Chapter 422 — Tea and Herbs

CHAPTER 422

Tea and Herbs

The knock came after the second watch.

Shi Feng was sitting on his floor bedding with the furnace ledger on his knee. He was writing with his left hand, and the uneven characters annoyed him. He had been told twice to rest his right arm. He was resting it. The writing was a separate matter.

“It's open,” Shi Feng said.

Ling Qingzhu came in with a tray.

She wore a plain white house robe and no veil. Her hair was tied loosely at the back. On the tray stood a small clay pot and two cups, taking care not to spill the tea.

“I was passing,” Ling Qingzhu said.

“This is the guest court,” Shi Feng said. “Nobody passes it.”

“Then I was lost,” Ling Qingzhu replied without lowering the tray.

“For three days?” Shi Feng asked, looking amused.

“Do you want the tea or not?” Ling Qingzhu said. Her thumb pressed the side of the tray.

“I want the tea,” Shi Feng said.

She set the tray on the low table and knelt down across from him, a safe distance from the bedding. Then she poured. The steam smelled of something green and slightly bitter. Shi Feng took the cup in his left hand.

Neither of them spoke.

He waited for her to say it. Ling Qingzhu hadn't carried tea across the Valley at midnight just because she was passing. Surely she had come for an answer.

Ling Qingzhu drank her tea. She did not ask anything.

“What is it?” Shi Feng asked finally.

“Moonbell,” Ling Qingzhu said. “The leaf, dried in the shade. It's for sleep. You don't sleep, so it's wasted on you.”

“It's bitter,” Shi Feng said after a sip.

“It's supposed to be bitter. That's how you know it's working,” Ling Qingzhu replied, looking into her cup. “The Heart Garden has a whole bed of it. Or had. It's coming back at the root. Elder Yun says the Withering was a blessing in disguise, and that in another season it will bloom.”

“Which bed?” Shi Feng asked, remembering her fevered words.

“The east one, by the stone lantern,” Ling Qingzhu answered more quietly. “My mother planted it. She said moonbell flowers only when nobody watches them.”

Shi Feng set his cup down. He didn't know much about Ling Qingzhu's mother. He only knew she had been a Valley disciple once, and that her daughter talked about her seldom and never loudly.

“Then we won't watch it,” Shi Feng said.

Ling Qingzhu laughed. It was a short, startled sound, and she covered her mouth too late.

“That's your joke?” Ling Qingzhu said.

“It's practical,” Shi Feng replied, pleased that she'd laughed.

“It's terrible,” Ling Qingzhu said, still smiling.

“I had a teacher,” Shi Feng said.

“I know who. I've met him,” Ling Qingzhu replied, relaxing enough to pour another cup. “Tell me about the Heart Blossom. The elders keep asking me what you did, and I keep saying I don't know. I was holding the array, and when I woke up it was done.”

So he told her.

He told her how the Heart Blossom's sap had a thread of the poison running through it, and how the poison was shaped to look like the blossom's own root-fire. He told her why the first batch had failed: it cooled too fast. She asked why that mattered. He explained. She asked a better question than the elders had asked in three days, and he stopped and looked at her.

“What?” Ling Qingzhu said.

“That was a good question,” Shi Feng admitted.

“I'm the first on the Register,” Ling Qingzhu said. “I'm allowed good questions.”

“I didn't say you weren't,” Shi Feng replied.

“You looked it,” Ling Qingzhu insisted, refusing to let him off.

“I looked surprised,” Shi Feng said. “That's different.”

She pressed her thumb against the cup and said nothing, but the corner of her mouth moved.

They talked about herbs for an hour. She corrected him on three Valley names. He corrected her on one heat count, and she wrote it on the table with a wet fingertip so she wouldn't forget. She told him the south shelf of the herb store was a disaster, because the labels had been copied in the dark during the worst weeks of the Withering, and she hadn't had time to check them. He said that sounded like a job for an alchemist with a bad arm and no sleep. She said she'd think about it.

At no point did either of them say anything about a letter, a marriage or a room in Qingliu Lane.

She's waiting for me to mention the letter, Shi Feng thought. They'd talked for an hour, and neither had dared ask about it.

He did not start.

When the pot was empty, Ling Qingzhu stood and gathered the tray. She took a long time at the door.

“I'll bring tea again tomorrow,” Ling Qingzhu said, without turning around. “If you're asleep, I'll leave it.”

“I'll be awake,” Shi Feng said.

“You're always awake,” Ling Qingzhu complained before going out. Her steps in the corridor were quick, and in the lamplight he noticed the back of her neck had gone red.

Through the thin wall, Sima Lan's slate scratched once.

“The tea isn't on the contract,” Sima Lan said, from the next room.

“I know,” Shi Feng said.

“I'm only saying it isn't,” Sima Lan replied from behind the wall.