Chapter 450 — Still Iron

CHAPTER 450

Still Iron

The old boat clicked all the way home. Nobody remarked on it anymore.

Li Changyuan sat on his usual bench with a packet of buns. Gongsun Ce had the stern, where he was explaining to the six cohort students why none of them should ever bet on a roof. Fan Dacheng, Tao Shun and Geng Xiaoyu nodded earnestly. Ma Liang, who could not tell a lie, said he'd already bet on a roof and lost.

Shi Feng sat by the rail and took a grey lump out of his ring.

It was the size of two fists, pitted and twisted, with a rainbow sheen along one edge. It had been a furnace that exploded and a blade that nearly didn't pass. He had pocketed it at the exam hall, because slag was slag, and Sima Lan had written Exam slag, one in her book without looking up.

She looked up now.

“No,” Sima Lan said.

“It's iron,” Shi Feng said.

“It's a Golden Core-grade failure,” Sima Lan warned. “Put it away.”

“It's still iron,” Shi Feng replied without putting it down.

“You said that about the Qingtong anvil,” Sima Lan said. “You were in bed for six days.”

“Seven,” Zhu Liu said from the cargo net. “I wrote it down.”

Shi Feng looked at the lump. Wasting good materials had always bothered him more than aches did. This was nearly a pound of Golden Core-grade spirit iron, with the Thousand Forge Flame still sleeping in the cracks. He would not throw it in a river.

He bit into it.

The cohort gasped as one. Fan Dacheng grabbed Tao Shun's arm. “Teacher Shi's teeth!” Geng Xiaoyu cried, staring at the bite mark.

“It's an ancient technique,” Gongsun Ce told them gravely. “Do not try it.”

[Devoured: exam slag, Golden Core-grade | Gain: small | Note: still iron]

Shi Feng chewed slowly, annoyed by how much it hurt. The first bite was sharp. The second was worse.

Behind him, a shape rose from the bench, and Lin Langtian's voice, which had been silent for ten breaths, burst over the deck.

“He's eating his own examination!” Lin Langtian shouted delightedly.

Lin Langtian clapped both hands to his chest. His eyes shone. He was openly proud of his junior brother's ridiculous meal.

“A Golden Core-grade refined artifact that passed by a hair, the first one the examiner ever called regrettable, and the boy eats it! Junior Brother, I'm so proud I could weep! Somebody write it down. No, not you, Zhu Liu, you'll misspell it. Somebody with a decent hand!” Lin Langtian demanded, waving at the cohort.

“I wrote it,” Zhu Liu said, writing.

“I'll have it carved on the sect gate!” Lin Langtian said. “‘Here walked the man who ate his own sword.’”

“It's not a sword,” Shi Feng said. “It's the slag.”

“Even better!” Lin Langtian exclaimed. “Not even the ruined part escapes you!”

Li Changyuan finished his bun and said nothing. But when Shi Feng's face began to turn a pale green, the old man slid half a bun along the bench toward him, just far enough for a hand to reach.

He spent the next six days curled around a stomach full of iron.

The ache started on the boat, deepened in hut nine, and settled into a slow, dull ringing that rose and fell with his breath. Sima Lan put a bucket by his pillow and charged it to him. Lin Langtian visited twice a day with a sweet potato and a speech. Old Soot sat on the sill and watched with its gold-rimmed eyes, and once, near midnight, belched a small flame at the ceiling in what might have been sympathy.

On the fourth day, Sima Lan came in with her slate and sat on the stool beside the bed.

“Teahouse report,” Sima Lan said.

“Not now,” Shi Feng groaned, turning toward the wall.

“You can't do anything else. At least listen,” Sima Lan said, turning a page. “Wu Qiang has been selling gossip at the stall gate for a stone a cup, and I've been buying it back for three coppers. This is the cheap part.”

“Go on,” Shi Feng said, pulling the blanket over his aching stomach.

“Duanyang's three biggest teahouses say the same thing. Martial Palace's Hall of Ten Thousand Strikes is drafting a document. They're calling it a declaration.” Sima Lan's pen paused. “Against us.”

“What are they accusing us of?” Shi Feng asked.

“Nobody agrees yet,” Sima Lan replied, more seriously. “Wu Qiang's best version mentions Yunze.”

The ache dulled. Not much.

“Yunze,” Shi Feng said.

“The Yunze matter. Wei Renshan, branch head of the Wei clan, who died there.” Sima Lan did not look at him. She looked at the page. “The teahouse man says the Palace archivists have been searching the old Yunze record for three days. He says they're looking for a name.”

“They already know my name,” Shi Feng said coldly.

“They want it written in a form that can be read aloud at a gate,” Sima Lan said.

Neither spoke for a time. As the saying goes, when the storm is coming to the mountain, the wind fills the tower. The stool creaked. In the courtyard, someone was sweeping with a broom much worse than the one in Shi Feng's cupboard.

“The odds,” Shi Feng said.

“Gongsun Ce has war at three to one. Lin Langtian says it's higher, but won't say why,” Sima Lan replied, closing the slate. “I put twenty stones on it. Don't ask which side.”

“I won't,” Shi Feng replied. He didn't feel like arguing about a wager.

“Good,” Sima Lan said, satisfied.

She stood and tucked the stool under the table. At the door she stopped.

“Drink water,” Sima Lan said. “Not tea. Iron and tea quarrel.”

“Who told you that?” Shi Feng asked suspiciously.

“Nobody. I'm making it up,” Sima Lan admitted. “Drink water anyway.”

On the sixth morning the ache was a low rumble, and Shi Feng was sitting up in bed when Zhu Liu burst in without knocking.

His abacus was gone. His basket was gone. He had run the whole way from the gate, and his hair stood on end.

“Senior Brother Shi!” Zhu Liu gasped. “The road! Thousand Forge road! There's a carriage with a banner coming up from Duanyang, crimson and gold, with an envoy's flag, and the gate watchers say—”

“Say what?” Shi Feng asked.

“Martial Palace,” Zhu Liu said. “They're coming here. Today.”

Outside, a bell began to ring.