Chapter 352 — Very Good Waste

CHAPTER 352

Very Good Waste

Shi Feng barred the furnace hall door and put a stool against it.

He had never done that before. Zhu Liu was asleep in his hut. Sima Lan had gone to bed after a last pot of tea, and Old Soot lay snoring in the stove room. For the first time in seven nights, nobody was watching, counting or writing.

He set the cracked cauldron on its three bell-melted legs and laid the twelve herbs on the cloth. Then he opened the jade box.

The Ninefold Lotus lay white and green in the lamplight. Its cool scent filled the room. He lifted it out in both hands, and his fingers did not shake. He noticed that and thought, So it's not nerves. That's new.

He called up the Thousand Forge Flame Art and let the fire rise.

First the orchid, then the ginseng, then the red lantern root. He didn't hurry. Seven nights of failure had taught him one thing at least: his hands always went faster at the end. He had been trying to finish before the pot could break. Tonight there was no spare lotus. If it broke, it broke.

So he slowed down.

The pot began to hum, low and clean. The seventh herb went in on the breath. The eighth. The ninth. Warmth spread through the hall. The humming rose, thin and bright, and for the first time all week it didn't waver.

Above him, a pair of boots appeared in the smoke hole in the roof.

Shi Feng didn't look up. He knew those boots. He knew the smell of a roasted potato. For once, Lin Langtian watched without a word. Shi Feng was grateful that his senior brother knew when to stop teasing.

The tenth herb. The eleventh.

He took the Ninefold Lotus and lowered it into the pot.

The note changed. It went down a full octave, deep and round, and the whole cauldron trembled on its legs. The petals opened in the flame one after another, nine rims of green light, and the white heart dissolved into the liquid.

The twelfth herb went in. The last breath came.

This was where every pot had failed. This was where his hand had always pushed, to hold the fire, to force the shape, to stop it falling apart. Shi Feng took his hand away.

He did nothing at all.

The fire went on by itself. The pot hummed on, and the light inside it folded once, twice, three times, and drew itself into a single point. A soft chime rang from the cauldron.

Then it was quiet.

Shi Feng let out a breath. He lifted the lid with a cloth.

At the bottom of the cauldron lay one pill. It was the size of a pea, milky white, with nine green lines running round it like petals. It gave off a faint, warm light. It was perfectly round.

Shi Feng looked at it, and the Ledger said nothing at all.

“Hm,” Lin Langtian murmured from the roof.

Shi Feng looked up. Lin Langtian lay across the smoke hole with his chin on his folded arms. He had no potato. His face was wet with smoke, or with something else.

“You didn't look up,” Lin Langtian said.

“I was busy,” Shi Feng said.

“There were clouds. Two of them, over the pot. Very faint,” Lin Langtian said in a strangely thin voice. “Nobody else would have seen them. They were gone in two breaths.”

“Two,” Shi Feng said.

“Two is a start. A master makes six or seven,” Lin Langtian said. He dropped through the smoke hole and landed on both feet with no sound at all. “Don't pull a face. You made a Nascent Soul-grade pill at early Golden Core with a cracked pot and a toad on your doorstep. Heaven rewards the diligent, as they say. It's not the clouds. It's that it exists.”

He crossed the floor and stopped in front of the cauldron. Shi Feng held out the pill on the cloth.

Lin Langtian took it.

He didn't speak. He turned it slowly between two fingers, plainly moved by the small pill. The nine green lines caught the flame. His thumb moved over them, and was perfectly steady.

The hall was so quiet that Shi Feng could hear the furnace settle.

“It's been a very long time,” Lin Langtian said softly, “since anyone made me one.”

Shi Feng did not ask who.

Lin Langtian closed his hand. Then he tipped back his head, dropped the pill into his mouth, chewed it twice and swallowed.

“Needs salt,” Lin Langtian said.

“It's a Nascent Soul-grade pill,” Shi Feng said.

“Needs salt!” Lin Langtian shouted, making the hall ring. A faint glow went through his chest and out of his fingertips, gone again almost before Shi Feng could see it. He laughed. He wiped his face on his sleeve and laughed again. “Junior Brother! Do you know what you've done?”

“A pill,” Shi Feng replied, watching the brief glow fade.

“A pill! He says a pill!” Lin Langtian cried, grabbing him by the shoulders. “I'm going to wake the old man!”

“It’s the middle of the night,” Shi Feng reminded him.

“That’s the best time to be woken for good news!” Lin Langtian declared.

He kicked the stool away, tore the bar off the door and ran out into the dark.

Shi Feng stood alone in the empty furnace hall. The cauldron still held a little warmth. At the bottom lay the ash of the lotus, silver and fine as dust. He scooped it up with two fingers and swallowed it, and the Ledger answered, flat and quiet in his mind.

[Core: 22%]

“OLD MAN! GET UP! HE DID IT!” Lin Langtian roared from far across the sect.

A moment later, very faintly, came the sound of a walnut abacus hitting the floor.