Chapter 365 — Other Men's Mistakes

CHAPTER 365

Other Men's Mistakes

Sima Lan untied the sack and tipped it over the table.

Pills rolled out. Black ones, grey ones, a few the colour of old mustard. Some were as hard as pebbles and some had burst and set again in crooked lumps. A bitter, scorched smell filled the room.

“How many?” Shi Feng asked.

“Two hundred and six,” Sima Lan said.

“Where did you get them?” Shi Feng asked, surprised by the size of the pile.

“The Tower’s waste bins, behind the Herb Hall,” Sima Lan replied, taking out the ledger. “Every round, every candidate burns a test dose. The tower throws the failures into a barrel by the back court and a keeper carts it to the river twice a week. I asked him what he charged for the barrel.”

“And what did he ask for it?” Shi Feng asked.

“He said nobody asks,” Sima Lan replied, almost smiling. “I offered a copper a pill. He took it before I'd finished the sentence. Two hundred and six coppers, counted twice, receipt signed. His name is Old Gong. He said it was the most honest sale of his life.”

Lin Langtian threw back his head and roared with laughter.

“A copper a pill!” Lin Langtian said. “Junior Brother, do you see? Do you see what you hired?”

“I see an invoice,” Shi Feng said.

“You see a woman who has learned the ways of the world faster than you!” Lin Langtian exclaimed, slapping the table, and the pills jumped. “Lesson sixteen. Other men pay good money to produce garbage. A wise man buys it for a copper and eats it for free. That is turning rot into wonder, as the saying goes.”

Shi Feng picked up one of the grey pills and held it to the lamp.

It was somebody's herb round. He could tell by the faint sourness in the core, a trace of dusk-fern gone stale. One of the five who'd gone home. He turned it over, and found another beside it, from the same hand, with a small crack along its side.

He'd never met the man. He hadn't wished him harm. But the man's mistakes were here, on his table, and they were still full of herbs.

“Don't look so solemn,” Lin Langtian said. His voice had dropped. The teasing left his face. He understood the value of the discarded herbs and wanted Shi Feng to use them without hesitation. “It's not stealing. They threw it out, and you picked it up.”

“I know,” Shi Feng replied, setting the pill beside the others.

“Then eat, Junior Brother,” Lin Langtian said. “Tomorrow you’ll need every drop.”

Shi Feng looked at the pile. Two hundred and six pills. Eight of Lin's, still warm on the tin tray. A mountain of other men's mistakes.

He sat on the floor with his back to the bed and took a deep breath.

He ate them one at a time.

The first was bitter and the second was worse. By the tenth, his tongue had gone numb. Any other body would have thrown them back up before the third. His own body accepted each lump and drew the herbs’ remaining qi into his core.

Sima Lan sat by the door with the ledger on her knee and did not look away. She had seen him eat iron. She'd seen him eat a gift anvil. Somehow this was different. These were somebody's careful, failed work, and he swallowed it with a seriousness she hadn’t expected.

Lin Langtian's eight went last. They were heavy with ginseng, cloud lotus and thunder-bark. When he swallowed the fifth, the core in his dantian gave a slow, deep pulse. When he swallowed the eighth, it stopped being a pulse and became a tide.

The room went hot. The lamp flickered and leaned toward him.

His core, which had been a round pearl of old gold, bigger than it should be and mostly empty, began to thicken. The walls of the pearl drew inward and grew dense. A second ring of light formed around the first and settled into place. Something heavy and warm filled his chest.

Outside, a warden's bell rang for the midnight watch. Nobody in the corridor stirred. They had all gone to bed to dream of cracked furnaces and other people's failure.

The tide ebbed.

He opened his eyes. The lamp stopped leaning.

[Stage: mid Golden Core | Source: other men's mistakes]

“Well?” Lin Langtian said, from the window sill. He had been sitting there with a sweet potato, saying nothing, which for him was a long time.

“Mid Golden Core,” Shi Feng said.

“No tribulation?” Lin Langtian asked, watching his qi settle.

“No,” Shi Feng confirmed.

“Unseemly,” Lin Langtian said fondly. “A proper breakthrough has thunder. Yours had indigestion.”

“Two hundred and six coppers,” Sima Lan said. She had closed the ledger. “Entered as a trial expense. No profit taken.”

“You could have charged me a fee,” Shi Feng said.

“I did,” Sima Lan said. “It's the three percent.”

Shi Feng stood, stretched, and tested the stronger flow through his body. The change was real and stable.

He crossed to the window. The tower court lay dark under the stars. A line of workmen was already setting benches along three sides of it by lamplight, and stringing red cloth between the posts. In the morning the tower would hold its crowd.

Three hundred seats, Sima Lan had said. Perhaps more.

Behind him, Lin Langtian had stopped at the hearth. He looked down at furnace nine for a long moment, and tilted his head at the left wall.

“That's a very pretty hair,” Lin Langtian said.

“I know,” Shi Feng said.

“Do you want it swapped? I can swap anything,” Lin Langtian offered, pointing at the flaw.

“No,” Shi Feng replied. He still wanted the furnace to break where the assessor could see it.

“Good boy,” Lin Langtian said. He hopped to the door, grinning. “A cracked furnace and a big audience. Sleep, Junior Brother. The best way to win a trial is to look rested.”