate, where Xue Kun had just finished a quiet exchange with two men in short drivers’ coats who didn’t belong to Pei Rong’s crew.

“Your convoy guard has restless eyes,” Lin Shuang murmured, setting her empty bowl down. “Someone greased the iron bolt on that side gate an hour ago. Keep your sword near your hand tonight, Shi Feng.”