Chapter 354 — This Does Not Count

CHAPTER 354

This Does Not Count

Gongsun Ce walked into the dining hall at noon with a puppet under one arm and a small cloth bundle in his hand.

He crossed the room without hurrying, stepped around two bowls of porridge and a sleeping dog, and stopped in front of the corner table where Shi Feng sat with Zhu Liu. The hall had been loud. It went quiet in a ripple, table by table.

“I am here to settle a wager,” Gongsun Ce said.

“Third Prince's settling up!” a disciple at the next table whispered.

“Which wager?”

“The long one. The Great Inspection one.”

“He bet that the champion would come back poor!”

Shi Feng set down his chopsticks.

“It was your wager,” Shi Feng said. “Sit down.”

Gongsun Ce sat. He placed the puppet on the bench beside him and the bundle on the table, but he kept one hand on the cloth.

“Zhu Liu,” Gongsun Ce said. “Your account.”

“Yes, Third Prince!” Zhu Liu replied, opening his carefully prepared account. “The Great Inspection of Qingtong, Jinsha and Cuiping, thirty-four days, final account. Qingtong ore, sold at inspection price and resold to the smiths at a fair one: three thousand nine hundred stones. Jinsha ferry tribute, first month: four thousand one hundred. Iron Fist Gate, for the dock: two thousand five hundred. Martial Palace Outer Affairs, by the hand of Deacon Kong Hui, as a generous loan honoured in full: six thousand.” He swallowed. “Expenses, the ox, the banner, the inn bills and the plaque materials: one thousand two hundred and twenty. Net, fifteen thousand two hundred and eighty stones.”

Silence.

“Fifteen thousand,” someone said, very softly.

“From three towns?”

“We owed Fan Coal House twenty-three hundred and eighty last month!”

“Thirty years east of the river, thirty years west of the river!”

“…”

Gongsun Ce looked at the page. Then he looked at Shi Feng.

“I wagered that you would return poorer,” Gongsun Ce said slowly.

“Those were your terms,” Shi Feng confirmed.

“In stones, reputation or dignity. Whichever I liked,” Gongsun Ce reminded him.

“Yes,” Shi Feng said.

“Then I choose dignity,” Gongsun Ce declared, lifting a finger. “You sold sixty lumpy failures as unbreakable plaques. You told the Valley disciples an innocent serpent's eggs were stolen. You wrote a thank-you note to Martial Palace and then accepted their money. That is a great deal of dignity to lose in one month.”

“You said whichever you liked,” Shi Feng said. “You didn't say whichever you liked afterwards.”

“A reasonable man would assume—” Gongsun Ce began, irritated that his objection hadn’t worked.

“The wager said poorer. Stones are what the sect counts,” Shi Feng said. “Zhu Liu, how did the plaque merchants take it?”

“They've asked for sixty more, Senior Brother Shi,” Zhu Liu said. “They say the lumps are collectable.”

“…”

“I see,” Gongsun Ce said.

He looked very calm. His calm was forced. He plainly wanted another argument that would let him keep the bundle.

“The loan,” Gongsun Ce said. “Martial Palace's six thousand. That is not income. It was extorted, by courtesy. A courtesy cannot be counted as profit.”

“The receipt is in Deacon Kong Hui's own hand,” Zhu Liu said, turning the book around. “'Received with thanks, in friendship.'”

Gongsun Ce read it. His mouth tightened. For one moment he looked like someone about to argue the matter all afternoon.

“This does not count,” Gongsun Ce said.

“It counts,” Shi Feng said.

“It does not count as a victory of the usual kind. It counts only in the narrowest, most technical—” Gongsun Ce argued, then stopped. He closed his eyes briefly. Then he pushed the cloth bundle across the table with two fingers. “Take it.”

“What shall I write for the payment, Third Prince?” Zhu Liu asked, accepting it with both hands.

“The usual currency,” Gongsun Ce said.

“The usual currency,” Shi Feng agreed.

Zhu Liu looked from one face to the other. Neither of them looked back. He wrote Received: stake, doubled, in the usual currency (both parties declined to explain).

At the next table, a disciple dropped his chopsticks.

“It's the same currency! The same one!”

“What is it?”

“Nobody knows!”

“I'll bet ten it's puppet cores.”

“I'll bet twenty it's something else!”

Wu Qiang, from the doorway, was already writing odds on his cuff.

“You do pay,” Shi Feng said.

“I always pay,” Gongsun Ce said stiffly. “It is the one thing about me no one can improve.” He unfolded his hands and laid them flat on the table. “But I have a new wager.”

“I thought you might,” Shi Feng replied, amused that he hadn’t even left the bench.

“You are registered for the 2 Mark at Duanyang Tower,” Gongsun Ce said.

“You heard,” Shi Feng replied.

“Everyone heard. Lin Langtian told the gate guard, who told the baker, who told the butcher,” Gongsun Ce replied, drawing breath. “The youngest 2 Mark in this region was sixty-one years old. You are twenty. I wager that you will fail.”

“What’s the stake?” Shi Feng asked.

“Double what I just paid,” Gongsun Ce said, resting his hand firmly on the table.

The hall held its breath.

“Wait!” Lin Langtian shouted from the door.

Lin Langtian pushed through the crowd with a potato in each hand. “Ten stones on Junior Brother!” Lin Langtian shouted. “At any odds!”

“No odds,” Gongsun Ce said. “A certainty is not a wager.”

“I’m wounded,” Lin Langtian protested, pressing a potato to his chest. “Thirty stones. I'll go to forty!”

“Accepted,” Shi Feng said.

He said it plainly, and Gongsun Ce nodded once, and rose from the bench. He took up his puppet. At the door he stopped and put a small coin purse on Zhu Liu's table without turning round.

“Ten stones,” Gongsun Ce said. “For the tea. You will have none at the Tower, I am told.”

He walked out. The hall burst into noise behind him.

At the back, Sima Lan sat alone at a long table with a bowl of rice. She said nothing. She finished the last grain and took a small envelope from her sleeve. The word Attendant was written on it. Sixty stones lay inside.

She slid it across to Wu Qiang's runner without lifting her eyes.

“On the champion,” Sima Lan said. “Nine to one.”