Chapter 34 — The Third Cart

CHAPTER 34

The Third Cart

The third cart moved after the warehouse lamps went out.

Shi Feng had been sitting beneath the shed, settling the day's cultivation. He opened his eyes at the creak of a wheel. Pei Rong's drivers had finished unloading before supper. Nobody should have been moving cargo now.

Two men pushed the rear cart toward the side gate. Its mule was already harnessed. Near the well, Xue Kun inspected the roof as if a guard's work had suddenly moved into the sky.

Shi Feng stood. His bedding lay beside that cart, and he wasn't going to walk two days to the capital because someone fancied the wheels.

“Where are you taking it?” Shi Feng asked.

The nearer man stopped pushing. The scar-faced man wore a driver's short coat, but Shi Feng had eaten with the drivers. This one hadn't been among them.

“Night delivery,” Han Qiu said.

“Then wake the owner,” Shi Feng said.

His partner moved away from the mule. Both were in Qi Condensation. They looked past Shi Feng toward Xue Kun, who continued studying the roof.

Han Qiu's patience disappeared.

“Go back to sleep, cripple,” Han Qiu said. “You saw nothing.”

Shi Feng reached for the cart's side rail. Meng Da drew a narrow knife and rushed him. There was no warning cut. The blade went straight for Shi Feng's throat.

He caught the knife hand and pressed downward.

Meng Da's wrist cracked. Before the man could shout, Shi Feng struck him beneath the jaw. The blow lifted his feet off the ground. He landed behind the cart and lay still.

Han Qiu pulled a short crossbow from beneath his coat.

The bolt struck Shi Feng's chest.

It tore the outer cloth, bent against his body, and fell. Han Qiu stared as though his own weapon had betrayed him. Shi Feng crossed the gap, seized the bow, and drove its wooden stock into the thief's throat.

Han Qiu dropped against the wheel.

The whole exchange lasted only a few breaths. No qi flared across the yard. To someone looking from the gate, two thieves had rushed a young man and fallen behind the cart.

Xue Kun turned at the second impact. His expression changed completely.

“Thieves!” Xue Kun shouted. “Wake up! Thieves in the yard!”

He drew his saber and charged toward the cart. Shi Feng put one hand on the side rail and stopped the heavy wheel before it struck the fallen thief's leg.

“You noticed quickly,” Shi Feng said.

Xue Kun swallowed.

The warehouse door opened. Pei Rong emerged in a loose robe, one sleeve twisted inside out. Bu Tie followed carrying a lamp, then the other porters crowded behind him with poles and a frying pan.

“Where?” Pei Rong demanded.

Xue Kun pointed at the bodies.

“I caught them stealing the third cart,” Xue Kun said. “They resisted. Young Master Shi helped.”

Shi Feng looked at him. It was a fine speech for a man who hadn't reached the cart before both thieves died.

Bu Tie held the lamp closer. The bolt lay beside Shi Feng's shoe. Pei Rong bent to inspect the traces of the opened side gate, then turned toward his guard.

“Who unlocked that?” Pei Rong asked.

Xue Kun's grip tightened on the saber.

“Perhaps the watch forgot,” Xue Kun said.

“You were the watch,” Pei Rong said.

From the hayloft ladder above the shed, Lin Shuang stepped down with her spear resting on her shoulder. “He was watching the roof tiles very carefully, Master Pei,” Lin Shuang said dryly. “So carefully he missed the two men he let through the side gate before moonrise. Look under his saddle blanket.”

Bu Tie hurried into the stable and came back holding a tied purse from beneath Xue Kun’s saddle blanket, with a cargo tally tucked under the cord listing everything loaded on the third cart.

Pei Rong took it. His face no longer carried any smile.

“How much were they giving you?” Pei Rong asked.

Xue Kun took a step back.

“Only a share of the goods!” Xue Kun said. “I didn't tell them to hurt anybody! They said they'd roll it away while everyone slept!”

The porters stared. Bu Tie looked at the frying pan in his companion's hand, then back at the man hired to protect them.

“You sold our cart?” Bu Tie asked.

“It wasn't your cart!” Xue Kun snapped.

“It wasn't yours either,” Pei Rong said.

Xue Kun's anger collapsed. He looked toward Shi Feng again, this time with real fear. He'd thought a medicine-fed cripple could be frightened away from a purse. Now the boy stood beside two dead Qi Condensation thieves without even breathing hard.

Bone Refinement should have given Xue Kun confidence. Instead, he became painfully aware that his saber was still outside its scabbard.

He put it away.

“Master Pei, I've served your trading house for years,” Xue Kun said. “I was drunk. I made a foolish bargain.”

Pei Rong opened the purse and counted enough stones to confirm the amount. He wasn't interested in hearing the whole history of the guard's foolishness.

“Your wages settle the missing watch and the trouble,” Pei Rong said. “Leave the badge.”

Xue Kun touched the Jade Scale token at his belt.

“Where am I supposed to go tonight?” Xue Kun asked.

“Try looking at roofs elsewhere,” Shi Feng said.

Bu Tie burst out laughing. Two porters joined him before remembering the bodies. Xue Kun's face turned from pale to red. He unfastened the badge and dropped it into Pei Rong's hand.

Pei Rong had the warehouse watch take his account of the theft. Xue Kun admitted arranging stolen cargo. Nobody claimed he'd ordered the knives or knowingly arranged a killing. By dawn he was walking out with his own bedding and no position in the convoy.

Shi Feng didn't follow him. The men who tried to kill him were already dead.

Pei Rong stopped beside the repaired side gate while the workers prepared breakfast.

“Naturally, your fare is returned,” Pei Rong said, giving Shi Feng a small purse. “A passenger shouldn't have to guard his own cart.”

“Apparently he should,” Shi Feng said.

Pei Rong rubbed his jade ring, glancing from the dented scabbard throat to the deep finger marks Shi Feng had left in the hardwood cart rail when stopping the wheel.

“You'll sit beside the driver today,” Pei Rong said.

“I'll sit where the cooking pot is,” Shi Feng said.

Bu Tie lifted the pot at once and carried it to the driver's bench. As the carts rolled onto the capital highway at sunrise alongside Lin Shuang’s brocade wagon, hoofbeats thundered past them from the east—a relay rider in the dark blue vest of the Wei household, spurring a lathered horse straight toward the capital’s southern gate with a sealed dispatch tube strapped to his back.

Lin Shuang reined her mount beside the third cart and looked after the dust cloud. “The Wei family of Yunze has a cousin sitting as a clerk in the Southern Gate office,” she told Shi Feng quietly. “If that rider’s carrying your name, the gate table will have it before noon.”