Chapter 357 — Duanyang Tower

CHAPTER 357

Duanyang Tower

The Martial Palace disciples on the tower steps saw Shi Feng coming and covered their rings.

There were four of them, in crimson robes with gold pillars on the sleeves. They had been lounging against the white stone rail. Now they stood straight, each keeping his right hand firmly over the ring on his left.

“That's him,” one whispered.

“Which one?”

“The one with the sword on his back. Cover your ring!”

“I am covering it!”

“Cover it better!”

Shi Feng walked up the steps at an ordinary pace. The disciples hurriedly made room for him. One of them, a young man with a scar on his chin, stepped back so quickly that he sat down on the second stair. Nobody helped him up.

Sima Lan followed a pace behind, ledger under her arm. She recognized their fear and was pleased that none of them tried to block his way. Once bitten by a snake, as the saying goes, a man fears a well rope for ten years.

“Four,” Sima Lan said quietly. “The last time at the border market, it was seventeen route changes. They've learned.”

“They've learned to stand still,” Shi Feng said.

“Stand still, and cover the ring. That's progress,” Sima Lan said, and wrote a line in her ledger as she walked.

The Duanyang Sky Pavilion tower rose over the main market in six storeys of white stone and blue tile. Its ground floor was one enormous hall, loud with merchants. On the far wall hung a black board in a gold frame: CERTIFIED ALCHEMISTS OF THE DUANYANG TOWER. Shi Feng had seen it once before, on the day Lin bought the stall's permit. It held a great many names, and every one of them was old.

A long, thin clerk with ink on both cuffs came out from behind a pillar and stopped dead.

“Clerk Du,” Shi Feng said.

“Candidate Shi,” Clerk Du said. His thumb moved against his sleeve as if checking a stamp that wasn't there. “You told me, months ago. 'Golden Core first. Then the paper.'”

“I did,” Shi Feng said.

“I wrote it down,” Clerk Du said. “I thought you were being funny.”

“He was not,” Sima Lan said. “I wrote it down too.”

Clerk Du looked at her notebook, then at the black board, and walked away without another word.

The candidates' desk stood in the side corridor, under a red lantern. The clerk on duty was a plump young man with a round face called Jin Bo, according to the plate on his table. He had a stack of forms, a very large brush, and a tired smile after a morning spent answering elderly candidates.

“Name?” Jin Bo asked.

“Shi Feng,” Shi Feng said.

“Age?” Jin Bo asked.

“Twenty,” Shi Feng said.

Jin Bo stopped writing and checked Shi Feng’s face. Twenty was far younger than he’d expected.

“Cultivation?” Jin Bo asked.

“Golden Core,” Shi Feng said.

“Early, mid or late?” Jin Bo asked.

“Early,” Shi Feng said.

“And grade?” Jin Bo asked.

“The jade was blank,” Shi Feng said.

“Ah,” Jin Bo said, writing it down very slowly. “That one. The blank jade. The teahouses say it means hidden Heaven grade. Or failure. Or a broken jade.”

“Which do you think?” Sima Lan asked.

“I think the fee is two thousand stones,” Jin Bo said, pulling a letter out from under his stack. It was three pages long and covered in crossed-out figures. “After your sect master's letter. It started at three thousand. He argued it down page by page. I had to read it twice. It was a very persuasive letter.”

“He is persuasive,” Shi Feng said.

“He is a stone in a sandal,” Jin Bo muttered, checking the stamp again. “Two thousand, received in full.”

Sima Lan laid two receipts on the table, a thousand each, Clerk Du's stamp on both. Jin Bo thanked her automatically before remembering that he still had another form to complete.

“The sect paid half, the candidate paid half,” Sima Lan said. “Please note that on your list.”

“Noted,” Jin Bo said. He turned to a second form. “And your maid? Servants wait in the lower courtyard. If she comes into the hall, it's one stone.”

“Attendant,” Sima Lan said.

“Yes, the maid. Candidates' servants—” Jin Bo began.

“Attendant,” Sima Lan said.

“Is that a kind of maid?” Jin Bo asked, blinking.

“It's a kind of contract,” Sima Lan said. “Clause one. I keep his accounts, his stall and his appointments. I am paid forty stones a month. I am not a servant, and I am not waiting in any courtyard.”

“She does run my accounts,” Shi Feng said.

Jin Bo looked from one to the other, then at the brush in his hand. He wrote the word “attendant” and, after a moment's hesitation, a second word in brackets next to it.

Sima Lan took the brush out of his fingers, drew one clean stroke through the brackets and gave it back.

“One stone,” Sima Lan said, and put it on the desk, “for the hall.”

Jin Bo swallowed and handed over the wooden token. “Number thirty-two,” Jin Bo said. “There are thirty-two candidates, nearly all past sixty. Four rounds. Theory, herbs, pairing and the final furnace, which is drawn by lot. The candidates' hall is through the east door.”

“Thank you,” Shi Feng said.

“A word of advice,” Jin Bo said, lowering his voice. “The old men have been waiting since dawn to be wrong about someone.”

The east door was already open. From behind it came the sound of a dozen elderly men laughing at the same time, and one voice rose above the rest, rich and smug.

One old man loudly demanded to know why the Tower had let a child enter the 2 Mark trial. As the saying goes, a mouth without whiskers does nothing reliably.

Sima Lan closed her ledger.

“I'll bill the insult by the word,” Sima Lan said.