Chapter 392 — The Accounting

CHAPTER 392

The Accounting

“Twenty percent,” Shi Feng said.

He sat on the edge of the dais with a bowl of rice in his hands and a clean robe on his back. Sima Lan stood in front of him with her slate. The funeral had turned into a feast, and the feast had turned into the loudest evening the outer court had seen in years. Most of the benches were empty now. The coffin was still there. Li Changyuan had put a sign on it that said RENTED.

“Of what?” Sima Lan asked.

“Every relic. Twenty percent for use of my name,” Shi Feng said, setting the rice bowl on his knee.

“Twenty-five,” Sima Lan said. “It's a premium name this season.”

“Twenty-two,” Shi Feng said, holding up two fingers.

“Done,” Sima Lan said. She wrote it down without looking at him. She hadn't looked at him properly since the funeral. “That is four hundred and eighty-one stones. Zhu Liu has the receipts.”

“Four hundred and eighty-one?” Shi Feng said. “For pills I failed?”

“People were crying,” Sima Lan said. “They paid for the cry. I merely set the rate.”

Gongsun Ce approached across the empty benches. His puppet followed, still wearing its black ribbon. He stopped a respectful distance away.

“About my statement,” Gongsun Ce said.

“The public one,” Shi Feng said. “Where you forgave everything I owe you.”

“It was a funeral. A man says things,” Gongsun Ce said. His ears had turned red. “I'd like to remove it from the record.”

“No,” Shi Feng said.

“No?” Gongsun Ce asked, caught between relief and alarm.

“A debt to the dead is a gift,” Shi Feng said. “A debt to the living is a debt. I'm alive. Put it back.”

Gongsun Ce stared at him. Then, to everyone's surprise, he laughed, the first real laugh he'd had in eleven days, and took out his ledger.

“Reinstated,” Gongsun Ce said. “Both wagers. With interest, since I mourned you at my own cost.”

The next morning, the three sects gathered in the great hall of the Duanyang tower.

It was the ordinary accounting after any realm, with Assessor Wen Lu presiding in her Pavilion white. Each sect reported its losses. Hundred Flower Valley sent Elder Mu Shuyun, who bowed to Shi Feng across the room without speaking. Artificer Hall sent Elder Tian Luo, with Shi Feng and Sima Lan standing behind his chair. Martial Palace sent Wei Chengyuan.

The old elder did not look at the Hall's table. He sat in his grey robe, stiff and silent, with Elder Qu Jiang at his right hand and Tuoba Hong behind him. Qu Jiang rose and held up a jade slip.

“The core furnace's legacy,” Qu Jiang said, stroking his beard. “Won by the Palace's team at the realm's heart. We are not a greedy sect. We will open it before everyone, as proof of our good faith.”

Murmurs ran along the benches. Shi Feng kept his face still.

Qu Jiang pressed his thumb to the seal. The jade split with a small crack.

Out poured a handful of grey filings.

They skittered across the white tray, rolled to the edge, and began, quietly, to cut. A thin line appeared in the lacquer. The silk beneath the tray parted. A single curl of grey metal dropped onto the table and went straight through its surface, as if the wood weren't there.

Nobody in the hall said anything.

A Valley disciple leaned forward and asked, very softly, whether that was the legacy.

Another recognised the filings as slag. The whisper carried to the nearest bench.

“Martial Palace opened slag in front of the Sky Pavilion!”

“The core furnace's treasure!”

“Did they get robbed?”

“Lifting a rock to smash their own feet!”

“...”

Qu Jiang stared at the tray. His hand had begun to shake. Behind him, Tuoba Hong's jaw worked, and his eyes crept to the Hall's table. The grey metal lay quiet in the light. Shi Feng gave it a flat, polite glance, then returned his attention to Wen Lu. He gave Tuoba Hong nothing to point to.

It was a very good decoy. It had required only a single ingot, a patient file and a convincing struggle. In the end, the Palace had stolen exactly what it asked for.

Wei Chengyuan stood.

He didn't look at the filings. He looked straight at Shi Feng, and his old voice cut across the hall.

“Shi Feng,” Wei Chengyuan said. “My grandson's meridians are broken. He cannot cultivate.”

“He began unsealing his bloodline in front of me,” Shi Feng said. “Stage one, stage two, stage three. I counted. I didn't ask him to stop.”

“You left him a bill,” Wei Chengyuan said. He gripped the edge of the table, ignoring the grey filings beside his hand.

“It is unpaid,” Shi Feng said. “With interest.”

The hall inhaled.

“The Palace will remember this,” Wei Chengyuan said. Then he walked out, and his sect went with him, and the doors closed on a hall of whispering.

By evening, the teahouses of Duanyang had a new topic.

“Remember? He said ‘remember.’”

“The last time he said that, it was the ore.”

“That means war.”

“It means war. When the wind fills the tower, the mountain rain is near.”

Lin Langtian arrived after dark, in the middle of a complaint.

“Nobody waited,” Lin Langtian said, dropping onto the step of hut nine with a bag of sweet potatoes. “A funeral, a feast, and the guest of honour climbs out of his own grave, and I miss all of it! I was digging.”

“So I was told,” Shi Feng said.

Lin Langtian was quiet for a moment. Then he put a potato into Shi Feng's hand.

“I promised her I wouldn't tell him,” Lin Langtian said. “She dug for three nights. But you aren't him. He was buried. So I'm breaking nothing.”

“I know,” Shi Feng said.

Lin Langtian looked at him for a long breath. He didn't ask how, and he didn't smile. He took out his own potato and bit into it.

“Ah,” Lin Langtian said.

In the night, the Ledger spoke at the edge of Shi Feng's sleep.

[Core-fill: 33%]