Chapter 349 — By the Sackful

CHAPTER 349

By the Sackful

“Fourteen,” Zhu Liu said, and wrote it down. “Fourteen sacks, Senior Brother Shi.”

Burlap sacks blocked one wall of hut nine. The sacks stood three high along the bed, the table and the window, and the whole room smelled of dried herbs. Moon-silver ginseng, red lantern root, cold-spring orchid and a dozen others Shi Feng only knew from pictures.

He opened the nearest sack and put his hand in. Every stalk was Nascent Soul-grade, dried with care and tied in nines.

“How did he pay for this?” Shi Feng asked.

“I asked the porters,” Zhu Liu said. “They said 'inspection expenses'.”

“Whose inspection?” Shi Feng asked, already suspecting the answer.

“Chief Disciple Lin Langtian’s,” Zhu Liu replied.

The door banged. Elder Qian Mo stood on the threshold with the walnut abacus clutched to his chest. Already thin, Qian Mo looked close to fainting at the sight of the sacks.

“Inspection expenses,” Elder Qian Mo said. “I've heard those words twice since noon. The Treasury paid for nothing. The Treasury wasn't asked.”

“Elder,” Zhu Liu said anxiously, “the Chief Disciple says it was Iron Fist Gate's dock money.”

“The dock money is the sect’s! This is borrowing flowers to offer to the Buddha!” Qian Mo snapped.

“He says it’s a birthday present to the sect,” Zhu Liu added, swallowing nervously. “From himself. Using the sect's money. He says that makes the sect even.”

Elder Qian Mo opened his mouth, closed it, and stared at the burlap wall for a long time.

“Write it as a loan to the Chief Disciple,” Elder Qian Mo said at last. “At no interest. I'm not a monster.”

He left, checking the loan figures with slow, unhappy clicks of his abacus.

“Is he all right?” Shi Feng asked.

“He's counting,” Zhu Liu said. “When he stops counting, that's when to worry.”

By midnight the cracked cauldron was hot on its three bell-melted legs, and the door was shut.

Shi Feng laid out twelve herbs on a cloth in the order of the recipe, the Nine-Lotus Soul-Nourishing Pill, Nascent Soul-grade, a pill for strengthening the spiritual infant. He had read the formula seventeen times. It was three pages long. The first page said what to add. The second said when. The third said what not to do, and ended with a warning that the whole thing would probably explode.

He called up the Thousand Forge Flame Art and started.

The first pot hummed, went flat, and cracked. Brown smoke. A lump the size of a walnut.

He ate it.

[Devoured: failed Nascent Soul-grade pill | Gain: the herbs' worth | Note: fire too high at the fourth herb]

The second pot held three breaths longer, and he ate that too.

[Devoured: failed Nascent Soul-grade pill | Gain: the herbs' worth | Note: fire too low at the sixth herb]

The third stayed together for the whole recipe and then collapsed at the very end, when the last herb went in. The fourth cracked in half.

[Devoured: failed Nascent Soul-grade pill | Gain: the herbs' worth | Note: seventh herb added half a breath late]

[Devoured: failed Nascent Soul-grade pill | Gain: the herbs' worth | Note: nothing wrong that the Ledger could name]

Shi Feng read the last note again, frustrated. He’d followed the recipe, and the pot had looked sound. Something failed in the final moment, too quickly for him to identify the cause.

Before dawn he made nine more pots and ate them all. His core stirred, slow and heavy, absorbing the herbs one by one. The stack of sacks had gone down by a third.

The window rattled at first light.

“Thirteen,” Sima Lan said, from outside.

She stood in the lane in her night robe with a lantern and a piece of chalk. The wall beside his door was already half covered in white marks. She added thirteen new strokes under the hinges and the bell, and stepped back to count.

“One thousand one hundred and twenty-two,” Sima Lan said. “Since the ferry.”

“That's a lot,” Shi Feng said.

“That's thirteen in one night,” Sima Lan said. “You're going to be up all week.”

“Probably,” Shi Feng admitted, looking at the remaining sacks.

“Then you’ll need tea,” Sima Lan said, setting a covered pot on the sill. “It isn't a favour. It's four stones. Don't forget to drink it, you stubborn fool.”

She left. He drank the tea. It was too strong, as always, and he finished it.

He opened his storage ring.

The Ninefold Lotus lay in its jade box on top of the pile, white at the heart, with nine green rims around it. It had cost him a guardian, a den of stolen eggs, and one very large lie. Its fragrance filled the whole room as soon as the lid lifted.

He looked at it for a long time.

Eating the lotus would give him all its qi and help fill his core. A successful pill could give ten times as much. Shi Feng wanted that success, but this was the only lotus he had.

If it failed, he couldn't make another.

Shi Feng shut the lid and set the box on the high shelf, behind a sack of ginseng, where no one would look.

“Last one,” Shi Feng said quietly.

Outside, in the dawn, a toad in a covered basket croaked once, as if it had heard.