Chapter 467 — A Letter for the Sweeper

CHAPTER 467

A Letter for the Sweeper

Captain Lei Bo sat on a grain sack in the old coal cellar with his wrists in rope and a bruise the size of a plate on his jaw.

The cellar was the sect's idea of a prison. It had one lamp, one barrel of pickled radish and a door that didn't lock, so Zhu Liu had written a notice on it that said LOCKED. The notice had worked on everyone so far.

“Well?” Lei Bo said. “Come to gloat?”

“I came to bill you,” Shi Feng said.

Shi Feng unrolled the bill. Lei Bo glared at the long list of damage.

“One broken gate sign. Two roof tiles,” Shi Feng read. “Eleven puppet necks, loosened and repaired. Nine lamps. The rental of a coffin, with a man in it. One attendant's injury, medicine and lost wages.” He looked up. “Three thousand and forty stones. Due in thirty days. Interest at seven percent a night.”

“That's robbery!” Lei Bo said.

“It's an invoice,” Shi Feng said. “Robbery is what your men came to do.”

Lei Bo opened his mouth. The cellar door creaked, and he glanced at it, and found nobody there. He turned back.

Behind the sack, on top of the radish barrel, Old Soot opened one gold-rimmed eye. The captain shut his mouth again.

“I'll tell you what I can reduce,” Shi Feng said. “Three thousand and forty can become eight hundred, plus a month of carrying cauldrons. You won't be the first. There's a captain called Xue Mang, from another sect, who says it improved his posture.”

“What do you want?” Lei Bo said.

“Who sent you, and what else is coming?” Shi Feng asked.

“Elder Qu Jiang gave the order,” Lei Bo said slowly. “But it came down from the Hall of Ten Thousand Strikes. We were the first wave.”

“First,” Shi Feng said.

“If the raid failed—” Lei Bo began, then realised that Shi Feng had already defeated it. His voice dropped. “If it failed, Elder Wei said he'd come himself.”

“Yunze,” Shi Feng said.

“Elder Wei told us in the hall. He said blood isn't settled through captains, and that a gentleman's revenge is not too late even after ten years. He said it quietly.” Lei Bo wet his lips. “He's never quiet.”

Shi Feng wrote the figure down. Eight hundred. Then he put the pen behind his ear, which he had learned from Zhu Liu.

“Thank you,” Shi Feng said. “Your bill is reduced.”

“That's it?” Lei Bo said.

“That's it,” Shi Feng said. “If you lie, it goes back up.”

Lei Bo looked at the toad. The toad looked back. Lei Bo remembered the noise the stove had made at the third watch and decided he had no reason to lie.

The courier came up the mountain at midday.

He wasn't a stranger. Liu Cheng, from Martial Palace, wore the same badge as before, polished until it threw light on the stone steps. The gate court looked different from his last visit. The sign was gone and the post had been mended. A basket of broken raider lanterns sat by the wall, waiting to be sold back to the raiders.

At the top step, a thin old man in a patched brown robe was sweeping with a bundle of reeds. His back was bent and he hummed.

“You,” Liu Cheng said. “Sweeper.”

“Hm?” Li Changyuan said.

“I have an official letter for the Hall's champion,” Liu Cheng announced, holding out a sealed packet. “From Elder Wei Chengyuan of the Hall of Ten Thousand Strikes. Put it in his hand. Not on a table. Not in a drawer. Mind yourself, sweeper. Beating the dog depends on its master, and this letter's master is Elder Wei.”

Li Changyuan took the letter, looked at the seal and squinted.

“Is this ink or tar?” Li Changyuan asked.

“It's ink,” Liu Cheng said stiffly.

“Cheap,” Li Changyuan said.

He broke the seal with his thumbnail and began to read, right there, standing in the middle of the step with the broom under his arm. Liu Cheng drew a sharp breath.

“You can't open—” Liu Cheng protested, reaching for the packet.

“I'm the sweeper,” Li Changyuan said. “Things come to me first. Gate rules.”

Liu Cheng had no answer. He had no instructions about this either.

The letter was short. It was addressed to the person of Shi Feng, champion of the Great Kingdom Tournament, disciple of Artificer Hall, and it named the matter of Yunze plainly. It said that Wei Renshan, branch head of the Wei clan, had been killed by the addressee's hand. It said Elder Wei Chengyuan would attend in person, at noon on the third day from this one, at the gate court of Artificer Hall. A formal duel. Escort of eight. If the addressee lost, he would kneel to the Wei clan's dead.

Li Changyuan read the last line twice.

Then he folded the letter, tucked it into his sleeve and went back to sweeping. He swept the spot where Liu Cheng had been standing. Liu Cheng stepped aside. Li Changyuan swept there too.

“What's the answer?” Liu Cheng asked.

“Tell him the steps will be clean,” Li Changyuan said.

“That's all?” Liu Cheng asked.

“You asked the sweeper. That's your answer,” Li Changyuan replied, continuing to sweep.

Liu Cheng stood on the step a moment longer. He wanted to say something, and nothing came. He went down the stairs alone.

Shi Feng found the letter in the evening, unfolded on his stool in hut nine with a cabbage leaf as a paperweight.

On the roof, Lin Langtian was still sulking about the coffins he had missed. Shi Feng ignored him and read the letter standing. His face didn't change.

He read the line about kneeling again. Then he turned it over and found a smaller message in Li Changyuan's crabbed hand on the back.

A mountain doesn't move. You don't have to hit it. Walk around it.

Underneath, in the same hand, was a second line.

Eat breakfast. That's an order.