Chapter 428 — Patrol Day

CHAPTER 428

Patrol Day

Ling Qingzhu was waiting at the Valley's outer gate with her hands folded in her sleeves, trying to look as though she hadn't been waiting for him.

Shi Feng saw her from fifty paces. He saw the violet inner robe, the plain silver clasp and the thumb pressed hard against her sleeve. He kept walking.

Behind him, a handcart creaked. Xue Mang pushed it with both hands, and four bronze cauldrons rattled on the boards with every step. Sima Lan had ruled that hauling the Hall party's travelling set to the border counted against his seven stones a day. Not long ago the captain had been the most arrogant Golden Core man in the Blood Lotus Sect. Today he wore a Hundred Flower Valley servant's grey apron over his armour, and he was humming.

“Good morning, young master!” Xue Mang called. “The road is dry! The cauldrons are tied! This humble one is grateful for the work!”

“Stop thanking me,” Shi Feng said.

“Yes, young master! Thank you!” Xue Mang cried.

Sima Lan walked on Shi Feng's left with her slate under one arm. She didn't look at the gate. She looked at the slate.

“Fourteen,” Sima Lan said.

“Fourteen what?” Shi Feng asked.

“Valley disciples on the wall above us, drying herbs,” Sima Lan replied, turning the page. “None of the herbs are wet. Su Wanning is the fifteenth. She's behind the third banner pole and she's not very good at it.”

Lin Langtian strolled up on her other side, chewing a roasted sweet potato. He stared at a cloud with great interest.

“What a fine cloud,” Lin Langtian said. “I haven't seen the gate. Has anyone seen the gate? I'm only here for the cloud.”

“Sixteen,” Sima Lan said, and wrote something down.

“What does the list say about me?” Lin Langtian asked.

“‘Pretends to be interested in weather,’” Sima Lan said. “Under the heading ‘Who is pretending not to watch whom.’ You are very low on the page. The Valley takes up most of it.”

Shi Feng said nothing. He watched Ling Qingzhu, who was pretending not to watch him.

Ling Qingzhu stepped into the road when they were ten paces away. She had the look of someone who had practised the step.

“Artificer Hall party,” Ling Qingzhu said. “Halt.”

“We're leaving,” Shi Feng said.

“I know. That's why I'm halting you,” Ling Qingzhu replied, tilting her chin. “It's my patrol day. I'm walking the border road. You are on the border road. So I'll walk you to the border.”

“Her patrol day is Thursday!” Su Wanning shrieked from the wall.

Ling Qingzhu closed her eyes for a moment.

“It's not Thursday,” Ling Qingzhu said, without turning. “I changed it.”

“You changed it last night! I was there! You moved it with a brush! You wrote ‘Patrol’ over ‘Wash my hair’!” Su Wanning shrieked.

“Wanning,” Ling Qingzhu said.

“I'm just saying!” Su Wanning said.

Sima Lan's chalk moved. “Seventeen,” Sima Lan said, very quietly.

The disciples hurriedly bent over their herbs, afraid Ling Qingzhu would turn on them next.

Ling Qingzhu turned back, and her face was perfectly calm. Her ears were not.

“Shall we?” Ling Qingzhu said.

They walked.

The border road ran along the foot of the Fanghua Hills, white with early blossom. Xue Mang's cart rattled behind them. Lin Langtian ate his potato slowly.

“Does the arm hurt?” Ling Qingzhu asked.

Shi Feng glanced at his right sleeve. The bandage ran from the wrist to the elbow, and underneath it the skin was new and pink and tight.

“It's healing,” Shi Feng said.

“I didn't ask how it was healing. I asked if it hurt,” Ling Qingzhu said.

“A little,” Shi Feng said.

“Then you shouldn't be carrying that sword on your back,” Ling Qingzhu said, frowning at the grey hilt. “It pulls the shoulder. Let your attendant carry it.”

“Attendant,” Sima Lan said at once.

“Your attendant,” Ling Qingzhu said, without a pause.

“I'm not carrying it,” Sima Lan said. “It bites.”

Lin Langtian choked on his potato.

Ling Qingzhu almost smiled, then pressed her lips together. Shi Feng remembered how coldly she'd charged him for the guest room floor. Now she was walking him to the border and worrying about his shoulder.

“You didn't write,” Ling Qingzhu said softly. She said it to the road, not to him. “Not yet. I'm only mentioning it.”

“You said I'd owe twenty months,” Shi Feng said.

“I said I'd invoice you. I didn't say you could pay late,” Ling Qingzhu replied, walking a few steps ahead. “You'll start with the next letter. One line is fine. It's a very good rate.”

“What's the rate?” Shi Feng asked.

“A line,” Ling Qingzhu said. “For a line.”

Behind them Sima Lan wrote something that was much longer than a line.

The road bent around a hill. At the top of the bend, a small stone pavilion stood against the sky with willow branches hanging over its roof. Four Valley guards stood at its corners, and a woman in the Valley Master's green sat in the middle on a carved chair.

Mu Shuyun looked recovered, without a cane or the pallor of her sickbed. She calmly watched them approach. This meeting was clearly arranged, Shi Feng thought.

“Master,” Ling Qingzhu said, and her voice went flat. “You said you would be resting.”

“I have rested,” Mu Shuyun said. “For a month. It was enough. As the saying goes, old ginger is spicier. Your patrol day was on every wall in the Valley.”

She turned to Lin Langtian.

“Chief Disciple Lin,” Mu Shuyun said. “You have your sect master's seal?”

Lin Langtian patted his sleeve.

“I have his permission, a bag of cabbage money and a very large potato,” Lin Langtian said. “Mostly the potato. Let's talk.”

Ling Qingzhu, who had said she would only walk them to the border, took the chair behind her master and sat down.

“I'm still patrolling,” Ling Qingzhu said, to nobody at all.