Chapter 332 — A Calm Entrance
CHAPTER 332
A Calm Entrance
“Walk slowly,” Sima Lan said. “You're limping.”
“I'm not limping,” Shi Feng said.
“Your left ankle is,” Sima Lan said, annoyed by the denial. “You’re only following it.”
The truce pavilion stood on a stone shelf at the mouth of Cuiping Valley, five li above the town. It was a long shed with a mat roof, three tables and a boundary stone carved with nine petals. Behind it, grey mist rolled out of the gorge and carried the smell of a thousand herbs.
Three banners stood on three poles. Martial Palace flew crimson with a gold fist. Hundred Flower Valley flew white with a green flower. Artificer Hall's banner was a patched brown rag, and next to it, taller than all of them, flapped the red silk INSPECTOR.
Shi Feng had planned a quiet entrance. He would walk in at the back, take a stool and listen. After Jinsha, everyone in the region had heard of the Slag Weight and the invoices, and he saw no reason to add to the noise.
A Martial Palace attendant announced Chief Disciple Lin Langtian of Artificer Hall, inspector of the tributary towns and host of the truce.
“And his junior brother!” Lin Langtian boomed, sweeping an arm back before Shi Feng could stop him. “The famous Shi Feng! Make way, make way!”
Every head in the pavilion turned. Shi Feng stopped in the doorway.
“I said I'd walk in quietly,” Shi Feng said.
“You did,” Lin Langtian said happily. “I disagreed.”
Behind Shi Feng, Zhu Liu came through the door with the covered basket in both arms. He was concentrating on his feet. Sima Lan walked beside him, embarrassed enough by the announcement to stare at the ceiling beams.
Shi Feng walked down the aisle. His ankle hurt at every step, but he refused to let Yuan Kuang see him wince. Whispers followed him on both sides.
“That's him. The one who drew nine bolts.”
“He's shorter than I thought.”
“I heard he beat Elder Bao Kun of Iron Fist Gate with a rock. Kicked an iron plate, that one.”
“It was a weight. A grey one.”
On the left sat the Martial Palace team. Seven disciples in crimson, and in front of them a broad young man with a scar across the back of one hand. Yuan Kuang had a Golden Core now, and he wanted everyone to see that he did. He looked at Shi Feng and smiled without any warmth.
On the right sat the Valley team, in white and green. Shi Feng didn't look right. He had no reason to.
Zhu Liu reached the middle of the aisle and stopped to adjust his grip on the basket. That was the mistake. He had stopped directly beside the Valley's banner pole.
The basket lid shifted.
“Zhu Liu,” Sima Lan said sharply.
“It's only a bit loose,” Zhu Liu said.
Old Soot pushed its head out. It blinked its gold-rimmed eyes at the room, looked at the green-and-white banner, and opened its mouth eagerly. Its throat swelled.
“Don't,” Shi Feng said calmly.
Old Soot burped.
A ball of orange slag-fire rolled out of its mouth, flew a full arm's length and landed on the bottom corner of the Valley banner. The cloth went up with a soft whump. By the time Zhu Liu shrieked and slapped at it with his sleeve, the Hundred Flower Valley flower had lost two petals.
For a moment the pavilion was completely silent.
Then a girl in the Valley seats burst out laughing.
“It burped on us!” Su Wanning cried, clutching Lin Yue's arm. “The toad burped fire on the Valley! Did you see? It did it on purpose!”
“It's eating the flower,” Lin Yue wheezed.
“Burned petals!”
“Whose toad is that?”
“Artificer Hall's, of course. Who else keeps a toad in a basket?”
“…”
The Martial Palace team stared. Yuan Kuang's smile twitched, because he could not decide whether to laugh or to look offended on the Valley's behalf. The Valley disciples were laughing too hard for anyone to be offended.
One person was not laughing.
Ling Qingzhu sat at the head of the Valley table in her white-and-green robe. Her veil was folded back this time. A fresh silver clasp held her hair, and her Golden Core aura was calm and settled.
She looked at Shi Feng once. Her thumb pressed the edge of the table.
Then she turned her face to the burning banner and looked away.
Shi Feng thought, So she's a Golden Core now. A moment later he thought, That's no concern of mine, and he looked at the toad. The toad looked back, proud and unrepentant, with smoke curling from its nostrils.
“It’s a toad,” Shi Feng told the staring room. He wasn’t going to invent a sect grievance to explain its appetite.
“Burnt flower,” Sima Lan said, writing in her ledger. “One corner, cloth and stitching. Six stones.”
“You're billing us?” Su Wanning gasped between giggles.
“I'm recording the damage,” Sima Lan said. “Whoever pays is a question for later.”
“I'll pay!” Lin Langtian declared, and then looked at Shi Feng with the face of a man who had just remembered something. “From Junior Brother's account. He's the toad's keeper.”
“It's sect property,” Shi Feng said. “Written under fuel.”
“Then fuel can pay,” Lin Langtian declared, refusing to accept the bill himself.
Shi Feng could already imagine Elder Qian Mo’s fury at that explanation. Shi Feng took a stool in the third row and set the basket under it. Old Soot, satisfied, pulled its lid shut.
“Order,” Lin Langtian said happily, striding to the head of the room. “This inspector declares the Cuiping Truce open. Zhu Liu, read the terms. And somebody please bring the Valley a bucket.”
Zhu Liu unrolled the paper with trembling hands. At the Martial Palace table, Yuan Kuang finally stopped smiling at Shi Feng and began smiling at nothing in particular.
Shi Feng knew that kind of smile. It came before somebody lost a bet.