Chapter 400 — Soil and Sap

CHAPTER 400

Soil and Sap

The Heart Garden lay inside a bowl of pale hills, and a dome of faint petal-shaped light covered all of it.

Shi Feng stood at the top of the steps in the cold morning and looked down. There were terraced seed beds in neat rows, water channels cut between them in stone, and about two hundred beds of flowers. Perhaps half of them were grey. At the centre stood a round white platform, and a figure sat cross-legged on it, too far away for him to see her face. The dome pulsed softly, in time with her breathing.

He looked at it a moment longer. Then he went down the steps.

Three elders waited for him at the bottom. The first was Elder Fen Yi, a tall, stern woman. The second was Elder Cui Lan, white-haired, who leaned on a staff and said nothing. The third was a plump, white-bearded man with a kind face and a soft voice, in a robe with gold-rimmed sleeves.

“Elder Hua Rong,” Hua Rong said, bowing. “I'm in charge of the outer terraces. We're so grateful you came, Young Master Shi. Tea? The Valley has an excellent tea.”

“Later,” Shi Feng said. “Where was the first bed to turn?”

Elder Fen Yi pointed with her chin. It was a bed by the water channel, forty paces down. The flowers in it were the colour of old ash. Shi Feng walked to it, set down his herb case, and knelt.

Behind him, the elders exchanged looks.

He took a handful of the soil and rubbed it between his fingers. He smelled it. Then he broke a dead stem, pressed a bead of sap onto his fingertip, and put it on his tongue.

“He tasted it!” a disciple gasped from a nearby bed.

“Is he mad?”

“Young man!” Elder Fen Yi snapped. “That is the Withering!”

“I know,” Shi Feng said.

The Ledger spoke softly at the edge of his thoughts.

[Devoured: Withering sap, one drop | Gain: none | Note: it was cooked.]

Shi Feng repeated the test at a second bed by the gate, forty paces away. At the third, beyond the pond, he took longer. He compared the soil and sap carefully before standing. All three elders were watching him now.

“Well?” Elder Fen Yi said. “Have you finished your performance?”

“It's not a blight,” Shi Feng said.

“I beg your pardon?” Fen Yi said.

“First,” Shi Feng said, “a blight spreads from one place, in patches, and it has favourites. This soil tastes exactly the same at the water channel, at the gate and at the far pond. Same strength, same bitterness, same dryness at the back of the tongue. Nature isn't that even.”

“Go on,” Elder Cui Lan said. It was the first thing she had said.

“Second. Rot tastes like rot. This tastes clean. It has a sharp edge, like a pill that went wrong at the last step. Somebody has boiled this down and filtered it more than once,” Shi Feng said. He wiped his fingers on a cloth. “Third. A blight doesn't kill faster each time. Zhou Mei took eleven days. Hu Xiao took four. That's not weather. That's someone improving a recipe.”

The disciples fell silent. A watering can hung forgotten in one girl’s hand. Shi Feng had stopped discussing sick flowers and accused someone of improving a poison that killed their sisters.

“A recipe,” Elder Hua Rong said gently.

“A refined poison,” Shi Feng said. “Made by someone with a furnace, and a book, and a good deal of patience.”

“Absurd!” Elder Fen Yi struck her staff on the stone. “Poison in the Heart Garden? Who would dare?”

“I don't know yet,” Shi Feng said.

“Then you've no right to say it! Chasing the wind and catching shadows!” Fen Yi said.

“I said somebody has a furnace,” Shi Feng said. “I didn't say whose.”

“The Valley has no poisoner!” Fen Yi said.

“I didn't say it was the Valley,” Shi Feng said.

Elder Fen Yi opened her mouth, closed it, and went a deep, dark red. A young disciple at the end of the row dropped her watering can. It clanged.

“Let’s not turn suspicion into an accusation,” Hua Rong said gently. “Young Master Shi, eleven alchemists examined these beds. They agreed on blight. You’ve found a different taste, but even a wise man's thousand thoughts hold one mistake, and clever men can mistake misfortune for a scheme. A blight can mimic many things.”

“Eleven alchemists didn't taste it,” Shi Feng said.

“That's because they wished to live,” Hua Rong said.

“I wish to live too,” Shi Feng said.

“And yet.” Elder Hua Rong spread his hands, with great sorrow. “An outsider comes into our Valley, sits down in our dirt and tells the elders they are fools. I'm sure you can see how it sounds.”

“I didn't call anyone a fool,” Shi Feng said.

“It was implied!” Elder Fen Yi said.

“Then listen to what I am saying,” Shi Feng said. “A refined poison has a recipe. If I can understand it, I can make an antidote. If I’m wrong, you lose a morning. Ignore me when I’m right, and you lose the Garden. Which risk will you take?”

Nobody answered.

Around the beds, the disciples whispered. Elder Cui Lan stood leaning on her staff, studying Shi Feng's face with her pale eyes. Elder Fen Yi was breathing hard. Elder Hua Rong was smiling.

Shi Feng waited. Nobody told him he was wrong.

“Elders!”

A runner in a green sash came pounding down the steps, out of breath, and stopped in front of the three of them. She bowed to each in turn and then turned to Shi Feng.

“The Master asks for the alchemist,” the runner panted. “Right now.”

“Of course,” Elder Hua Rong said smoothly. “I'll escort him myself. The way to the Master's hall is long, and—”

“She said alone,” the runner said.

The smile on Elder Hua Rong's face stayed exactly where it was.

“Alone,” Elder Hua Rong repeated pleasantly. “Of course.”