Chapter 397 — My Wife Is In There

CHAPTER 397

My Wife Is In There

“Husband?” Warden Ji Yan said. “Of Senior Sister Ling?”

“Yes,” Shi Feng said.

“The Senior Sister Ling? First on the Register? Our Senior Sister Ling?” Ji Yan said.

“That one,” Shi Feng said.

“She's married?” the younger warden squeaked, from the ground, where she was looking for her halberd.

“That's what the paper says,” Shi Feng said.

Ji Yan was too stunned to answer immediately. Then she remembered the rule. If the marriage was real, the Registry Keeper had to verify it. She turned toward the green curtain and shouted for the roll.

“Registry Keeper!” Ji Yan bellowed into the green curtain. “Fetch the Registry Keeper! And the Disciple Roll! Tell her it's an Article nine!”

“An Article nine?” a voice echoed from inside.

“An Article nine!” Ji Yan said.

“Nobody's claimed an Article nine in forty years!”

“Then it's overdue!” Ji Yan shouted.

On the road, the camp had gone completely silent. The matchmaker pulled her umbrella down over her face.

Tan Ruo arrived a quarter hour later, with two disciples carrying the scroll case. The thin old Registry Keeper wore ink on one cuff and bronze keys at her belt. She inspected Shi Feng from his boots to his face, plainly suspicious of the claim.

“The Roll,” Tan Ruo said, snapping her fingers.

The disciples unrolled the case on a trestle table that someone had brought from nowhere. It was a long green scroll with a column of names. Tan Ruo ran her finger down it, stopped, and read aloud in a dry voice that carried all the way to the road.

“Ling Qingzhu. Inner court. Admitted on the day of the Great Kingdom Tournament’s close. Household, Qingliu Lane, the capital. Marriage registered under the Great Liang household law, extract attached. Spouse: Shi Feng, no clan, no sect at time of entry,” Tan Ruo read aloud. She looked up. “Do you have your copy?”

Shi Feng took a folded paper from the inside pocket of his robe. It was creased and faded, and the district office's red seal had lost a corner. It had lived in his ring since Qingliu Lane, in a flat packet with his travel papers, and he had not looked at it for a long time. He handed it over.

Tan Ruo put on her bone-framed lenses. She checked the red seals, ink and matching torn edges of his copy and the extract. The paper’s two halves came from the same office document.

Everyone waited. Even the flower merchant had stopped breathing.

“Valid,” Tan Ruo said.

Forty people tried not to gasp at the same time.

“It's valid?” the younger warden whispered.

“Unfortunately,” Tan Ruo said, taking off the lenses. “It is perfectly valid, perfectly registered, and, may the ancestors help us, still in force. Article nine applies. Warden Ji, open the gate.”

“B-but the Seclusion—” Ji Yan said.

“Once a word is spoken, even four horses cannot pull it back. Article nine doesn’t exclude seclusions,” Tan Ruo said sharply. “If you can find such a clause, show me. Otherwise, open the gate.”

The green light folded away from the doorway like a curtain pulled to one side. Beyond it, a path of white stone ran up between two slopes of flowering trees.

“Shi Feng of no clan,” Tan Ruo said formally. “Registered husband of Inner Disciple Ling Qingzhu. The Valley will not turn you from your wife's door.” She paused. “I would very much like to know why the Valley learned of this at its own gate.”

“I wasn't asked,” Shi Feng said.

“I'm sure,” Tan Ruo said.

He walked through the gate.

“Wait!” the red umbrella behind him shrieked. “He's married? To the Senior Sister Ling? Does she have sisters? Cousins? I have a client!”

Shi Feng didn't turn. At the second bend of the white path he met his first Valley disciple, a girl in a green sash who was carrying a bucket and had apparently been told to stay away from the gate. She stopped, stared at him, put down her bucket, and ran.

“It's him!” she screamed up the slope. “The champion! He's come for his wife!”

“The champion came for his wife!” a second voice answered from the trees.

“The champion came for his wife!” a third answered, farther off.

Disciples shouted the news farther up the hillside. Windows opened, and a flower-cart blocked the road while its driver stared. By the covered bridge, about a hundred girls had found reasons to stand beside the railings with water buckets.

“So that's him.”

“He's carrying a sword. A husband with a sword. How romantic.”

“Two years! She never said a word!”

“A fresh flower stuck in a pile of cow dung!”

“She said nothing because he's a scoundrel who vanished, obviously.”

“Then why did he come back now?”

“Because he smells money!”

“…Which is still romantic.”

Shi Feng walked through the middle of it with his hands at his sides. He didn't hurry and he didn't slow. One brave girl asked him loudly whether he was here to take their senior sister away.

“I'm here for the Heart Garden,” Shi Feng said.

“Then why did you say husband?”

“The alchemist’s invitation wasn’t enough,” Shi Feng said. “The marriage record was. I still came to treat the Garden.”

They followed despite his answer, openly delighted.

At the inner gate stood a lone disciple in a blue sash, with a face as white as paper, and her hands were twisting the end of her belt. It was Lin Yue. She bowed to him with her whole body.

“Senior Brother Shi,” Lin Yue said, stammering. “Forgive me. I have a message from Senior Sister Ling.”

“Go on,” Shi Feng said.

“She has been told,” Lin Yue said.

“And?” Shi Feng said.

“She dropped her tea.” Lin Yue swallowed. “Then she said to bring you to the guest court. And she said not to let you leave before she arrives.”

“I walked three days,” Shi Feng said. “Where would I go?”

Lin Yue looked at the hundred pretending-to-water disciples. “Nowhere,” Lin Yue said. “I don't think there's anywhere left.”