Chapter 449 — The Old Man's Half Sentences

CHAPTER 449

The Old Man's Half Sentences

The stick was still by the door the next evening. Kang Liu had put a cup on top of it, in case anyone wanted to claim it was a table.

Shi Feng went up to the roof alone and sat on the ridge. The moon rose over the tiles.

“Boy,” Nie Wufeng called.

The old man in the bamboo hat was standing on the eave. Shi Feng hadn't heard him climb. He leaned on nothing, with his hands tucked in his sleeves, and the hat shadowed his face to the chin.

Behind him, a tall figure in a grey robe came up the ladder without a sound. Gu Zhan carried his spear in its cloth, and the scar down his face looked white in the moonlight.

“Senior Nie,” Shi Feng said, and rose to bow.

“Sit,” Nie Wufeng said. His voice was thin and dry. “The records. Sealed with... the Pavilion's seal. North. I heard.”

“I heard it too,” Shi Feng said. “I was in the room.”

“A good price. Or a bad one,” Nie Wufeng murmured, turning toward the Pavilion tower. “North, there's... a sect.”

“A sect,” Shi Feng said.

“The old alchemy houses... won't share a table with it.” Nie Wufeng's fingers moved in his sleeve. “Their masters leave the room when it's named. Hm. They don't fight, they say. They...”

He stopped. The word wasn't coming, or he had decided not to say it.

Shi Feng thought of a margin in a kiln record, in Mo Tianheng's angry hand, and of a sigil with three short bars hanging like ribs.

They don't fight. They take.

He kept his face still.

“They collect alchemists,” Nie Wufeng said at last. “The young ones last longest.”

The roof was silent. Down in the courtyard, someone dropped a bucket.

“Last longest at what, Senior Nie?” Shi Feng asked.

“Ask Gu Zhan,” Nie Wufeng said. “He'll say... he doesn't know. He's honest.”

“I don't know,” Gu Zhan said. He waited at the ridge with his spear point down. His good eye was calm; the other remained clouded. “Master heard it from a friend. The friend left the room too.”

“What's the sect's name?” Shi Feng asked.

“Names draw eyes,” Nie Wufeng said. “I won't say it where... roofs have ears.” He turned his face toward Shi Feng for the first time. Under the brim there was a tired, dry smile. “Seven clouds, boy. A tall tree catches... the wind. It wasn't wise. It was good. Both.”

“What should I do?” Shi Feng asked, taking the warning seriously.

“Be slow,” Nie Wufeng said. “Be late. Let them... come to the door. Not you to theirs.”

Shi Feng understood that he should wait instead of investigating openly. Senior Nie wouldn't give the sect's name here. Pressing him would achieve nothing.

“Thank you for the warning,” Shi Feng said.

“It's not a warning,” Nie Wufeng said, smiling faintly. “It's a... half sentence.” He stepped off the eave onto the street without making a sound. A moment later the stick leapt out of the doorway below, cup and all, and sailed up into his hand. The cup landed on the cobbles and did not break.

Kang Liu shouted something about the cup.

“Master says,” Gu Zhan said, “you think too loudly.”

“That's what he said?” Shi Feng asked, watching the old man leave.

“It's what he meant,” Gu Zhan replied, pulling the cloth from his spear. The point shone in the moonlight. “Come on. Spar with me. It'll clear your head.”

“On the roof?” Shi Feng asked, glancing down at the tiles.

“It's flat enough,” Gu Zhan answered eagerly.

“It's tile. We'll break it,” Shi Feng said.

“Yes! Then watch where you put your feet,” Gu Zhan said, taking a stance with a delighted grin. “Good! That's why it's good!”

They fought on the ridge with their feet an inch apart.

Gu Zhan's spear came in three straight thrusts, then a sweep, the same battlefield rhythm Shi Feng had learned to read in the Ashen Lake Realm. This time it was faster. The old master was right: Gu Zhan had grown. Tiles chattered under their boots.

Shi Feng drew the Sword.

He didn't use Ember Rain. He used the other one, the Nascent Soul-grade art he had only recently learned.

Severing River Sword left a cutting line after the blade passed. A careless advance into that line would still meet its force.

At Entry, the line stayed behind the blade for a breath and then healed. That was all. Tonight, on the fourth exchange, with the spear's tip a finger from his throat, he stopped thinking about the line and cut anyway.

Gu Zhan's shaft split down the middle.

Not all at once. The wood held for one heartbeat, a thin dark seam running from the head to the grip, and then the two halves fell apart and clattered onto the tiles. Behind Shi Feng, the ridge tiles split along one long clean line, and a thin thread of light hung in the air above it for a moment before it faded.

Gu Zhan looked at his broken spear. Then at Shi Feng. Then at the line.

“Again,” Gu Zhan said, in the voice of a man who was happy.

“You've no spear,” Shi Feng reminded him, lowering his sword.

“I've another,” Gu Zhan replied, tossing the halves aside and drawing a shorter spear from his sleeve. “Master makes me carry two. Again!”

They fought until the moon had crossed the sky. Before dawn the second spear was in two pieces as well, and the line hung longer each time, three breaths, then five.

[Severing River Sword: Minor Success]

He sat on the ridge afterward with the Sword across his knees. Gu Zhan sat across from him and ate a bun with enormous satisfaction.

“Master is right,” Gu Zhan said. “You think loudly. But you fight quietly. It's strange.”

“I'll take that as a compliment,” Shi Feng said.

“It wasn't one,” Gu Zhan said, and bit his bun.

Far below, Kang Liu's voice rose in the courtyard, demanding to know why his roof had a line through it.