Chapter 410 — Just Stop Catching Me

CHAPTER 410

Just Stop Catching Me

The second ransom had never been paid.

The Blood Lotus had answered Sima Lan's bill with a single line: “We pay for a captain once.” So Xue Mang had signed a note for the full amount, in installments, and Shi Feng had let him go home to fetch the first one. Sima Lan kept the note in her sleeve. Nobody expected to see him again.

That was why the gate guards didn't believe it when the third raid came. They had stopped bothering to shout. A boy on the south wall simply rang the gong twice, sighed, and went to fetch Sima Lan.

“Again?” Sima Lan said, coming out of the guest court with her slate. She had been awake since the Heart Garden. Nobody had asked her to be. “Where?”

“South gate,” the boy said. “Five of them. Walking.”

“Walking?” Sima Lan asked.

“In a line,” the boy said. “Slowly.”

Shi Feng pulled on his boots. He’d barely slept since carrying Ling Qingzhu from the platform. Each time he shut his eyes, he remembered the grey spreading under her skin. Another raid was the last thing the Valley needed.

“Wake Bai Chenxi,” Shi Feng said.

“Awake,” Bai Chenxi said from the corridor, flat as a board.

They reached the south gate together. The sky was just turning pale. On the dirt road outside, five figures in faded crimson stood in a ragged row. They had no jars and no ropes. Two had their hands tied behind them, which was unusual, because nobody had asked them to.

In front stood Xue Mang.

Xue Mang was thinner, his beard was gone, and he carried no saber. He checked Bai Chenxi’s sword, then Sima Lan’s slate. When he finally looked at Shi Feng, his shoulders sagged. He hadn’t found a different person to surrender to.

“It's him,” Xue Mang said to the men behind him. “Of course it's him. It's always him.”

“Captain,” one of the men whispered. “We could still run.”

“I ran the first time,” Xue Mang said. “They sent me a bill.”

The Valley disciples on the wall started to titter. Even Bai Chenxi's lips twitched.

“Captain Xue Mang,” Sima Lan said, flipping her slate open. “Good morning. Your first ransom is settled. The second stands at four thousand, five hundred and twelve, with one missed installment. A third capture would qualify you for our bulk rate.”

“Bulk rate?” Xue Mang whispered.

“It is a considerable discount,” Sima Lan said. “For loyal customers.”

Xue Mang closed his eyes.

“I can't,” Xue Mang said, in the voice of a man who had been rehearsing something all night. “I can't do it again. Do you understand? The first time I told my banner it was a trick. The second time I said it was bad luck. The third time my sect master said he would sell me to the Qiao salt mines, as a, a, a lesson to the rest! I haven't slept in a bed in nine days! A tiger fallen onto the plain is bullied by dogs! My knee is a cabbage!”

“Then stop raiding the Valley,” Shi Feng said. “You won’t clear the debt by getting caught here again.”

“Don't be sorry! Just—” Xue Mang said.

Xue Mang's hand dived into his robe. Bai Chenxi's frost sword was out before the sentence ended, and Sima Lan stepped in front of Shi Feng with perfect calm. But the captain pulled out a small, scuffed leather ring, the kind that held a storage space, and flung it on the road at Shi Feng's feet.

“Just take it!” Xue Mang shouted. “All of it! Everything I've got! The stones, the pills, the spare robe, the dried plums! And take this too!”

He threw a folded square of oiled hide after the ring. It landed on the ring.

“Take this map,” Xue Mang said, almost sobbing. “And just stop catching me!”

Nobody on the wall made a sound.

Then a Valley disciple said, softly, “He's giving himself up.”

“He's giving up before he's caught,” someone else said.

“Is that allowed?”

“It's not in the rules.”

“…”

Shi Feng bent down. He picked up the ring and the hide, and unfolded the hide against his palm.

Shi Feng examined the black-ink map. Its line followed the Valley’s northern road into low hills, where a red circle marked the destination. Beside it were careful directions: Fanghua Hills. Nine pines. New moon, third watch.

“What is this?” Bai Chenxi asked.

“Where we collect,” Xue Mang said hoarsely. “Every second new moon. A man comes, we give him a pouch, he gives us the sheet. We don't ask. It's not our business.”

“Collect what?” Shi Feng asked.

“The sheet,” Xue Mang said. “Which gate is thin. Which night. How many on the wall.”

Bai Chenxi went very still.

“They told us which nights to use,” Xue Mang said bitterly. “You thought we were clever? We had a calendar. Every raid found a weak watch because someone marked it for us.”

The wall was silent now.

“Who is the man?” Shi Feng asked.

“I never saw his face. He wears a hat.” Xue Mang wiped his nose on his sleeve. “All I know is he isn't one of ours. Ours would never have been that polite.”

Sima Lan wrote something on her slate and underlined it twice.

“Three nights,” Shi Feng said, looking at the map. “The new moon is in three nights.”

“I'll go quietly to the woodshed,” Xue Mang said. “Is there rice?”

“There is,” Sima Lan said. “It's four stones.”

“Of course it is,” Xue Mang said, and almost smiled.