Chapter 376 — Nine Thousand Nine Hundred and Ninety-Nine

CHAPTER 376

Nine Thousand Nine Hundred and Ninety-Nine

The sound reached them before the hall did.

Thud. Thud. Thud. It was a dull, steady knocking, each blow followed by the scrape of cloth on stone. Old Soot hopped ahead through the ash rain, and Shi Feng, Sima Lan and Gongsun Ce followed it up a long stone ramp cut into the side of the flat-mouthed mountain. At the top, the ash stopped falling. A hall opened in front of them with its doors torn off long ago.

Inside, a hundred pillars carved with kilns held up a black ceiling. At the far end stood a bronze furnace three men high, cold and closed. Above it, on the wall, six lines of old script glowed with a faint gold light.

Sima Lan tilted her head to make out the lowest characters.

Sima Lan read aloud, “The Furnace Master of the Ash Lake leaves his legacy to a sincere heart. Kneel upon the jade nine thousand nine hundred and ninety-nine times. The first to finish takes the hall.” She paused. “There's a line under it. 'Insincerity will be noticed.'”

“By whom?” Gongsun Ce asked.

“It doesn't say,” Sima Lan replied. She checked the edges of the inscription as well.

Between the doors and the furnace lay a row of jade mats. They were pale green, polished, each wide enough for one kneeling man, forty of them in two straight lines. Above every mat floated a number made of gold light.

Twenty-six of the mats were occupied.

Thud.

A crimson-robed Martial Palace disciple bent forward and struck his forehead on the jade. The number above his mat flickered from 412 to 413. He straightened, swayed and bent again.

Thud.

All twenty-six were doing it. Some were in rhythm, some were ragged. The jade under the nearest forehead was streaked dark red, and a boy near the end had stopped wiping the blood off his eyes. Most of the counters stood between three hundred and six hundred.

“They're bleeding,” Sima Lan said.

“They're kowtowing,” Gongsun Ce said. “It's the same thing, when you do it properly.”

At the head of the row, Yuan Kuang stood with his arms folded and his scarred hand tucked into his sleeve. He turned his head as they came in.

“Artificer Hall,” Yuan Kuang said. “The hall is occupied.”

“There are fourteen mats,” Shi Feng said.

“Then kneel,” Yuan Kuang said with a thin smile. “By all means. The inscription is open to anyone. But my men started before you, and my men don't stop. Whoever finishes first finishes for Martial Palace.”

“How kind of you to say so,” Sima Lan said.

“I'm told you were a princess once,” Yuan Kuang said. “A phoenix that has fallen is worth less than a chicken, as they say. Perhaps you can show us how it's done.”

Sima Lan lifted her chin. She had put up with the ash and the bad roads without complaint; she would not put up with his sneer. “A princess of Great Liang doesn't kowtow to bronze,” Sima Lan said. “Or to you.”

“Then stand and watch,” Yuan Kuang said, and turned his back.

Thud.

Shi Feng walked down the row of mats. He passed the first bleeding disciple, the second, the third. At the fourth mat a young man in the same crimson robe knelt with his head low and his shoulders very steady. His forehead was bruised purple, but his face under it was shuttered and blank. The number above his mat read 622. It rose a little faster than the others.

The young man's eyes slid sideways for half a breath. Then he went back down.

Thud.

Shi Feng walked on. Behind him, Gongsun Ce had begun muttering sums.

“Nine thousand nine hundred and ninety-nine,” Gongsun Ce said. “At one kowtow every two breaths. That's twenty thousand breaths. More than a day without rest, and nobody kneels for a day without rest. Their foreheads will give out before the jade does.”

“They'll rotate,” Sima Lan said. “The hall says the first to finish. Not the same man. If they pass the mat from head to head, thirty men finish one count before dawn.”

“That's cheating!” Gongsun Ce said. He looked along the row, already trying to work out how many rested men Yuan Kuang had left.

“It's logistics,” Sima Lan said. “An ugly way to win, but read the rule before you complain.”

Shi Feng stopped at the last occupied mat.

The man kneeling there had just collapsed. He lay face-down on the jade with his arms flung out, breathing in short, slow breaths. His eyes were closed. His mouth was open. He was completely unconscious.

The number above his mat said 802.

As Shi Feng watched, the man's head lolled to the side and rolled back, and his forehead touched the green stone.

The number flickered. 803.

It rolled and touched again. 804.

“He's asleep,” Gongsun Ce whispered.

“He's unconscious,” Sima Lan said.

“And it's counting,” Shi Feng said.

Nobody answered him. The thuds went on down the row, wet and steady. Yuan Kuang, at the far end, watched the numbers climb, nodding at the fastest men. He had done none of the kneeling himself. He was waiting, as the saying goes, to pick the ripe peaches.

Shi Feng looked at the mat for a long moment. Then he looked down at the grey toad sitting on the edge of the jade, its gold-rimmed eyes fixed on the shining surface and its throat moving slowly, as if it were considering something.

“Sima Lan,” Shi Feng said. “Does the inscription say whose head?”

“No,” Sima Lan said. She looked at the toad, and then at him, and her eyes narrowed. “I'm going to say it ought to.”

Old Soot croaked.