Chapter 42 — Ten Thousand Stones

CHAPTER 42

Ten Thousand Stones

“Ten thousand spirit stones,” Ling Qingzhu said, before she even sat down. “Don’t say anything yet. Let it sink in first.”

Shi Feng set the teapot on the table without spilling a drop.

She’d come on foot with a tin of fine tea. Bao Shun and Granny Qin watched from across the lane.

Shi Feng closed the gate on both of them.

Ling Qingzhu looked over the tidy courtyard. Through the open door she saw one room, one bed and a bare patch of floor beside it.

Shi Feng thought about the price of bone medicine, and then about the danger of a crown prince. Ten thousand stones was real money. The prince was a real risk. Only one of those two was easy to trust.

Ling Qingzhu drew a folded sheet from her sleeve and laid it between them. The terms were neat and short. He would appear as her husband when needed, keep up the marriage in public, and be paid on registration. The words “ten thousand” were underlined twice.

“You wrote six months or a sect. I accept,” Ling Qingzhu said, tapping the blank space beneath the payment clause. “Until I can leave the palace arrangements behind.”

Shi Feng read it, turned it over, and found the back blank.

“Where are your obligations?” Shi Feng asked.

Ling Qingzhu tapped the payment clause with one pale finger. “Here. It’s the biggest number on the page. How could you miss it?”

“The prince doesn’t get cheaper after I take the money,” Shi Feng said. “If your household announces tomorrow that I kidnapped you, do I get a second sheet explaining the misunderstanding?”

Ling Qingzhu frowned, then wrote that she entered freely and neither side could later accuse the other of forcing the marriage.

“Put the exact wording on the sheet: six months, or your entry into a Great Sect, whichever comes earlier,” Shi Feng said. “Either of us can end our private arrangement then. We can renew it only if we both agree.”

“People will ask questions if you leave after six months,” Ling Qingzhu said.

“So will marrying me,” Shi Feng said.

Ling Qingzhu added the term and a clarification: their private deadline would not cancel the legal registration.

Then she wrote the next lines slowly. One room. She takes the bed, he takes the floor. No intimacy owed. No touching each other’s belongings.

Ling Qingzhu glanced at the chest through the door.

“Are any of Lu Qingxue's belongings kept here?” Ling Qingzhu asked. “I should know what storage is available.”

“The engagement is over. Everything was returned,” Shi Feng said. “That chest holds my spare clothes.”

“Of course,” Ling Qingzhu said, bending over the paper.

She had asked too carefully about a chest in a courtyard he had only just rented. Her ears warmed. Shi Feng merely moved the inkstone within her reach.

“I’ve slept on worse floors,” Shi Feng said. “This one is even swept.”

Her ears turned faintly red above the veil’s ties, and her eyes narrowed. When she started listing the occasions where they might need to hold hands, Shi Feng reached for his tea.

The cup was empty. He put it down again.

“Appearances!” Ling Qingzhu said. “Only appearances. Don’t look so pleased.”

“I get it,” Shi Feng said. “Just warn me before we have to hold hands. I’d like to wash first.”

Her brush stopped and left a dark blot beside the clause. She covered it with a carefully drawn character and refused to look up. Shi Feng took the brush back and wrote one line: this agreement does not buy obedience.

“You expect me to make unreasonable demands?” Ling Qingzhu asked, reading it twice. “I don’t buy people, you know. Obedience wasn’t on my list.”

“You started with a crown prince,” Shi Feng said.

Something scraped outside the gate. Bao Shun had found his fourth urgent reason to stay in the lane. Shi Feng opened the gate and found him staring at a crack in the outer wall with deep professional worry.

“Walls this old need watching, young master! Bao Shun can arrange a repair, very cheap!” Bao Shun said.

Shi Feng put the empty tea tray into his hands.

“Then watch this on your way out,” Shi Feng said.

Bao Shun looked past him at the fairy, decided nothing worth selling could be overheard, and left with his dignity hurt.

