Chapter 429 — Nothing Was Accused

CHAPTER 429

Nothing Was Accused

“Clause one,” Mu Shuyun said. “The Valley makes no accusation against anyone.”

“Naturally,” Lin Langtian said. “Accusations are rude, and they don't pay.”

The pavilion table was small, so the two copies of the pact lay edge to edge. Mu Shuyun had written the Valley's copy herself, in a firm square hand. Lin Langtian's copy was in Shi Feng's handwriting, because Lin Langtian claimed nobody could read his own.

Shi Feng sat at the end of the table with a brush and read both.

Outside, a caravan had stopped on the road. Its drivers were pretending to check their wheels. It was the fourth caravan since morning.

“Clause two,” Mu Shuyun said. “For the season's inventory review, the Valley will sell no herbs to any buyer wearing the Martial Palace's colours, or buying in its name, or buying for a cousin of its name. The review will last until further notice.”

“How long is further notice?” Lin Langtian asked.

“That is up to the Valley,” Mu Shuyun said.

“I love it already,” Lin Langtian said.

“Clause three,” Mu Shuyun continued. “The Valley's envoy at Tianwu Mountain, Envoy Jin Mei, will be recalled to attend her aged mother's birthday.”

“Is her mother aged?” Shi Feng asked.

“Her mother is forty-six,” Mu Shuyun said. “It will be a very sudden birthday.”

Behind her chair, Ling Qingzhu pressed her lips together. Her thumb was on her sleeve again, and it wasn't pressing. It was shaking a little. She was trying not to laugh.

“Clause four,” Mu Shuyun said. “Artificer Hall will have first call on Valley herbs at eight in a hundred under the market price. In return, the Hall will provide one alchemist, one refiner and one array master to the Valley whenever the Valley asks, at the Hall's usual rate.”

“Usual rate,” Shi Feng said.

“Written down,” Sima Lan said from the pavilion step. She had her slate out. “The Hall's usual rate is posted at the stall. It's quite high.”

“It's ruinous,” Mu Shuyun said.

“It's honest,” Lin Langtian said. “Mostly.”

“Clause five. Neither sect will begin talks with Martial Palace, or any sect under its banner, without telling the other first,” Mu Shuyun read, looking up. “That is the clause which matters. When the lips are gone, the teeth feel cold.”

“I know,” Lin Langtian said.

For a moment the pavilion was quiet. A willow branch scraped the roof.

Lin Langtian wasn't loud. He wasn't grinning. He laid his hand flat on the pact and looked at the elder across the table, Shi Feng was surprised by how serious he became. The usual jokes were gone.

“The Valley won't let this happen twice,” Lin Langtian said quietly. “We know who paid Hua Rong, but the Palace can deny the proof. So you make no accusation. You stop supplying them and make a pact with us. Every sect in the region will understand why.”

Mu Shuyun held his gaze.

“You are very young to speak so,” Mu Shuyun said.

“I read a lot,” Lin Langtian said, grinning again. “Mostly menus.”

Shi Feng turned a page.

Clauses six to eight covered arrays, the Heart Blossom and a pact length of ten years.

Clause nine was not in the Valley's copy.

He held the two sheets up to the light, side by side.

“Chief Disciple Lin,” Shi Feng said.

“Yes, Junior Brother?” Lin Langtian said.

“Clause nine, in my copy. ‘The Valley will refund Chief Disciple Lin Langtian the full sum of the Rare Herb Storeroom damages invoice, with interest.’” Shi Feng read out.

The pavilion went completely silent.

Su Wanning, who had been hiding behind a willow trunk for the last ten minutes, gave a strangled squeal and clapped a hand over her mouth.

“I didn't write that,” Shi Feng said. “It's in my handwriting.”

“A copying mistake,” Lin Langtian replied shamelessly. “There's always one. Good thing you checked!”

“You copied his hand very carefully for a mistake,” Mu Shuyun said dryly.

“Thank you,” Lin Langtian replied, refusing to look embarrassed.

“Chief Disciple Lin. The elders made you pay that invoice, and it was a fair invoice. There were eleven mislabelled herbs,” Mu Shuyun said.

Ling Qingzhu made a small sound and turned her face away.

Mu Shuyun drew her own brush from its case. She struck out clause nine with a single clean line and then initialled the strike.

“Clause nine is withdrawn,” Mu Shuyun said. “I will count it as the Hall's contribution to the Valley's morale.”

“That's the first time the Valley has called me useful,” Lin Langtian said happily.

They sealed the pact together. Sima Lan came forward with a small lacquered box and set it on the table. Inside lay the sect master's red seal, the one from the Treasury drawer.

“My own chief disciple's seal has been in my junior brother's ring since Cuiping, and it binds nobody but me,” Lin Langtian told Mu Shuyun. “So Elder Qian Mo rented me this one for a day. Deposit twenty stones. I paid it myself. He wrote a receipt. It had a clause about smudges.”

Mu Shuyun pressed the Valley's green seal first. Lin Langtian pressed the red one beside it, hard and clean.

The caravan outside had stopped pretending.

“The Valley's closed its herb door to the Palace!” a driver shouted from the road.

“There's no accusation in it, though!” a guard called back.

“That's how you know, you fool!”

“The Valley recalled its envoy!”

“Whose mother's birthday is it?”

“Does it matter? A single spark can start a prairie fire! Ride! Ride! Somebody tell my master!”

Four wagons rolled away in four different directions. Dust drifted over the willows.

“By tonight,” Mu Shuyun said, folding her copy into her sleeve, “every sect in the region will have read this correctly.”

“And Wei Chengyuan?” Shi Feng asked.

Lin Langtian took the last bite of his sweet potato.

“He's not slow,” Lin Langtian said. “He's only late.”