Chapter 364 — A Chief Disciple's Care

CHAPTER 364

A Chief Disciple's Care

The first warden barred the stair, warning that outside herbs weren’t allowed in the candidates’ quarters. His companion hurried to repeat the warning.

Lin Langtian stopped at the top of the stair with a bulging sack over one shoulder and a stack of eight iron pots hooked on his other arm. He wore his chief disciple’s robe and grinned broadly. Both wardens wore white robes and released their Foundation Establishment auras. Neither stepped aside.

“Herbs?” Lin Langtian said. “Brothers, what herbs?”

The first warden pointed at the bulging sack.

“The sack is a gift of affection,” Lin Langtian declared, patting it. “Please show me the rule about affection.”

The wardens looked at each other. The second one took out a small booklet and turned the pages.

The second warden found rule nine: no herbs, pills or elixirs could be brought to a finalist during the trial.

“Is affection a herb?” Lin Langtian asked.

The warden reluctantly admitted it wasn’t.

“Then rule nine doesn't mention it,” Lin Langtian said happily. “My junior brother has a bruise. A chief disciple tends his junior's bruises. It's in our sect charter, page one. Right next to the part about coal.”

The first warden objected that his junior brother didn’t have a bruise.

Lin Langtian turned his head and raised his voice so it reached the end of the corridor.

“Junior Brother! Show them your bruise!” Lin Langtian called down the corridor.

A door opened. Shi Feng looked out. He sighed, held up his right hand, and turned the palm. A red welt ran across it from the base of the thumb to the wrist, a souvenir of last night's seam.

The second warden recognized the welt as a burn.

“A burn is a bruise with ambition,” Lin Langtian said. “I'm Lin Langtian, chief disciple of Artificer Hall, early Nascent Soul. You may stop me. Please try.”

Nobody tried. The first warden stepped aside. The second one wrote burn = bruise in his booklet, and then, after a moment, crossed it out.

“Senior Brother,” Shi Feng said, “you brought eight pots.”

“Eight!” Lin Langtian said. He dumped the sack on the floor of the little room. Herbs rolled out in a bright heap. Ninefold lotus root. Moon-silver ginseng. Red cloud fruit. A vial of gold sap. A bundle of thunder-bark Shi Feng had only ever seen priced. “Eight practice pots, three stones each from the outer workshop. As the saying goes, sharpening the axe never delays the woodcutting. Your trial furnace is a fragile treasure. You don't practise on a treasure, Junior Brother. You practise on junk.”

“These are Nascent Soul-grade,” Shi Feng said, examining the herbs.

“For practice,” Lin Langtian replied, pleased by his interest.

“Of what?” Shi Feng asked, looking at the cheap pots.

“Of caring,” Lin Langtian said. “Out of a chief disciple's heart.”

Master Ruan thumped the wall from the next room and complained that some people were trying to sleep.

“Sleep is for the well-prepared!” Lin Langtian shouted back. “Mine isn't!”

Sima Lan, at the door, looked at the herbs. Then she looked at Lin Langtian.

“Eighty-one stones of ginseng alone,” Sima Lan said.

“A gift,” Lin Langtian said.

“I’ll record it as a gift,” Sima Lan said. “I’ll also record that you refused a receipt.”

“Excellent bookkeeping!” Lin Langtian praised her, quite unashamed.

Shi Feng sat down at the hearth.

The first pot cracked in the second minute. The paste rose, swelled, and burst against the wall with a sharp bang. Soot dusted his hair. Lin Langtian clapped.

“One!” Lin Langtian said. “Magnificent!”

The corridor had begun to fill. Doors opened. Slippers shuffled.

“What was that?”

“It sounded like a pill.”

“A pill? The night before the final?”

“He's practising with Nascent Soul herbs!”

“He doesn't even have a Mark!”

“Not knowing the height of heaven or the depth of the earth!”

Master Ruan's voice carried over the others, with the weary delight of a man hearing his prediction come true.

“Let him blow himself up,” Master Ruan said. “There's one less to stand in the way.”

The second pot burst. Then the third. The fourth made a sound like a wounded cow.

Each time, Lin Langtian cheered. Each time, a fresh voice in the corridor said something, and each time Shi Feng reached for the next pot and the next bundle of herbs. His hands were steady. The failures weren't careless. Each one was a little different. The fifth died at the third fire. The sixth died at the second. The seventh almost lived, rose to a shimmer of gold at its heart, and then collapsed into a lump the colour of boiled liver.

“Almost!” Lin Langtian said. “Almost! You can see its soul!”

“It's dead,” Shi Feng said.

“Then check why it died,” Lin Langtian urged. “You nearly had that one. Don’t throw away what it taught you.”

The wardens came to the door with grim faces. Lin Langtian pointed at the burn on Shi Feng's palm, then at the little booklet in one warden's hand. They went back out, looking unhappy and uncertain.

The eighth pot was cleaner than the rest. It smoked, shuddered, and settled into a small dark pill that lost its last glow and hardened into waste.

Shi Feng put it with the others, on a tin tray. Eight lumps, warm and black. No other man's body could have stood a single one.

The corridor fell silent.

“Eight,” someone said, awed.

“That's…”

“The boy's wasted a fortune.”

“…”

“Eight,” Lin Langtian said, picking up the tray and giving it a gentle shake. His voice, for a moment, was very quiet and very satisfied. “A lucky number. A good night's work.”

“It's a waste,” Shi Feng said.

“It's a meal,” Lin Langtian said. “But eight isn't enough for what you need tomorrow. You have a bigger stomach than that.”

“Then where would the rest come from?” Shi Feng asked, frowning at the tray.

Sima Lan had slipped out during the bangs. She stood in the doorway again now, and lifted a heavy sack of her own onto the table. It clinked.

“I may have an answer,” Sima Lan said.