Chapter 367 — The Replaced Herb

CHAPTER 367

The Replaced Herb

The first herb check came at the thirty-minute mark.

A bell rang, and every candidate took one step back from his furnace. The rule was old and simple. After the base was warmed and the first four herbs were in, an examiner passed along the ring and inspected the second box of herbs, to make sure nothing had been damaged by the heat in the room. A damaged herb could be swapped for a fresh one. Everyone knew it. Nobody had ever seen it used for anything but dampness.

Shi Feng stood with his welted palm hanging at his side. The crack in the furnace was now the length of his hand. Red light leaked from it and painted a thin stripe across his apron.

“Poor boy,” a spectator said in the second tier. “He's standing next to a lantern.”

“Does he know it's going to burst?”

“He knows. Look at his face.”

“What's wrong with his face?”

“Nothing. That's what's wrong.”

Examiner Tao Heng began at furnace number one. He lifted each lid, sniffed, nodded and moved on. At Master Ruan's station, he bowed slightly, and Ruan bowed back more slightly. At furnace number eight, he took a long time. He reached furnace number nine last.

“Candidate Shi,” Tao Heng said. “Open your second box.”

Shi Feng opened it.

Six herbs lay on a bed of damp cloth. Silver Needle Moss. Nine-Vein Dew Root. Frost Heart Bark. Each was fresh, whole and bright. Shi Feng had checked them himself at the start, and again at the fifteen-minute mark, and he knew the Dew Root had a pale green stem and a fresh grassy smell.

Tao Heng picked up the Dew Root. He held it to the light and frowned.

“Here,” Tao Heng said. “Wilted. Mouldy at the tip. See?”

He turned it so the crowd could see. The tip was black.

It hadn't been black a moment ago. Shi Feng had watched the examiner's fingers, and he'd seen two of them press the tip, once, hard. A little black powder had come off on the stem. Shi Feng was angry at how openly the examiner had done it. The black powder came from Tao Heng’s fingers, not from any mould in the root.

“Under the rules,” Examiner Tao Heng said, in his carrying voice, “a damaged herb is replaced. Attendant!”

A Pavilion attendant ran forward holding a jade dish. On it lay a new Dew Root, dark yellow and wrinkled, with a dry, knotted stem.

Shi Feng looked at it. He knew what it was before it reached his box.

“That's aged,” Shi Feng said.

“It's the stock we keep for replacements,” Tao Heng said.

“It’s eighty years old. Maybe more,” Shi Feng said, refusing to let the change pass unnoticed.

“Eighty-three,” Tao Heng said, with something close to pleasure. “A fine herb. Its potency is greater, of course. You may find it works a little faster than the one you planned.”

“And hotter,” Shi Feng said.

“A skilled alchemist will adapt,” Tao Heng replied, putting the root into the box himself. “Or, if you wish, you may decline it. Then you refine with a damaged herb, which is your choice.”

A buzz ran around the hall.

“The tower's rule is the tower's rule!”

“Poor child. An eighty-year Dew Root is eight times as fierce.”

“It'll blow the pill apart.”

“It'll blow the furnace apart, with that crack. Frost on top of snow!”

“Who picks the stock for replacements?”

“Shh!”

Up in the gallery, Sima Lan stopped writing. She raised her head, found Tao Heng's face across the hall, and wrote his name on a new line.

Shi Feng didn't say anything for a moment. Dew Root was the cooling spine of the Infant-Settling Pill. Fresh, it held the heat of the other nine herbs in check. Eighty-three years old, it would hold nothing. It would fight them. Put in at the usual hour, it would turn the whole furnace into a burning pot.

Anyone who followed the posted recipe would fail.

He thought, So that's why the recipe was posted.

He lifted the aged root and weighed it in his hand. Its smell was thick, bitter, almost sweet. His Physique stirred at the dense qi in the root. Shi Feng kept the hunger still; he needed the herb for the pill.

“Please enter the replacement in the record,” Shi Feng said. “With the age of the herb.”

“Of course,” Tao Heng said smoothly. “Why wouldn't I?”

“And the time,” Shi Feng added.

“The thirty-first minute,” Tao Heng said through the same fixed smile.

Shi Feng set the aged root on the cloth, apart from the others. Then he picked up the brush from the table and, to the surprise of the first tier, crossed out half the posted recipe on the board in front of his furnace. He did it in three strokes.

“What's he doing?” a spectator cried.

“He's changing the recipe!”

“You can't change the recipe!”

“He's changing the order! The rules only say the herbs. Not the order!”

“Is he mad?”

“Quiet! Watch!”

He ignored them. His plan was simple, and it was the only one that fit. The aged Dew Root was strong because it had lost its moisture and kept its bite. So it would go in last, not fourth. He would bring the other nine up in a slow, wide curve, the way Mo Tianheng's forgotten method taught for pills with a hot centre. And he would use the old root as a lid, not a spine. Pressed in at the right hour, it would shut the heat in like a hand on a pot.

It was a backward recipe. It had no name. In the recipe books it was a mistake.

Master Ruan had noticed. He was frowning at the board and tugging his beard.

“That's not in the book,” Master Ruan said. “That's not in any book.”

“It's in the old ones,” Shi Feng said.

“There are no older ones. I’ve read every one!” Master Ruan objected.

“I’ll use the method I know,” Shi Feng replied, turning back to his board.

Master Ruan reddened at being dismissed. Shi Feng had no time to argue about the books he’d read.

At the edge of the ring, Tao Heng watched the new order take shape on the board. His courteous expression disappeared. He’d expected the replacement to ruin the pill, not force Shi Feng to find another workable order. Now he had to watch for a success he hadn’t intended to allow.

The red line on the furnace's shoulder lengthened another finger's width.

Forty minutes gone. Eighty to go.

Shi Feng put the third herb in.