Chapter 451 — Three Feet of Paper

CHAPTER 451

Three Feet of Paper

The envoy had brought a drummer.

Shi Feng thought that was excessive for a gate that stood open all day. He leaned in the gatehouse doorway with one arm folded across his middle and listened to the drum strike three times.

“Don't sit,” Sima Lan said behind him. She held a bowl of something grey and steaming. “If you sit, the iron settles in the wrong place.”

“It's settled everywhere,” Shi Feng said.

“Then drink,” Sima Lan said.

He drank. It tasted of burnt rice. Shi Feng suspected she'd made it bitter on purpose. This was the sixth day of his stomachache, and he was tired of both the iron and the remedy.

Below the stairs, the main court had filled up. Apprentices had put down their charcoal baskets. Outer-court disciples were climbing onto barrels. Eight Martial Palace riders in crimson stood in a line at the foot of the steps, beside a carriage with a crimson-and-gold banner. At the back, polishing his badge, stood the courier Liu Cheng.

In front of them was a thin man with a long face and a yellow scroll case.

“Envoy Fang Shu of the Martial Palace Hall of Law!” Fang Shu announced. He was early Golden Core, and he used all of it on his voice. “I bring a declaration to Artificer Hall. Let the sect master come and receive it!”

Elder Tian Luo came down the stairs with He Zhen and Cui Hong beside him. He bowed to the envoy exactly as deeply as courtesy required and not a hair more.

“The sect master is on his way,” Tian Luo said.

He was. He came around the corner of the gatehouse in his patched brown robe, sweeping. A little pile of leaves went in front of the broom, and the pile went straight toward the envoy's boots.

“Old man,” Fang Shu said. “Clear the way.”

Li Changyuan swept one more stroke. Leaves landed on the polished leather.

“Sect Master,” Tian Luo and He Zhen said together, and bowed.

Fang Shu's expression changed. He hurriedly bowed, lower than necessary. He'd just ordered the strongest sect master in the region out of his way!

“...” said the crowd, for a moment. Then, all at once:

“That's him?”

“The strongest sect master in the region?”

“He was sweeping!”

“He's been sweeping for years!” “Having eyes, and failing to see Mount Tai!”

Fang Shu cleared his throat, unrolled the scroll, and read.

He read it well. The Hall of Law liked long sentences. Wei Renshan, head of the Wei clan's Yunze branch, had been slain in Yunze Town by Shi Feng, disciple of Artificer Hall. The Martial Palace demanded that the murderer be delivered to its Hall of Law within thirty days. If Artificer Hall refused, the Martial Palace declared war on Artificer Hall and called its vassals to the field.

The court went completely silent.

On the gatehouse roof, Lin Langtian stopped chewing his sweet potato.

“War?” someone breathed. “Over one disciple?” “A single spark can start a prairie fire!”

“Over the champion!”

“Over Yunze?”

“...”

Shi Feng took another sip from the bowl. Fang Shu looked for him in the crowd, found him in the doorway and saw a young man holding his stomach.

“You are Shi Feng?” Fang Shu said.

“I am,” Shi Feng replied. “My stomach hurts. Say what you came to say.”

“You killed Wei Renshan,” Fang Shu said. “A killer pays with his life, a debtor with his money.”

“He tried to kill me,” Shi Feng said calmly. “I killed him first.”

“The Palace will hear that at the hearing,” Fang Shu said coldly. “The Sky Pavilion has agreed to witness. Three days from now, at the Duanyang tower.” He rolled the scroll and held it out toward Li Changyuan. “Receive it. Under old custom, the party served pays for the paper and seal. Forty stones.”

The gasp that went around the court was entirely sincere.

Li Changyuan took the scroll in both hands. He turned it over, ran a thumbnail down the gilt edge and sniffed it.

“Forty,” Li Changyuan said.

“Custom,” Fang Shu said.

“For three feet of paper?” Li Changyuan asked.

“Gilt paper,” Fang Shu said. “Real gold leaf on the seals.”

“Then it's worth scraping,” Li Changyuan said. “Ten.”

“Ten?” Fang Shu said. “It's a declaration of war!”

“It's a loose declaration. No ribbon,” Li Changyuan said, and sighed as though Fang Shu were being unreasonable. “Fifteen.”

“Thirty-five,” Fang Shu said. “The Hall of Law does not haggle.”

“Sixteen, and I take the case,” Li Changyuan said. “A declaration without a case creases.”

Behind the sect master, Elder Qian Mo had gone grey. Zhu Liu was writing in the front row with his tongue between his teeth.

The haggling lasted eleven minutes. At the end of it, the sect of the weakest reputation had bought a declaration of war for six stones, with the case, and the Hall of Law's envoy had signed a receipt for it in front of two hundred witnesses.

“Six,” Zhu Liu said faintly, blowing on the ink. “Paper for a declaration of war. I'll file it under sundries.”

Fang Shu's carriage rolled out of the gate with the drummer trailing far behind it, and he did not look back.

“Junior Brother,” Lin Langtian called down from the roof, “they used your whole name. That's respect.”

Zhu Liu had opened the scroll case to check the lining. He turned the scroll over, and his voice went small.

“Senior Brother Shi,” Zhu Liu said. “There are more seals on the back.”

Shi Feng walked down the stairs, one hand still on his stomach, and looked.

Eleven seals ran down the reverse of the paper, in two neat columns. Iron Fist Gate's was there, with a thumbprint beside it that had been pressed by a left hand. The Qiao house had signed. So had the ferry guilds, a quarry, and a smaller sect he had never heard of.

“A long guest list,” Lin Langtian remarked, hopping down beside him. His grin returned as he examined the seals. “They've saved us the trouble of finding out who supports them.”

“Yes,” Shi Feng said.

The paper cost six stones. Shi Feng thought settling matters with the people behind those signatures would cost considerably more.