Chapter 406 — Wax Can Be Bought

CHAPTER 406

Wax Can Be Bought

Valley Master Mu Shuyun received him behind a screen of pressed flowers.

Shi Feng had asked for the audience alone, and Lin Yue, the girl at the door, had gone pale and then run to ask. Now she held the door half open and glared at the Valley's own corridor as if somebody might be listening in it.

“Come in, Alchemist Shi,” Mu Shuyun said from behind the screen. Her voice was weak but controlled. “Sit nearer. You’ll forgive me for not rising.”

He sat beside the table. Beyond the pressed flowers, Mu Shuyun rested against three pillows. Grey had spread up the wrist below her loose sleeve. Shi Feng looked at the untouched bitter tea, then laid his handkerchief beside it.

“You wished to speak about the raid,” Mu Shuyun said.

“About what it left,” Shi Feng said.

He unwrapped the handkerchief and set the red wax on the table beside her cup. The sun came through the screen and lit the seal.

For a long moment Mu Shuyun said nothing. A petal drifted off the screen and settled on the table.

“Where was it found?” Mu Shuyun asked.

“In the east terraces, in the jar residue,” Shi Feng said. “My attendant has seen the same wax before. It matches the Qiao house jars Mao Jun kept in our Outer Affairs office. That is Martial Palace's wax.”

“Your attendant has a good memory,” Mu Shuyun said.

“She keeps ledgers,” Shi Feng said. “It's worse.”

Behind the screen, something that might have been a laugh turned into a cough. Lin Yue hurried in with a cloth. Mu Shuyun waved her back and the girl retreated to the door, red-faced.

“Martial Palace has offered me many things this winter,” Mu Shuyun said, when she could speak again. “Physicians. Medicine. Disciples to guard the gates. Every offer was generous. Every offer came with a seal.”

“And you refused them,” Shi Feng said.

“Politely,” Mu Shuyun said. “The Valley has stood between the Great Sects for two hundred years by never leaning against any of them. If I accept their physicians, I lean. If I accuse them, I fall. I am riding a tiger, and getting off is hard.”

“The wax says—” Shi Feng said.

“It proves the wax was in a jar,” Mu Shuyun said. “Wax can be bought. Seals can be copied. Any smith could cut that fist with a good chisel, and an enemy of Martial Palace might gladly pay him. What will you answer when they say that?”

Shi Feng considered it.

“That's true,” Shi Feng said. “It's also what the Palace would say.”

“Yes,” Mu Shuyun said.

“So you believe it,” Shi Feng said.

“I did not say that,” Mu Shuyun said.

The door banged open.

“Valley Master!” Lin Langtian roared, striding in with his arms spread and a sweet potato in one fist. “I've come to inspect the bedding! It's a matter of Hall honour! Nobody sleeps badly on my watch! Lin Yue, my dear girl, is this the proper pillow? It looks like a rice cake that lost a fight!”

“Senior Brother Lin!” Lin Yue squeaked. “You can't just—”

“I can,” Lin Langtian said. “I'm the Chief Disciple. It's on my robe.”

Mu Shuyun made no attempt to hide her expression. She was clearly considering having him thrown out.

“Chief Disciple Lin,” Mu Shuyun said. “You were not announced.”

“An inspector is never announced,” Lin Langtian said cheerfully. “Lesson seventeen! My junior brother, why do you look like a man at a funeral? Is that the wax? Let me see.”

He took it. Shi Feng watched his face.

Lin Langtian kept smiling, but his fingers stopped moving over the wax. He set the sweet potato down carefully. Shi Feng grew alert. The sudden quiet mattered more than his senior brother’s usual show of outrage.

“Ah,” Lin Langtian said quietly. “I see.”

He turned the wax over once. Then he put it back beside the cup.

“Valley Master,” Lin Langtian said. “Don't name them.”

“I had no intention,” Mu Shuyun said.

“A name said too early is a gift to whoever’s listening. As the saying goes, walls have ears,” Lin Langtian said seriously. “I’ve watched sects fall this way. They’re busy guarding the front while their master grows sick and people inside the hall make polite decisions for them. Don’t hand them the excuse they need.”

Shi Feng had never heard that voice before. It sounded older than the room.

“If I name them without proof,” Mu Shuyun said slowly, “the Valley goes to war sick.”

“Yes,” Lin Langtian said.

“And if I say nothing, the Valley goes to war blind,” Mu Shuyun said.

“Then say nothing and look harder,” Lin Langtian said. The loudness came back all at once, like a door swinging open. “And feed my junior brother! He's too thin for a hero! Valley Master, did he mention that the Hall's fee is four thousand?”

“I received your Sect Master's letter,” Mu Shuyun said dryly. “It arrived after the first. It contains a surcharge for the weather and a note that the ox was not delivered.”

“The ox was a spiritual ox!” Lin Langtian protested.

“So the letter says,” Mu Shuyun said.

Shi Feng stood. He bowed to the screen.

“I'll keep sifting,” Shi Feng said. “Quietly.”

“Quietly, Alchemist Shi,” Mu Shuyun said, and for the first time he heard something in her voice that wasn't politeness. “The Valley thanks you. Both of you. One of you more loudly than the other.”

In the corridor, Lin Langtian handed him the sweet potato and walked off whistling. Shi Feng stood holding it.

The wax was still on the table behind the screen. Mu Shuyun hadn't asked for it back, and he understood she wanted it left where she could look at it.

He was halfway down the corridor when the Valley's poor gong started to ring again.

Shi Feng sighed, and checked that the Slag Weight was in his sleeve.