Chapter 459 — The War-Season Auction

CHAPTER 459

The War-Season Auction

The crier rang his brass bell on the tower steps until the whole street stopped walking. He shook open a long white scroll and loudly announced Pavilion law.

Duanyang Tower would hold a war-season auction for two days, starting at dawn on the third. No blood was allowed inside. Anyone drawing a blade within the white wall would lose the blade, the deposit and a seat in every tower on the continent. The Pavilion sold to anyone, including the buyer's enemy.

“In the middle of a war,” a pill-seller muttered.

“That's why,” the man beside him said. “Wujin road is shut and Shimen Pass is shut. Who do you think pays for all that?”

“Martial Palace's vassals are selling their family silver. It's on the board. Go and read it!”

The crowd surged toward the black board by the doors. Shi Feng didn't surge. He walked up the steps behind it with Sima Lan one pace to his left, and the crowd opened for them without being asked.

“It's him.”

“The second name on the Register.”

“Is the Hall selling too? They have nothing to sell!”

“…”

Two Martial Palace disciples were passing in white-and-crimson. They saw Shi Feng, and both of them covered their storage rings with their left hands. Sima Lan noted it on her slate. She had a column for it.

The consignment list was pinned beside the doors. Thirty-one lots, consigned by the Hall of Ten Thousand Strikes, Iron Fist Gate and the Qiao Merchant House, all through the Qiao house's Duanyang office. Sima Lan read it out in the same flat voice she used for coal prices.

“Crimson Pillar Halberd, Golden Core-grade refined artifact,” Sima Lan read. “Iron Fist Gate's ancestral Mountain-Splitting Gauntlets. A coral chest of nine herbs, three hundred years each. Twelve Pillar-Tempering Pills. A thunder-bronze war drum from Shimen Pass. Twenty-six more.” She turned the slate. “Estimated at twenty-six thousand. The reserve prices are optimistic.”

“Let them ask for plenty,” Shi Feng replied, studying the list.

“You're the buyer for most of these,” Sima Lan reminded him.

“I know,” Shi Feng said, untroubled.

The consignment desk stood inside the great ground hall. Behind it sat Clerk Jin Bo, round and careful, with a brush in his fist and the expression of a man who had once been blamed for a stray stamp. He looked at Shi Feng, at the wrapped case, at the long cloth bundle, and then at the woman standing beside them.

“Consignor, Shi Feng,” Jin Bo said, writing. “Two lots. Representative…”

He paused.

“The princess, I take it,” Jin Bo said. “Representative, maid.”

“Attendant,” Sima Lan said.

“Is that a rank?” Jin Bo asked.

“It's a contract,” Sima Lan said. “Clause one. Forty stones a month, paid on the first.”

Jin Bo crossed out the word, reluctantly. He disliked spoiling a clean page. He wrote the new one very small. Then he opened the case.

Six pills lay in six hollows of white jade, milky and round, each with a thin gold ring around its middle. Their clean medicinal scent spread across the desk. Two clerks at the next desk stopped what they were doing.

“Mending Spring Pills,” Shi Feng said. “Nascent Soul-grade. Battle-healing. A set of six.”

“Five clouds on the sample?” Jin Bo breathed.

“Five,” Sima Lan said. “It's on the certificate, in the left corner. Please don't read it with your finger.”

The second lot took longer. Jin Bo unwrapped the cloth, found a lumpy grey blade the length of a forearm, and held it away from his robe. The edge was uneven. The tang was fat. A blob of metal near the guard made it even uglier.

“It's…” Jin Bo said.

“A Refiner 1 Mark examination piece,” Shi Feng said.

Jin Bo turned over the tag tied to the hilt and read it silently. His lips moved. He read it again.

“'Passed the hardness test by a hair,'” Jin Bo read. “'Examiner's note: It is a Golden Core-grade artifact. Regrettably.'”

“It's certified,” Sima Lan said. “Please list it as certified.”

“I'll list it as… with certificate,” Jin Bo said weakly. “Lot forty. The final lot.”

“Good,” Shi Feng said.

“Good?” Jin Bo said. “Last lots draw the smallest crowds.”

“Not this one,” Sima Lan said.

“Young Master Shi! What a pleasure!” Qiao Shou called.

Qiao Shou had come across the hall with a cart of lacquered boxes behind him and eight green-tabarded enforcers walking in step. He wore green silk and the same warm smile as in Qingtong Town. He looked pleased to find the Hall selling treasure during a blockade. Zhai Kun, the enforcer chief, walked a pace behind him, and all eight enforcers covered their rings at once.

“Manager Qiao,” Shi Feng said.

“I heard the Hall had lots of its own,” Qiao Shou said, glancing at the grey blade. “That's very brave. War season is hard on a poor sect, and a seller can't be choosy. As the saying goes, one plunders a burning house, and I call it commerce. As I always say, young master, the price is what a man will pay when he has no other door.”

“I remember,” Shi Feng said.

“Then you're a wise young man,” Qiao Shou said, and bowed, and went on toward the Palace's side of the hall, where a lean man in a dark blue robe sat in the gallery with a jade abacus on his knee.

Sima Lan waited until the cart had passed.

“He thinks you're desperate,” Sima Lan said.

“Let him,” Shi Feng replied. “We'll see what he thinks after the bidding.”

At the deposit window, a bored warden demanded a bidding deposit before issuing a token. Shi Feng set three heavy sacks on the counter. Then he set down three more, and Sima Lan quietly counted the pile as it grew.

The warden's brush stopped halfway through the first line.

The warden slowly confirmed the sum: forty-three thousand, six hundred and ten stones, under Shi Feng's name, Artificer Hall. He looked up in disbelief, waiting for an explanation.

“Savings,” Sima Lan said.