Chapter 448 — Not Before Breakfast

CHAPTER 448

Not Before Breakfast

The inn's roof was old grey tile, and Shi Feng sat on the ridge of it with the stars overhead and a sack of black lumps at his knee.

Sima Lan had bought them that afternoon. The six cohort students had brought forty practice pills to the exam hall, and thirty-eight had failed. She had paid the students one copper each, written the receipts herself, and sent Zhu Liu up the ladder with the sack before dark.

“Eat quietly,” Sima Lan had said. “The innkeeper counts his cups at night and hears everything.”

Shi Feng put the first lump in his mouth. It tasted of burnt bean paste and bitter bark.

[Devoured: failed practice pill | Gain: small | Note: Fan Dacheng's. Too much heat.]

He ate the second and third. His stomach didn't complain yet.

Shi Feng thought back to the afternoon. The failed pills helped, but his new control of the fire mattered more.

For two hours on the tower terrace, the Thousand Forge Flame stayed steady in his hand. He refined the pill without forcing the fire beyond its proper heat. His core responded with a slow, even pulse. The seventh cloud proved that his control could match the power his core supplied.

He followed that rhythm while eating the practice pills, letting their qi settle into his core.

Near midnight, the pulse paused. Then his core expanded.

It was not loud. The tiles under his hands grew warm, and a thin gold light ran along the ridge to the eave and spilled over the edge. In the courtyard, Kang Liu's cups rattled once on their shelf.

Shi Feng's core turned, and he felt the next step under it, firm and level.

[Stage: late Golden Core | Source: seven clouds and other men's mistakes | Note: no thunder]

He opened his eyes.

Somebody was sitting on the ridge beside him, eating a sweet potato.

“You're late,” Lin Langtian said. “I got here at the third lump. I didn't want to interrupt.”

“You're interrupting now,” Shi Feng said.

“Because it's worth it!” Lin Langtian took a bite. “Late Golden Core! At twenty! Do you know how long it took me to reach it? A very, very handsome amount of time. Nobody believes the figure, so I've stopped quoting it.”

“There wasn't a tribulation,” Shi Feng observed, looking up at the clear sky.

“Of course not. You advanced within Golden Core, brat. You didn't enter a new realm,” Lin Langtian replied, waving his potato. “Don't complain! Plenty of men spend their whole lives waiting for this step.”

Shi Feng looked at his own hands. Gold light still clung to the knuckles.

“You were watching me,” Shi Feng said.

“I was watching the roof,” Lin Langtian said. “Four tiles are cracked. I counted them. I'll say it was you.”

“It was me,” Shi Feng admitted, looking at the cracked tiles.

“Then I'll tell her first,” Lin Langtian said gleefully. “She always charges more when she has to find it herself.”

Lin Langtian chewed. For a while neither spoke. Below them, the quiet street slept under a few paper lanterns, and far off in the city a night bell struck the hour.

“Enjoy it,” Lin Langtian said.

His voice had changed. It was low, and almost gentle.

“The stairs,” Lin Langtian said. “The view from the top is mostly empty. It is cold in high places, as they say. So walk slowly.”

Shi Feng turned his head.

“Is this potato cold? It's cold!” Lin Langtian complained, grinning again. “Why does nobody tell me my potatoes are cold?”

“You've been holding it for an hour,” Shi Feng pointed out.

“Then it's your fault for being slow!” Lin Langtian declared shamelessly.

At dawn the sky turned the colour of weak tea, and a ladder creaked against the eaves.

Sima Lan climbed to the ridge with a tray. Her hair was pinned flat, her sleeves were tied back, and she carried a pot, two cups, and her slate under one arm. She stopped three tiles away and looked at the cracks, at the sack, at the half-eaten potato peel, at Lin Langtian snoring on the far slope with his mouth open.

Then at Shi Feng.

“Late Golden Core,” Sima Lan said.

“How did you know?” Shi Feng asked.

“The roof glowed gold. The innkeeper's been asking me about it since the fourth watch,” Sima Lan replied, pouring the tea. “You could have waited until after breakfast.”

“It didn't ask me,” Shi Feng said, reaching for a cup.

“It should have,” Sima Lan grumbled, handing it over. “Four tiles, two stones each. Damage to a rented roof. A stone for the lamp oil Kang Liu burned watching it. Seven stones, on your account.”

“Lin Langtian said he'd blame me before you did,” Shi Feng said.

“Lin Langtian is asleep. You can argue with him later,” Sima Lan said. She sat one cup's reach away, back straight, and set her tea on the ridge. “Drink while it's hot.”

The tea was hot and a little bitter. The sun was lifting over the roofs.

“Six students,” Sima Lan said. “All six passed the 1 Mark, and one of them on character. He is still apologising to the certificate. When one man attains the Way, even his chickens and dogs ascend to heaven. The cohort's going to be unbearable. Fan Dacheng has already asked me what a stall costs.”

“Tell him he'll need a stool first,” Shi Feng said, amused by Fan Dacheng's haste.

“I did. He's already bought one,” Sima Lan replied, turning the slate over. “The innkeeper says an old man in a bamboo hat asked for your room twice last night. He asked in half a sentence. Kang Liu didn't know which half to answer.”

Shi Feng set his cup down.

An old man in a bamboo hat.

“Did he leave a name?” Shi Feng asked.

“A stick,” Sima Lan said. “He left his stick by the door, and he said he'd come back for it.”

Behind them, on the far slope, Lin Langtian turned over in his sleep and said, quite clearly, “Not the good chair.”