Chapter 462 — The Ugliest Blade
CHAPTER 462
The Ugliest Blade
Two porters carried the last lot onto the dais on a red silk tray, and the hall began to laugh before they had set it down.
The ugly blade looked even worse against the fine red silk. It was grey and lumpy, with a fat tang and an uneven ridge near the guard. One edge ran straight. The other wandered. A tag tied to the hilt fluttered in the draught from the door.
“Lot forty,” Sang Ping said, for once without raising his voice, because the hall had already gone loud enough. “The final lot of the war-season auction. A Refiner 1 Mark examination piece, consigned by Shi Feng of Artificer Hall, with certificate.”
“That's a blade?” someone yelled.
“It looks like a boiled radish!”
“Read the certificate!”
Sang Ping lifted the tag with two fingers.
“'Passed the hardness test by a hair,'” Sang Ping read. “'Examiner's note: It is a Golden Core-grade artifact. Regrettably.'”
The hall roared. People wiped their eyes. In the crimson box, Qiao Wenyan was bent over his own knees.
“Opening at forty stones,” Sang Ping said.
“Four hundred,” Shi Feng said, raising plate 7.
The laughter stumbled. Heads turned to the third row.
“He's bidding on his own blade!”
“Can he do that?”
Wen Lu, at the side of the dais, turned a page in her ledger. Her voice was dry and quite clear.
“Pavilion rule nine,” Wen Lu said. “A consignor may bid on his own lot. If he wins it, he pays the seller's tenth and the buyer's fee both. The Pavilion takes its fee either way.”
“The Pavilion doesn't care who pays,” Sima Lan said quietly. She looked at Shi Feng. “Do not win.”
“I know,” Shi Feng said.
“Six hundred!” Zhu Liu cried from beneath his hat, nervous enough to stumble over the words.
“A thousand!” Bo Ge roared.
This time it wasn't the hat. A tall man in a hunter's coat had stood up in the fifth row, with an eyebrow scar and a plate raised above his head like a banner. It was Bo Ge. His face was red with happiness.
“A thousand for Brother Shi's blade!” Bo Ge bellowed. “I'd pay a thousand for his sandals! Twelve years the bone was stuck, and he fixed it with one pill! A man like that makes a good blade, I don't care what it looks like!”
“Bo Ge,” Sima Lan murmured. “That's more than the script.”
“Let him speak,” Shi Feng replied, amused.
“It's a bit loud,” Sima Lan said.
“Everyone can hear him. That's good,” Shi Feng said calmly.
The hall was no longer laughing. It was talking, in the low, busy mumble of people trying to explain something that didn't fit.
“A thousand stones for a radish?”
“Wait. Think. He's a seven-cloud master. Seven clouds!”
“A seven-cloud master can't forge a bad blade!”
“So it didn't barely pass. He held back!”
“A true treasure hides in a plain sheath!”
“'Regrettably'! Did you hear? The examiner was jealous!”
“It's a hidden-master artifact!”
“…”
A figure in crimson stirred in the long box. Tuoba Hong had not been there yesterday. Today he sat at the front of the Palace's box, in a crimson robe with gold pillars on both sleeves, publicly early Nascent Soul and impossible to ignore. He hadn't spoken a word. He looked at the grey blade, then at the third row, with a cold, suspicious expression.
“Shao Wen,” Tuoba Hong said.
A steward in a dark red coat at his elbow rose at once.
“Two thousand,” Steward Shao Wen called.
“Three thousand,” Shi Feng said.
“Four thousand five hundred,” Steward Shao Wen said.
“Five thousand!” Bo Ge roared, then sat down, startled by his own bid.
“Six thousand five hundred,” Steward Shao Wen said.
In the crimson box, Treasurer Peng Yan had stopped smiling. His beads were still in his hand, but they weren't moving. He leaned toward Tuoba Hong and began to speak quickly and quietly.
“Chief Disciple, the estimate for the blade is…” Peng Yan began anxiously.
“I heard the estimate,” Tuoba Hong said. “Three days apart, one must look at a man with new eyes. Do you think a man gets a Golden Core-grade refined artifact out of a bad forge by accident? He's hiding something. Whatever he made that day, I want it in my hand.”
“But the war purse…” Peng Yan protested.
“Eight thousand,” Shi Feng said.
“Ten thousand,” Steward Shao Wen said.
“Eleven thousand,” Zhu Liu bid, turning pale beneath his hat. He desperately hoped somebody would raise it.
“Twelve thousand,” Shi Feng said.
Sima Lan's pen stopped on the slate. Her eyes moved from him to the crimson box and back again. She didn't say a word. She didn't need to.
In the quiet that followed, Steward Shao Wen looked at Tuoba Hong, and Tuoba Hong gave a single hard nod.
“Eighteen thousand eight hundred,” Steward Shao Wen said.
For a heartbeat, nobody in the hall made a sound.
Then it all came out at once.
“Eighteen thousand?!”
“For a boiled radish!”
“The halberd was five thousand!”
“It's a hidden-master artifact! I told you so!”
“Martial Palace is paying a king's ransom for that!”
“Having eyes but failing to see Mount Tai! I'd have taken it at a thousand!”
“…”
Peng Yan half rose from his seat. His mouth opened. Sang Ping's white hammer went up.
“Eighteen thousand eight hundred stones,” Sang Ping said. “Going once.”
Shi Feng didn't move. Plate 7 lay on his knee, and his hands lay still on either side of it.
“Going twice,” Sang Ping said.
“Brother Shi,” Bo Ge whispered fiercely. “Say something! Bid!”
“Let it go,” Shi Feng said.
“Sold,” Sang Ping said, and the hammer fell. “To the crimson box.”
The porters carried the grey blade across the dais to Steward Shao Wen, who took it carefully in both hands. Tuoba Hong stared at it with a sudden, thin and hungry look. At the back, Zhu Liu slid slowly down in his seat until only his borrowed hat was visible.
Bo Ge was still standing.
“Did I help?” Bo Ge asked.
“You were very loud,” Shi Feng said.
“I earned my hundred and twenty!” Bo Ge declared proudly.
“You did,” Sima Lan said. She opened her sleeve and counted out the coins in front of him, one by one. “Next time, a hundred and fifty.”
Bo Ge stared at her. Then he started laughing.
Shi Feng looked once at the crimson box. Peng Yan was sitting very straight now, with his eyes fixed on his beads. They weren't moving. His lips were.
He was counting.