Chapter 47 — An Ordinary Accident

CHAPTER 47

An Ordinary Accident

The message came folded around a dried root.

“A man left this at the gate,” Bao Shun said. “Grey hat. I thought he’d come to look at the courtyard.”

“Did he ask for me?” Shi Feng asked.

Bao Shun nodded, offended that the visitor hadn’t wanted a house. He described the man’s limp while Shi Feng unfolded the message. The dried root inside was fresh. Whoever sent it knew where he went gathering.

Bao Shun retreated like a merchant who’d just been refused his entire stock. Shi Feng broke a sliver from the root’s tip and smelled the fresh heart of it. It was genuine bone medicine, and good. Whoever sent it knew better than to offer rubbish.

The note was short. A merchant was closing his storehouse in the northern quarter. Old stock, low prices, cash before dawn.

Shi Feng read the lane’s name twice. A merchant with real medicine would sell it in daylight, he thought. Only a man who wanted no witnesses sold before dawn.

He put on his sword anyway. If the medicine was real, he’d buy it. If someone wanted him dead, it was better to walk in and meet him.

The northern lane was silent. Weeds pushed through the paving, and the neighbouring courtyards were tied shut with old rope. One lantern burned inside the storehouse. Whoever picked this place wanted every shout to die before it found an ear.

Shi Feng found the wire before he found the man.

It crossed the doorway at throat height, tied to a fresh nail in rotten wood. Behind it a broken plank lay under a reed mat. A careless visitor would stumble, raise his head, and hit the wire too late.

A trap for a cripple, Shi Feng thought coldly. How thoughtful!

He cut the wire with his knife and pushed the door open. He didn’t creep.

“You came,” Guo Zhen said from behind the crates.

“The note said cash before dawn,” Shi Feng said. “I’m early.”

Guo Zhen stepped out. The royal steward wore dark clothes now instead of his embroidered robe. The narrow leather guard still hugged his left wrist.

“Shi Feng,” Guo Zhen said, drawing his sword. “His Highness says a husband shouldn’t leave his wife alone at night.”

“I understand,” Shi Feng said. “You’re here without a signed order.”

Guo Zhen’s pupils tightened. “Dead man,” Guo Zhen said.

He charged.

Guo Zhen was at Foundation Establishment, one great realm above Bone Refinement. In Great Liang’s capital, that was the kind of gap men called a gulf. He swung his sword with the confidence of an executioner paid by the head.

The blow split Shi Feng’s wooden scabbard. Shi Feng turned with it instead of retreating and drove his shoulder under the steward’s breastbone.

Boom!

Guo Zhen crashed backward through a stack of crates. Rotten timber burst across the floor.

“You—” Guo Zhen coughed, scrambling up. “Cripples can’t do that!”

“Three physicians agreed with you,” Shi Feng said.

Guo Zhen’s face turned grim, and Foundation Establishment qi flared around him. His next stroke carried a pale edge that sliced two baskets in half without slowing. Shi Feng stepped inside its arc and rapped the man’s forearm with the flat of his blade.

Clang!

The sound rang through the storehouse. Guo Zhen’s expression changed.

He had come to murder a cripple. What stood before him had a body stronger than any physician’s report, and a hand that stayed steady under Foundation Establishment pressure.

“Impossible!” Guo Zhen snarled, gathering qi into a shield across his chest. “Your meridians are ruined!”

Shi Feng’s fist struck the shield. The pale light crumpled inward, and Guo Zhen slammed against the rear wall hard enough to bring dust down from the beams. His breath left him in a short, ugly sound.

Shi Feng didn’t give him time to find it again.

The steward thrust upward beneath the ribs. Shi Feng caught his wrist, turned the point aside, and drove a knee into the man’s thigh. Bone cracked.

He didn’t need a trap, a borrowed treasure, or luck. He only needed the gap between what Guo Zhen expected and what Shi Feng could do. In his heart, he marked it down: three hundred and sixty-five meridians and ten refined bones were more than any physician in the capital could see.

Outside, an ox cart rattled over the lane’s uneven stones. Shi Feng pressed the steward’s face into his sleeve before the scream could escape. He waited until the wheels passed and no one stopped.

“You were examined,” Guo Zhen gasped into the cloth, stunned. “The Pavilion’s own physician—”

“You should’ve hired a physician instead of buying wire,” Shi Feng said.

He broke the sword wrist.

Guo Zhen made a muffled sound, and Foundation Establishment qi stirred again, weak and scattered. Shi Feng tightened his grip until it stopped.

“Who ordered it?” Shi Feng asked.

Guo Zhen’s eyes slid toward the door. He’d rather run than tell the truth. Shi Feng brought the broken wrist closer to the edge of a crate.

“Sima Yu!” Guo Zhen shouted. “It was His Highness! The palace has guards! Royal elders! You’ll never pass the gate!”

“You passed mine,” Shi Feng said.

For the first time, Guo Zhen understood this wasn’t a threat meant to improve the bargain.

“Wait! I’ll pay! I know the men who carry the prince’s letters between his residences!” Guo Zhen said.

Nothing the steward offered changed the wire, the sword, or the choice that had brought them here.

“Brother Shi,” Guo Zhen whispered, “please—”

“This Shi has a wife who’s waiting,” Shi Feng said. “And I still have to make breakfast.”

He ended it with the man’s own blade.

The body settled against the broken boards. Shi Feng searched the clothes for orders and found none. There was no signed murder warrant, because Sima Yu knew that much about respectable accidents. He took only the unmarked spirit stones from the purse, left the Eastern Palace side-gate key and powder packet beside the corpse so the city watch would know whose man lay here, and pulled the throat-wire free from the doorframe, leaving only the freshly driven iron nail and a severed twist of wire in the rotten wood.

He wrapped the wire and the false note together to drop into the canal sluice on his way back, and tucked the genuine root sample into his sleeve. It was the only honest part of the invitation.

Before leaving by the rear courtyard, he wiped the blade and checked the edge. A small nick marked where Guo Zhen’s guard met it. That would cost money to repair.

The thought annoyed him more than the steward’s promises had frightened him.

So Sima Yu was on the list now, he thought. The prince himself wasn’t the problem. The royal family kept Golden Core powerhouses, two great realms above Shi Feng, and the palace never lacked defenders. He wouldn’t charge their gate because a dying man mentioned it. Sooner or later Sima Yu would walk out of those walls.

On that day, this Shi would be waiting.

At home, the courtyard was dark except for the lamp glowing in the window of the one room.

Inside, Ling Qingzhu had fallen asleep at the table over a half-read book, one hand beneath her cheek and the other still on the page. She hadn’t gone to bed. She’d been waiting up. The evening breeze lifted the corner of her sleeve.

Shi Feng closed the outer gate softly. He moved the book where falling wax couldn’t touch it and left a folded shawl within her reach, rather than wake her by draping it over her shoulders. His own bedding lay rolled in its corner. He didn’t unroll it yet.

In the kitchen he laid the broken scabbard on the table.

There had been an ordinary accident, exactly as the crown prince wished.

It had happened to the wrong man.