Chapter 440 — A Pill of the Lost Era

CHAPTER 440

A Pill of the Lost Era

Two wardens carried the box in on a black lacquer tray, and the whole hall went quiet to watch it come.

“Lot sixty,” Hui Cang announced. He was tall, in a Pavilion robe with white-and-silver cuffs, and his voice had carried well all morning. Now it came out a little flatter. “Our star lot. A Pill of the Lost Era.”

A warden lifted the lid.

On a cushion of grey silk sat a small, dull, nearly round lump. It was black from end to end and no bigger than a quail's egg. It gave off no light. It did not shine. Shi Feng thought it looked like something a child had burned in the fire and forgotten to take out.

Beside him, Zhu Liu made a very small sound.

“It looks like slag,” a man called from the third row.

“It is slag!” someone else said.

“Ancient pills are naturally different!” a merchant shouted back. “You don't know what you're looking at!”

“Neither do you!”

A warden tapped his staff on the floor and ordered the quarrelling rows to be quiet.

Hui Cang leaned forward. He was a Nascent Soul cultivator, and he did what a Nascent Soul cultivator does with an unknown object: he let his Spirit Sense slide over it. Shi Feng saw him do it. The man's eyes went half shut and his breathing slowed.

Hui Cang's face suddenly paled. His confident introduction stopped as he failed to read anything beneath the black surface.

He tried again, frowning harder. When the same thing happened, he withdrew his Spirit Sense and stared at the lump.

Shi Feng thought, His Spirit Sense slid off it like water off oiled iron.

Hui Cang straightened. He looked at the lump. He looked at the six hundred faces in the hall, at the Pavilion seal printed on every catalogue in every hand, and Shi Feng could almost see him doing the sum. Withdraw the lot, and the Pavilion's own catalogue called itself a liar in front of the whole region. Better to be wrong loudly than right quietly. As the saying goes, once you are riding the tiger, it is hard to climb down.

“The Pavilion,” Hui Cang said, “stands behind this lot.”

The crowd murmured.

“Opening bid,” Hui Cang said. “Three thousand.”

Nobody moved.

A cough sounded. Somebody laughed, somewhere in the back. Ji Xuan, in the Martial Palace's section, said clearly, “My uncle sells better bricks,” and a few people tittered.

“Lesson nineteen,” Lin Langtian said softly.

He had stopped peeling. The sweet potato lay in his lap with the skin half off, and he was looking at the black lump with a face Shi Feng couldn't read.

“What is it?” Shi Feng asked.

“Whatever happened to that kiln, I pity the man cleaning it,” Lin Langtian muttered. His voice brightened. “When your enemy wants a thing, you only need to want it a little. Watch what happens.”

“Four thousand,” Mu Shuyun called from the Valley's box.

Every head turned to the Valley's box.

Mu Shuyun had raised one finger. She did not smile. She did not even look at the lot. She looked across the hall at the red box, and held there.

Wei Chengyuan's stick tapped the floor once.

“Six thousand,” Wei Chengyuan said, in a flat old voice.

“The Valley closed its herb trade to him,” Gongsun Ce murmured from the row behind. “If he loses this to her, he loses face in front of every sect in the region. Everybody in this hall can add.”

“Nine,” Mu Shuyun said.

“Twelve,” Wei Chengyuan said.

“Fifteen,” Mu Shuyun said.

The crowd had begun to lean in.

“One mountain cannot hold two tigers.” “Maybe it is a Lost Era pill.”

“The Pavilion wouldn't put its name on a lump!”

“Eighteen thousand!” a merchant cried, and then went white and sat down, as if his own mouth had pushed him.

“Twenty,” Wei Chengyuan said.

“Twenty-five,” Mu Shuyun said.

Shi Feng looked up at the Valley's box. Ling Qingzhu had leaned toward her master and was saying something low. Then her eyes crossed the hall and found his, with a plain question in them.

He gave her nothing. He didn't know the answer himself.

“Thirty,” Wei Chengyuan said.

“Thirty-five,” Mu Shuyun replied.

“Forty!” Wei Chengyuan called.

Sima Lan's chalk was moving faster than Shi Feng had ever seen it. She wrote each number down, and under the column she drew a line.

“Forty thousand,” Sima Lan whispered. “The Hall's coal debt is two thousand three hundred and eighty. That is seventeen of them.”

“It's a lump,” Shi Feng said.

“And they've just bid seventeen coal debts for it,” Sima Lan replied, staring at the slate. “I can see what it looks like. I'm trying to understand why they keep bidding.”

“Forty-five,” Mu Shuyun said calmly.

“Fifty,” Wei Chengyuan said. His knuckles had whitened on his stick.

“Fifty-five,” Mu Shuyun said.

“Sixty!” Wei Chengyuan snapped.

A gasp went round the six hundred seats. Hui Cang wiped his forehead with a silk square. Even he was startled by how far this bidding had gone. He forced himself to smile before calling the price again.

“Sixty thousand,” Hui Cang said. “Sixty thousand, from the Martial Palace. Do I hear sixty-five?”

Mu Shuyun did not raise her finger. She was looking at Wei Chengyuan. Then she looked at the lump. Then, slowly, she looked at Hui Cang, and her expression said very clearly that she wanted to hear something first.

The hall saw it too.

“What is it?” someone called. “What is that thing?”

“Say what it is!”

“The Pavilion can't just say ‘ancient’!”

Hui Cang's smile cracked. He glanced down the rows of seats, at the tiers of merchants, at the old masters in their good robes, and then his eyes came to rest on the fourth row.

“The Pavilion,” Hui Cang said, “would be honoured to hear the opinion of the youngest candidate in the masters' showcase.”

Six hundred heads turned.

Zhu Liu began to cough.