Chapter 372 — Very Small Characters

CHAPTER 372

Very Small Characters

Gongsun Ce paid his debt on the step of Li Changyuan's hut, and he took his time about it.

He laid a small cloth bundle on the step and pushed it across the stone with two fingers. Then he opened his ledger, took out a brush with a tip as thin as a needle, and began to write.

“That's the bet on the 2 Mark,” Gongsun Ce said, without looking up. “Stake, double the last one, in the usual currency. Result, lost.”

“You're writing very small,” Shi Feng said.

“I’m recording it accurately,” Gongsun Ce replied, bending closer to his tiny characters.

“I can’t read a word of it,” Shi Feng said, looking over the page.

“That's what accurate means,” Gongsun Ce said.

“Senior Brother Gongsun, is that a character or a speck of dust?” Zhu Liu asked, bending close enough to brush the page with his nose.

“Both. Move,” Gongsun Ce snapped, shielding the unfinished entry.

Sima Lan took a round glass out of her sleeve and held it over the ledger.

“One stone an hour,” Sima Lan said.

“Daylight robbery!” Gongsun Ce protested, snapping the book shut hard enough to knock his brush loose.

“Attendant's rate,” Sima Lan said. “Fair for both sides.”

Shi Feng put the bundle in his sleeve without opening it. Zhu Liu wrote Received: stake, doubled again, usual currency and, as before, nobody explained.

“You really thought I'd fail,” Shi Feng said.

“I gave you eleven to one,” Gongsun Ce said. He was still irritated by the lost wager. “Nobody under Nascent Soul had ever passed. The odds were beautiful. And I lost anyway. Do you know what that does to a gambler's figures?”

“Bet on me next time,” Shi Feng suggested, smiling at the carefully hidden account.

“Then I'd win, and there'd be nothing interesting in the ledger,” Gongsun Ce said. “Go inside. He's waiting.”

The hut was crowded.

Nine inner-court seniors stood along the wall with their hands behind their backs. Elder He Zhen and Elder Qian Mo stood by the table, and Elder Qian Mo held his abacus like a shield. Li Changyuan sat on a low stool with a jade slip on his knee and his broom against the doorframe. He looked like an old sweeper who had been asked to read something above his rank.

“Shut the door,” Li Changyuan said. “Good. Now listen. I’m only reading this once, so pay attention to your names.”

Nobody dared ask whether that was true.

“The Ashen Lake Realm opens in ten days,” Li Changyuan said. “At the lake shore, three days' ride from here. Only cultivators below Nascent Soul can pass the seal. The slots are by sect. Martial Palace, thirty. Hundred Flower Valley, thirty.”

He stopped. He turned the slip over, as if the number might be nicer on the back.

“Artificer Hall, twelve,” Li Changyuan said.

The seniors burst out at once.

“Twelve?”

“They get thirty each!”

“That's two and a half to one!”

“It's proportional to the number of disciples,” He Zhen said wearily.

“We're a poor sect, not a dead one! A starved camel is still bigger than a horse!”

“…”

“I wrote to the Pavilion and asked for fifteen,” Li Changyuan said. “They answered that the number is proportional. I wrote back that a poor sect needs more chances, not fewer. They answered with the same number and a bill for the paper.”

“Did you pay?” Qian Mo asked sharply.

“I haggled it down to a third,” Li Changyuan said. “Now. The twelve.”

He read nine inner-court names. Each senior stiffened, bowed and tried not to look pleased. Then Li Changyuan read, “Gongsun Ce. Shi Feng. Sima Lan, attendant.”

“Attendant,” Sima Lan agreed.

“I wrote it the way you spelled it,” Li Changyuan said.

“Thank you, Sect Master,” Sima Lan replied, satisfied that he’d used the proper title.

“Sect Master. I’m not on the list,” Zhu Liu said, raising his hand from the back.

“You're Qi Condensation,” Li Changyuan said. “Ash beasts eat qi. They'd have you before breakfast.”

Zhu Liu looked relieved for exactly one breath. “I’ve already written the receipts for the whole trip,” Zhu Liu said, sounding hurt despite his relief.

“Keep them,” Li Changyuan said. “They'll be useful when the others come back and need to remember what they spent.”

“Rations are three days’ worth,” Qian Mo said, raising his abacus. “Anything found inside belongs to the finder. One third belongs to the sect. I've drawn up a form.”

“Of course you have,” Gongsun Ce muttered.

A knock rattled the door. Zhu Liu opened it a crack, took something from a hand, and came back with a plain envelope sealed in grey wax. The stamp pressed into the wax was a spearhead.

“A courier, Senior Brother Shi,” Zhu Liu said. “He says he's been told not to leave without an answer.”

Shi Feng broke the seal. Inside was a sheet of good paper, and in the middle of it, in a hard square hand, three words.

Realm. Fight. Yes?

“That’s all?” Gongsun Ce asked, reading over his shoulder.

“Gu Zhan,” Shi Feng said.

“He paid for a full sheet and used three words,” Sima Lan said, looking at the empty paper. “It's the most efficient letter I've ever seen.”

“It's a challenge. One mountain cannot hold two tigers,” one of the seniors whispered.

“It's a rematch,” another whispered. “At the tournament he broke—”

“Be quiet,” He Zhen said.

Shi Feng took the brush from Gongsun Ce's ledger without asking, wrote one word under the three and blew on it.

Yes.

“The reply is one word,” Sima Lan said. “The courier charges by the sheet.”

“Then it's cheap,” Shi Feng said.

“Nobody asked ME!” Lin Langtian shouted from directly above them, shaking dust from the tiles.

Dust fell on the table. Qian Mo moved his abacus out of the way.

“He's been up there since the notice came,” Li Changyuan said, rubbing his eyes. “Don't feed him.”