Chapter 463 — The Arithmetic

CHAPTER 463

The Arithmetic

“Thirty-seven thousand, one hundred and seventy!” Lin Langtian shouted.

Lin Langtian burst into the tower's counting room with a sweet potato in each hand looking delighted to be free of the wardens. The wardens had given his potatoes back. He was still annoyed that they'd taken them at all.

“Say it again,” Lin Langtian said, kicking the door shut. “Sima Lan, say it again, slowly. I want to hear it with my ears!”

“Thirty-seven thousand, one hundred and seventy,” Sima Lan said, without looking up from her slate. “That is the balance on token seven, after the Pavilion's tenth.”

The room was small, with a table, four stools and a clerk's brazier. Thirty-one Palace lots were piled against the far wall, and a war drum took up most of the floor. Zhu Liu sat on the drum with his hat in his lap, staring at nothing.

“Junior Brother!” Lin Langtian cried. “Explain it. Slowly! For the child at the back!”

“I'm the child at the back,” Zhu Liu said faintly.

“Five lines,” Shi Feng said. He held up one finger. “The deposit was theirs. Forty-three thousand, six hundred and ten, from three vaults.”

A second finger.

“I bought their thirty-one lots with it, at full price. Thirty-two thousand,” Shi Feng said. “The Palace sold its treasures for its own money.”

A third.

“A man who's just been paid bids freely. So when the Valley bid on my pills, they bought them to spite her. When their chief disciple wanted my blade, they bought that. Twenty-eight thousand, four hundred, with the same stones,” Shi Feng said.

A fourth.

“The Pavilion kept a tenth of every trip,” Shi Feng said.

A fifth.

“The Palace has four hundred stones. I have its treasures and thirty-seven thousand of its stones. The rest went to the Pavilion, which is neutral,” Shi Feng said.

“Six thousand and forty,” Sima Lan said. “I charged it to the Palace.”

“You can't charge it to the Palace!” Zhu Liu said.

“I've charged it,” Sima Lan replied proudly. “They caused the war. They can pay the Pavilion's share too.”

Lin Langtian said nothing for the length of one breath, which was a record. Then he threw both sweet potatoes in the air, caught them with one hand and began to laugh.

“Wonderful! Magnificent! Borrowing flowers to offer to the Buddha! He sells their own coins back to them for their own treasures, and then sells them a radish! Junior Brother, you've improved my lesson! I'll teach it as my own!” Lin Langtian cried.

“It was your lesson,” Shi Feng said.

“Then I'm even prouder!” Lin Langtian declared, wiping his eyes with a sweet potato.

“Senior Brother Shi,” Zhu Liu said. His voice cracked. “What do I write? In the column for the Palace? Received from the Palace: their stones. Paid to the Palace: their stones. I'm going to need a very long page.”

“Write: paid in full,” Shi Feng said.

Zhu Liu began to write, then stopped to check the sums again. At last he gave up and pulled the hat over his face. He wasn't ready to explain this to the Treasury.

The great ground hall emptied slowly.

Wardens swept the white stone floor. Porters dragged the last benches against the walls. In the gallery, the crimson box was empty except for two men and a jade abacus.

Treasurer Peng Yan had served the Hall of Ten Thousand Strikes for thirty years. He had counted the Palace's money through two famines, one flood and the Yunze affair, and he had never once got a sum wrong. He sat with the Pavilion's settlement slip on his knee, and he had been adding the same four numbers for an hour.

“The lots brought thirty-two thousand,” Peng Yan said. “The Pavilion keeps a tenth. We received twenty-eight thousand, eight hundred.”

“A splendid result,” Qiao Shou said. He was sweating.

“We then paid nine thousand six hundred for the Hall's pills,” Peng Yan said. “To stop the Valley. And eighteen thousand eight hundred for the blade. That is twenty-eight thousand, four hundred.”

“The chief disciple wished it,” Qiao Shou said.

“We have four hundred left,” Peng Yan said.

Before Qingyun City, the Hall's war reserve could have bought this whole auction twice. It had gone into a black lump, and nobody in the Palace had yet been brave enough to say so.

Peng Yan kept his voice low, but his anger was growing. He turned the slip over. On the back, folded together, lay three small notes on the Hall of Outer Affairs' own letterhead, and under them three receipts in the same square hand. The notes had been found in three emptied vaults, each ending with the same line: Borrowed in friendship, with thanks. The receipts carried the sums.

“Twenty-one thousand,” Peng Yan said, touching the first receipt. “Nine thousand, one hundred. Thirteen thousand, five hundred and ten.”

“Treasurer?” Qiao Shou asked.

His finger came to rest. “Forty-three thousand, six hundred and ten,” Peng Yan said. “Who bought thirty-one lots yesterday, Manager Qiao? A sect that couldn't pay for its coal.”

Qiao Shou's smile was gone.

“We sold our treasures to the thief,” Peng Yan said bitterly. “With our own stones. We lost both the lady and the soldiers. Then we sent him the rest for pills and a blade that barely passed an examination. We even celebrated!” He gave a furious little laugh. “And he left thank-you notes. He knew we'd see them.”

“The Pavilion's records…” Qiao Shou said.

“The Pavilion is neutral, Manager Qiao,” Peng Yan said coldly. “They took their fees. They won't return the stones because we were fools.”

He took a clean sheet, wet the brush and began a report to Elder Wei Chengyuan. He wrote Funds: four hundred. He wrote Mercenary pay due: eleven thousand. Shimen Pass garrison rice: nine days. Then he laid down the brush and looked down the empty hall, at the white wall where no blood could be shed.

Outside the white wall, there was no such law.

Peng Yan picked up the brush again.

He wrote, Recommend a night raid on Thousand Forge Peak, before they spend it.