“Young master! Young master! Sesame cakes!” Granny Qin shouted across the lane, waving her tongs. “Fresh and hot! For the guest! Is that her? Aiyo, so pretty! Too thin, though! She needs to eat! Take a cake! Take two!”

“I already made tea, Granny,” Shi Feng said, and shut the gate before the tongs could come over the wall.

When Shi Feng sat down again, Ling Qingzhu looked perfectly calm above her white veil, but amusement returned to her eyes. She wrote one more clause: neither side would invite the household’s enemies into the house.

He approved it without a word.

“One more thing,” Shi Feng said. “Not money.”

“Which is?” Ling Qingzhu asked.

“A household gathering pass for the Hengyun grounds,” Shi Feng said. “This season, in my name, good whether or not I live under your roof.”

Her eyes dropped to his wrist. The old splint had left a faint mark, though the hand lay steady beside the paper.

“You’ll gather medicine yourself?” Ling Qingzhu asked.

“Among other things,” Shi Feng said.

Ling Qingzhu pictured him searching deadly valleys for a cure every physician called impossible. Her heart softened.

“A pass won’t give you rank,” Ling Qingzhu said, more gently than she meant to. “And we can’t bail you out of every ravine. Come back in one piece. Explaining a dead husband is awkward.”

“I asked for access,” Shi Feng said. “I’ll do the walking.”

She agreed. Then she took out his reply, paused with her brush above the paper, and looked straight into his eyes over the veil.

“My Third Uncle checked the Southern Gate ledger before he signed off on this last condition,” Ling Qingzhu said sharply. “The Wei family of Yunze filed a gate inquiry over two dead men—one of them a Foundation Establishment elder. Why are Wei retainers hunting a supposed cripple across half the kingdom?”

Shi Feng met her gaze without blinking. “Their young master tried to rob me on a mountain path outside Yunze, and his father came after me when that failed. Their own witness saw who attacked first—which is why they’re using gate clerks instead of a magistrate’s warrant.”

Ling Qingzhu’s fingers tightened on the brush. She looked from his calm face to the plain sword leaning against the wall, clearly weighing how a man with ruined meridians walked away from a Foundation Establishment elder’s pursuit. He offered no more, and she didn’t press past what the contract required.

She dipped her brush and copied the condition: the Ling household would provide legitimate protection against private Wei demands while their marriage stood, requiring any formal accusation to go before a capital magistrate with witnesses and evidence.

“I won't ask your household to lie,” Shi Feng said. “I only want a court hearing before anyone talks about handing me over.”

“My uncle accepted that condition,” Ling Qingzhu said evenly. “He'll notify the Southern Ward office after we register.”

That was the shelter Shi Feng wanted. He could fight an attacker. Fighting every clerk would leave no time to cultivate.

He insisted the pass be in his hands before they registered. She searched his face for the shame he’d misplaced, found none, and wrote that condition down too.

By the end, the agreement covered both sides of the sheet. Ling Qingzhu flexed her fingers.

They made a second copy and signed both. Shi Feng sanded the ink, folded his copy, and laid it beside the rent receipt.

“Just so we’re clear,” Ling Qingzhu said. “I don’t love you.”

He looked up at the black hair beside her veil.

“You explained that very efficiently,” Shi Feng said.

This time she started to answer, stopped, and glared at the pear tree instead.

At the gate she stopped beside the pear tree and looked back. Two cups stood on the table, both properly filled. He’d refilled hers while she copied the agreement, and she hadn’t noticed.

“Tomorrow, then,” Ling Qingzhu said. “Try not to look so efficient.”

“Bring the pass,” Shi Feng said.

Her eyes softened in spite of herself. She checked her veil’s ties before leaving, and he watched her go.

Shi Feng collected the cups and looked at the blank place waiting for a seal. The deal was dangerous, he thought. It was also his own choice, and he wouldn’t get timid just because danger wore royal silk.

He’d come to the capital to find medicine.

Apparently he’d begin with a wife.