Chapter 351 — On the Furnace Roof

CHAPTER 351

On the Furnace Roof

“Up here, Junior Brother!” Lin Langtian called from the roof.

The voice came from over his head, just as Shi Feng stepped out of the furnace hall into the cold. He looked up. A pair of boots hung over the edge of the roof, and a roasted sweet potato waved beside them.

“It's the middle of the night,” Shi Feng said.

“The best time for a roof!” Lin Langtian said. “Come up. Bring the bench.”

Shi Feng carried the bench to the wall, climbed onto it, and pulled himself up onto the tiles. The roof was still warm from the furnace. Its tiles ticked as they slowly cooled. Lin Langtian sat at the ridge with his legs spread and a bundle of potatoes beside him.

“Sit,” Lin Langtian said. “Eat. I roasted five. I only intended to give you one, but I got hungry.”

Shi Feng sat. A potato landed in his lap, still hot.

For a while neither of them spoke. Below them lay the sect, small and dark. The outer-court lanterns made a thin line along the eastern lane. Beyond the walls, the Duanyang road ran pale under the moon. Somewhere an owl hooted, and somewhere farther off Elder Qian Mo's abacus was still clicking in the Treasury.

“How many tonight?” Lin Langtian asked.

“Eleven,” Shi Feng replied, accepting the hot potato.

“All waste?” Lin Langtian asked.

“All waste,” Shi Feng confirmed.

“Hah!” Lin Langtian exclaimed between bites. “Eleven. Last week it was fourteen. You're getting better at it.”

“At failing?” Shi Feng asked, not much comforted.

“Failing less badly,” Lin Langtian replied, licking his thumb. “A fall into the pit, a gain in your wit. A man who fails badly gets the same ending every time. A man who fails better starts failing in new places. Which place today?”

“The very end,” Shi Feng said. “Every pot is perfect until the last breath. Then it falls apart.”

“Every pot?” Lin Langtian asked, taking the answer more seriously.

“Every one,” Shi Feng confirmed.

“Hm,” Lin Langtian said.

It was not the usual sound he made. Shi Feng glanced sideways. Lin Langtian was no longer looking at the stars, or the road, or the lantern line. He was looking at Shi Feng, quite openly, with the potato forgotten in his hand.

“What?” Shi Feng asked.

“Nothing,” Lin Langtian replied, but he kept watching him.

“You’re staring,” Shi Feng said, waiting for an explanation.

“I’m allowed. It’s my roof,” Lin Langtian replied, trying to sound casual. “Junior Brother. Can I say something you won't like?”

“You always do,” Shi Feng replied.

“This one isn’t a joke,” Lin Langtian said, letting the forced lightness drop.

Shi Feng turned his head and waited.

Lin Langtian set the potato between them. His unusual seriousness made Shi Feng stop eating too.

“Something in your blood isn't from these lands,” Lin Langtian said.

Shi Feng didn't answer.

He sat very still, with the potato going cold in his lap. He thought, Which lands, then? His first thought was that this was another of Lin Langtian's jokes. His second was that it wasn't. Lin Langtian had made a hundred jokes since the Flame Cavern. He had never once made one in this voice.

“I won't ask what it means,” Shi Feng said at last.

“Good,” Lin Langtian said quietly.

“Because you wouldn’t tell me,” Shi Feng said.

“Because I’m not sure, and it’s not mine to guess,” Lin Langtian replied with a long breath, and for a moment he looked far older than any chief disciple should. “I've smelled it since the cavern. I thought I was imagining it. I'm not. That's all.”

“All right,” Shi Feng said.

“You’re not going to ask me how?” Lin Langtian asked.

“No,” Shi Feng replied.

“Not even why I’m telling you?” Lin Langtian asked.

“You told me because you wanted me to know,” Shi Feng said. “You'll tell me the rest when you want me to know that.”

Lin Langtian looked at him for another long moment. Then he laughed, suddenly, a short startled laugh that had nothing of the roar in it.

“You've been listening to me too long,” Lin Langtian said. “That was almost wise.”

“It was almost a bill,” Shi Feng said. “You owe me an explanation, due when convenient.”

“Terrible!” Lin Langtian cried, with the old volume returning in one great wave. “Shameless to the extreme! A bill on the roof! Whom did you learn this from?”

“A man with a lot of potatoes,” Shi Feng replied, pointing at the bundle.

“I'm weeping!” Lin Langtian said, and hugged the bundle to his chest. “Eat your potato, Junior Brother. Eat it before it's cold, and before the old man smells it and charges us for the smell.”

Shi Feng ate it. It was sweet and plain, and the skin burned his fingers a little. Below them the furnace ticked and settled. Neither of them said anything else about blood.

When the stars had turned a hand's width, Lin Langtian stood, stretched until his back cracked, and jumped off the roof without a word. The bench creaked once. His footsteps went off down the lane.

Shi Feng stayed where he was a while longer.

Then he climbed down, crossed the furnace hall in the dark, and took the jade box from behind the sack of ginseng.