Chapter 413 — A Debt in the Elders' Hall

CHAPTER 413

A Debt in the Elders' Hall

“Twenty years!” Elder Zhang Pei shouted. “He sat beside us for twenty years! You can know a man's face and not his heart!”

The elders' hall of Hundred Flower Valley had never been so loud. Six elders in green sashes were on their feet, and the seventh seat, the one at the head, held a bamboo litter. Two disciples had carried Valley Master Mu Shuyun in at dawn. She lay propped on cushions, grey in the face, with a blanket up to her chin and her eyes wide open.

In the middle of the floor knelt Hua Rong. His hands were bound in frost cord. His white beard had lost its gentle shape, and a Valley disciple stood behind him with a drawn sword, trembling slightly, as if he expected the old man to bite.

On the table lay a jade slip, a black silk pouch and a thumb of red wax.

“Read the seal,” Mu Shuyun said.

Elder Yu Lan picked up the wax. She was a hard-faced woman who had never agreed with anyone before noon. She turned it over once, and the colour left her cheeks.

“A fist inside pillars,” Yu Lan said. “That is Martial Palace's Hall of Ten Thousand Strikes.”

“Impossible!”

“It's his handwriting on the slip!”

“Eleven payments?”

“…”

Bai Chenxi had reported every detail without raising her voice. Now she stood by Shi Feng near the door. He could see she was grieving. The traitor in the middle of the hall had carried her tea for twelve years.

“Shuyun,” Hua Rong said. His voice was soft. “You're pale.”

“Because of you,” Mu Shuyun said.

“I regret that most of all,” Hua Rong said.

“You regret that I'm alive to say so,” Mu Shuyun said. “Take him to the Silent Cellar. Frost seal, two guards, no visitors. He will be tried after the Garden is saved.”

“And Martial Palace?” Elder Zhang Pei demanded. “Will the Valley say nothing?”

“If I name them without proof, the Valley goes to war sick,” Mu Shuyun said. “This slip and this seal are proof enough for us. They are not proof enough for the Sky Pavilion. We will keep them, we will remember them, and we will choose the day. The pouch we will send home.”

Nobody argued. Even Zhang Pei sat down.

Hua Rong kept his eyes down as they led him past Shi Feng. He stumbled at the door, and a disciple caught his elbow. With his hands bound and his smile gone, he looked old and defeated.

“Alchemist Shi,” Mu Shuyun said.

Shi Feng stepped forward and bowed.

“The Valley owes Artificer Hall a debt,” Mu Shuyun said. She said it slowly, to the whole hall, and every elder understood it. “It is recorded, in front of the seven seats. We don't forget our debts.”

“Thank you, Valley Master,” Shi Feng said.

“Don't thank me. You'll charge us for it,” Mu Shuyun said. Her mouth moved. It might have been a smile. “Yu Lan.”

Elder Yu Lan took a small jade key from her sleeve and held it in her palm for a long moment, as if it weighed a mountain.

“The Heart Blossom has never left the Garden,” Elder Zhang Pei said hoarsely.

“It has never had to cure the Garden before,” Mu Shuyun said.

Yu Lan put the key into Shi Feng's hand.

“Bring it back alive,” Yu Lan said.

“I'll bring back a cure,” Shi Feng said. “Alive depends on the poison.”

The guest room was dark, and it smelled of rain on warm stone.

Shi Feng sat on the floor bedding, sleeves rolled up, hiding the ache of two cracked ribs. Sima Lan entered with a basin and cloth. Her expression told him she’d already decided what he needed and wouldn’t welcome an argument.

“You smell of traitor,” Sima Lan said.

“I've washed,” Shi Feng said.

“Not properly. Sit,” Sima Lan said.

“Clause seven,” Shi Feng said.

“Two stones,” Sima Lan said. “Charged to the Valley, under ‘guest sanitation’. Sit still.”

The warm cloth crossed his back in quick, careful strokes. On the second pass, Sima Lan found the cracked ribs and stopped. She waited one breath before continuing, her expression hardening as she judged the damage.

“Your shoulders are a disgrace,” Sima Lan said.

“I was thrown through a bench,” Shi Feng said.

“Then the bench is a disgrace,” Sima Lan said. The cloth moved on. “Two ribs. I'll bill that to Hua Rong's estate. The Valley won't mind.”

Something creaked outside the window.

Both ignored the creak at the window. Through the hand’s-width gap, green-sashed disciples crowded to see past one another. They’d plainly come to watch Sima Lan work, not to ask whether the injured alchemist needed anything.

“Is that the princess?”

“Princess Sima Lan of Great Liang!”

“She's washing his back!”

“He's Senior Sister Ling's husband!”

“Where's Senior Sister Ling?”

“In bed. Sick. Poor thing.”

“…”

“…And he's got a washing princess.”

“The blessing of two beauties!”

“Ten stones,” Sima Lan said, without lifting her eyes, “for the steam.”

The shutter slammed. Three pairs of footsteps ran away down the corridor. Sima Lan wrung out the cloth, her ears the faintest pink.

“Forty-one poisoned,” Sima Lan said, in the same voice. “The Valley is moving them into the Cauldron Court tonight, beside the great furnace. They think you'll start tomorrow.”

“I will,” Shi Feng said.

“Senior Sister Ling woke at noon,” Sima Lan said. She wrung out the cloth a second time. “She asked the nurse whether you'd returned. The nurse said yes. Senior Sister Ling asked nothing else.”

Shi Feng's thumb found the violet purse string.

“I see,” Shi Feng said.

“You see,” Sima Lan said. “I wrote it down.”

He closed his eyes. In the dark, the Ledger woke, plain and flat. Core-fill: 45%. Note: mostly poison. Tastes of lilies.

Behind him, the cloth went on working.