Chapter 438 — Attendant

CHAPTER 438

Attendant

The registration clerk looked up at Artificer Hall's forms. Six outer-court names for the One Mark practical. He checked whether Shi Feng meant to enter all six.

“Yes,” Shi Feng said.

The clerk repeated the question.

“Yes. All six,” Shi Feng confirmed patiently.

The clerk looked at the line behind the desk. Fan Dacheng was sweating, and Tao Shun had already dropped his brush twice. The clerk gave a tired nod, plainly expecting another group of hopefuls who weren't ready to pass.

“Garbage cohort,” Ji Xuan called behind them, loudly enough for the registration hall to hear.

Shi Feng turned.

The Sky Pavilion's Qingyun tower had a ground hall big enough to hold a market. Long tables ran down both sides, one for each sect, and banners hung from the beams. At the Martial Palace table, a young man in a crimson jacket leaned on his elbow with two friends. He had the smooth face of someone who had never been hit in a place that mattered.

“Ji Xuan, Martial Palace,” Ji Xuan introduced himself with a smile. “Late Foundation Establishment. Six students from the weakest sect in the region, here to take a one Mark. I'd bring a cart for the pills. They'll need somewhere to put them.”

His thickset friend from Iron Fist Gate laughed. He suggested failing the six at the gate to save the examination candles.

The hall had gone quiet around them. Yu Tie stepped forward with his fists raised.

“Stand down,” Shi Feng ordered without turning.

Yu Tie obeyed, although his fists still shook.

“Not one of them will fail,” Shi Feng said.

He did not raise his voice. He was completely confident, despite the students' poor record. Ji Xuan blinked, and then he laughed, and the Iron Fist Gate disciple joined him.

“Not one?” Ji Xuan said. “You do not know the height of heaven or the depth of the earth. Six garbage cohort students, and none fail? Do you know the pass rate for the one Mark, Brother Shi?”

“Do you?” Shi Feng asked.

Ji Xuan stopped laughing. He did not know it exactly, and now everybody could see that.

“Two in five,” Geng Xiaoyu muttered. “Last year.”

“He said not one!” a voice whispered from the crowd.

“Is he mad?” “Overestimating himself like that is courting death!”

“…”

A folding wooden board came down on the nearest empty table with a bang. Gongsun Ce stood behind it with a brush in one hand. THE LEDGER, it said in neat black characters, and under it, in smaller ones: ODDS.

“All six pass,” Gongsun Ce said, writing. “Twelve to one against. Five of six, four to one. Anyone in the hall may enter. Stakes in stones, coppers or boots.”

“Boots?” Fan Dacheng asked.

“I am keeping a list,” Gongsun Ce replied, impatient to open his pool. “Next.”

Under the odds he wrote one more line and tapped it with the brush: THE POOL PAYS ON CANDIDATES PASSING. Then he counted eleven hundred stones from his own purse into the pool and wrote that down too.

The Iron Fist Gate disciple shoved forward at once and dropped a small bag on the board. Ji Xuan sniffed as if it were beneath him, then put down three hundred stones.

“Against,” Ji Xuan said.

“Against,” Gongsun Ce agreed, writing. “Name?”

“You know my name!” Ji Xuan snapped, annoyed at being made to repeat it.

“I want you to say it,” Gongsun Ce said. “For the record.”

Beside the board, a small, exact envelope slid across the table. It was marked with one word in chalk: ATTENDANT.

“Thirty,” Sima Lan said, not looking at anybody. “For. Twelve to one.”

“Sima Lan, you cannot bet on the Hall's own book,” Gongsun Ce protested.

“I'm not betting. I'm lending money to a certainty,” Sima Lan replied without hesitation.

Zhu Liu looked at her envelope, then at his receipt book. He slid thirty stones of his own across the board.

“For,” Zhu Liu said, very quietly. “Twelve to one.”

Ji Xuan's eyes went to her, and he smiled with pure malice.

“And that's the princess maid, isn't it?” Ji Xuan said loudly. “I heard she carries his furnace. Do they pay you in pills, Your Highness, or does the champion just ask nicely?”

The hall held its breath.

“Attendant,” Sima Lan said.

She said it quietly. She had not even lifted her chin. But the Iron Fist Gate disciple took a step back, and the clerk at the desk found something to correct in his book.

“I'm sorry?” Ji Xuan said.

“The word is ‘attendant,’” Sima Lan said. “Forty stones a month, under a stamped contract. I don't carry his furnace. The furnace has a boy for that.” She turned. “Shi Feng.”

“What?” Shi Feng asked.

“Your collar,” Sima Lan said, stepping toward him.

She stepped in front of him, close enough that the entire hall could see. Her fingers took the edge of his collar, turned it flat, and pulled the left side straight with two sharp tugs. She kept her expression perfectly serious, refusing to be embarrassed before the watching hall.

“It's a disgrace,” Sima Lan said. “You walk around this city as if you dressed in the dark. Stand still.”

“It was fine,” Shi Feng said.

“It was crooked on the left,” Sima Lan corrected him, flattening the edge.

Somewhere across the hall, a teacup struck a saucer.

Shi Feng didn't need to look. The Valley's table stood eleven paces away, behind a bank of white banners. Ling Qingzhu sat at the end of it, a registration brush forgotten in her hand and her thumb pressed hard against the wood. Her mouth had gone small and tight.

“Big Sis,” Su Wanning said, very loudly, “your mouth is doing the thing!”

“My mouth is perfectly fine,” Ling Qingzhu said.

“It's gone like a little knot!” Su Wanning exclaimed, pointing at her friend's lips.

“Wanning, please be quiet,” Ling Qingzhu said through clenched teeth.

Sima Lan finished the collar and stepped back. She did not smile. She did not need to.

“Valley table,” Sima Lan murmured. “Eleven paces. Do not turn your head.”

“Why would I?” Shi Feng asked.

“Because you will,” Sima Lan said.

He did not turn his head. It took effort.

At the desk, the clerk stamped the six slips one after another with a heavy hand and slid them across. Then the clerk lifted a seventh page and read rule four to the whole line. Candidates entered alone. Instructors, attendants and companions were forbidden; only their brushes, sleeves and knowledge could go inside.

Tao Shun dropped his brush a third time.

“Alone?” Ma Liang whispered.

“Alone,” Shi Feng said. “The furnace doesn't care who is standing behind you.”

Ma Liang nodded nervously. He'd known the rule, but facing the furnace without his teacher still frightened him.