Chapter 377 — Sincere for a Toad

CHAPTER 377

Sincere for a Toad

Shi Feng tested it the careful way.

First he crouched at the empty mat nearest the doors and tapped the jade once with his knuckle. The number above it stayed at zero. Then he laid the flat of the Slag Weight on the surface and held it there for ten breaths. Zero. Then Sima Lan, frowning at the prospect of losing it, set a small coin on the green stone and let it rest.

“Zero,” Gongsun Ce reported, leaning over the number. “It doesn't count metal. It doesn't count coins. It doesn't count knuckles.”

“It counts something,” Shi Feng said.

“Heads,” Gongsun Ce said, tapping his own forehead.

“Contact with the head,” Shi Feng said. “That's all it measured on that man. He was asleep, and his forehead touched, and the mat took it.”

Sima Lan stopped her pen. “You're not going to kneel on it,” Sima Lan said.

“No,” Shi Feng said.

“Good,” Sima Lan said. She lowered her pen again.

“I'm going to lend it a head,” Shi Feng said.

He turned toward the edge of the jade. Old Soot was sitting where it had stopped, gold-rimmed eyes half shut, one forepaw pressed against the polished stone. It looked like a creature very close to a nap. Shi Feng picked it up with both hands, set it down in the exact middle of the mat and tipped its chin until its flat head rested against the green.

The toad opened one eye.

“Don't eat the jade,” Shi Feng said.

Old Soot closed the eye. Its throat began to pulse.

Above the mat, the gold number flickered. 1.

Then 2.

Then 3, 4, 5, and the numbers started to run.

“It's counting the throat!” Gongsun Ce said, staring. “Every time it gulps, its chin touches. A toad's throat pulses about sixty times a minute even when it sleeps. Sixty!”

“Write it down,” Shi Feng said.

“I'm writing, I'm writing!” Gongsun Ce said, and grabbed Sima Lan's pen.

“That's mine,” Sima Lan said, taking it back. “One stone for the loan.”

The toad's head went up and down, up and down, in the small, patient rhythm of a creature digesting. The count passed 40. It passed 100, and then it kept going far faster than any sleeping throat should.

In the line of kneeling disciples, somebody turned his head.

“Is that an animal?” a Martial Palace voice croaked.

“It's a toad!”

“A toad is kowtowing!”

“That's not fair! Shameless to the extreme!”

“Keep kneeling! Don't look at it! Keep going!”

“…”

Thud.

“He's asleep,” Duan Yichen said from the fourth mat.

Duan Yichen had not lifted his head. He had not moved his shoulders. He spoke into the jade with a ragged breath between each word, in the tone of a man reading out a boring notice.

“He's asleep,” Duan Yichen repeated, as though nobody had understood the objection.

“That's sincere for a toad,” Shi Feng said.

“Disgraceful,” Duan Yichen said, and bent for another thud.

Yuan Kuang came down the row.

He no longer looked thin and smug. He walked fast, and his scarred hand had come out of his sleeve and hung open at his side. His eyes went to the number over the toad's mat, then to the nearest Martial Palace counter, then to the number again.

“Remove that animal,” Yuan Kuang said.

“It isn't mine,” Shi Feng said. “It's sect property. Written under fuel.”

“Remove it, or I'll—” Yuan Kuang began.

“Under which clause?” Sima Lan asked.

“What?” Yuan Kuang asked, turning slowly toward her.

“You can't remove it,” Sima Lan said. She had the ledger open and her pen raised. “The inscription says the first to finish takes the hall. It says kneel, with a sincere heart. It does not say who owns the heart. If you'd like to argue that a toad lacks one, you'll have to explain it to the wall.”

“The wall is not going to listen to a—” Yuan Kuang snapped.

Old Soot burped.

A thin jet of slag fire shot out of its mouth and splashed on the stone at Yuan Kuang's feet. His boots rose off the ground. The hem of his crimson robe smoked. He backed up two steps, beating at it with his sleeve, and the tiny spark ran up one leg before he stamped it out.

The toad closed its eyes again, and its throat went on pulsing. 612. 640. 700.

“Look!” a Martial Palace disciple whispered hoarsely. “It's ahead of me!”

“I have eleven hundred. It's at eight!”

“It was at two hundred a minute ago! It leapt up in the blink of an eye!”

“Don't look! Keep going! Do it for the Palace!”

The kneelers bent faster. Their thuds grew into a ragged drumming, and the jade shone wetter. Their best counters crept past 1,100, but the gold number over the toad's mat ran steadily alongside them, one pulse per heartbeat, never tired, never bleeding, never ashamed.

Gongsun Ce had stopped writing. He leaned closer with each new count. His battered puppets had never drawn this much attention, and the toad was doing it in its sleep.

“I'm going to open a book,” Gongsun Ce whispered.

“Not yet,” Shi Feng said.

“But look at the odds!” Gongsun Ce whispered, spreading his hands toward the racing count.

“Not yet,” Shi Feng said, keeping his eyes on the wall.

At two thousand one hundred, the six lines of gold script on the wall began to waver. The letters slid along the stone like ink in water, and one line rearranged itself, slowly, until it read: INSINCERITY WILL BE NOTICED.

Then it brightened.