Chapter 473 — Half a Step

CHAPTER 473

Half a Step

The tea had gone cold by the time Shi Feng reached the hut, which suited both of them.

Li Changyuan sat on his cot with the broom across his knees. Three bristles lay on the blanket beside him, in a neat row. The lamp was out. A little moonlight came through the one window and lay across the old man's patched sleeve.

“Cold,” Li Changyuan said, taking the cup. “Good boy. Sit.”

Shi Feng sat on the upturned bucket. Neither of them spoke. Li Changyuan drank, put the cup down, and picked up a bristle.

“Three,” Li Changyuan said. “Three bristles. That sweep cost me three bristles. Do you know what a bristle costs?”

“No,” Shi Feng said.

“Neither do I. Qian Mo says four coppers. Qian Mo is a thief,” Li Changyuan complained, laying the bristle down. “The Palace will pay for them one day. Write that in your little book.”

“It's Sima Lan's book,” Shi Feng corrected him.

“Then she'll write it better,” Li Changyuan replied without concern.

The moonlight shifted. Somewhere beyond the wall, a pair of outer disciples were still arguing about the guardian formation in low voices. One of them wanted to know where its entrance was. The other wanted to know how much it had cost.

“Well?” Li Changyuan said. “You've got your thinking face on. Say it.”

Shi Feng looked at the broom.

“The pressure had a shape,” Shi Feng said. “I can't read a sky. I haven't got the sense for it yet. But I could feel it on my back. It was wide, and flat, and it wasn't pushing hard. It was telling us it could.”

“Mm,” Li Changyuan murmured, waiting for the rest.

“Late Nascent Soul, I'd guess,” Shi Feng continued. “It reached the gate and you swept.”

“I swept dust,” Li Changyuan replied calmly.

“It bent around you before you started,” Shi Feng said. “The candle stood up. Three paces wide. I was inside the circle.”

Li Changyuan's cup stopped halfway to his mouth.

“Then you swept,” Shi Feng continued. “You didn't even brace yourself. You moved that pressure away without any strain.”

“Without strain?” Li Changyuan repeated, watching him closely.

“It withdrew instead of fighting you,” Shi Feng replied.

The old man gave a short dry sound that might have been a laugh. He set the cup on the floor.

“What you felt was the Palace Master,” Li Changyuan said. “Three hundred li away, in his own hall, with a cup of wine. He sent a little of himself down the road to see if we'd faint. Wei Chengyuan's core is cracked. The Palace has to look at us somehow.”

“And what was at the gate?” Shi Feng asked.

“Where?” Li Changyuan asked, keeping his tone casual.

“Beside the broom. About the same size as him, only closer to the ground,” Shi Feng answered, pausing to recall the feeling. “It didn't want anything.”

For the first time, Li Changyuan turned his head and looked at him properly. His eyes were small, tired and brown, the eyes of a man who had counted cabbages for years. They stayed on Shi Feng's face for a long breath.

“Who did you tell?” Li Changyuan said.

“Nobody,” Shi Feng answered.

“Good,” Li Changyuan said, relieved.

“I don't have numbers for it,” Shi Feng said. “But I've never leaned on anything that heavy and felt it lean back so gently. It's more than a Nascent Soul. It isn't the next realm yet. So it's close.”

Li Changyuan was silent.

“Half a step,” Li Changyuan said.

He picked up a second bristle. He turned it over in the moonlight. When he spoke again, his voice had lost its haggle and its grumble. It was just quiet.

“Don't sell it,” Li Changyuan warned quietly.

“I won't,” Shi Feng promised.

“I mean it,” Li Changyuan insisted, setting down the bristle. “The bird that sticks out its head gets shot, boy. Not to the Valley. Not to the Pavilion. Not to your little ledger girl, even in her sleep. Not to the boy with the potato.”

Shi Feng thought of the quiet voice on the lane. Watch the broom. Not the old man.

“Lin Langtian was watching the broom,” Shi Feng said.

“Lin Langtian watches everything,” Li Changyuan said. “That's his trouble. I said not to sell it. I didn't say you should be stupid.”

“Understood,” Shi Feng said seriously.

“Your price for silence is a cabbage a month,” Li Changyuan declared. “Qian Mo will bring it.”

“I didn't ask for a price,” Shi Feng pointed out.

“Then I'm cheating you,” Li Changyuan said, with deep satisfaction. “Go to bed.”

Lin Langtian was waiting on the roof of hut nine at dawn. He had a fresh potato and an air of enormous innocence.

“Junior Brother,” Lin Langtian said. “How did the old man's tea taste?”

“Cold,” Shi Feng said.

“What did he want?” Lin Langtian asked, studying his face.

“A bill,” Shi Feng said. “For three bristles. Four coppers each. He wants it sent to the Palace.”

Lin Langtian chewed slowly.

He studied Shi Feng's face, from the eyebrows down, with great and loving attention. Shi Feng gave him nothing. He had learned from the best.

“Four coppers,” Lin Langtian said at last.

“Each,” Shi Feng confirmed without hesitation.

“A beautiful lie,” Lin Langtian said softly. “Straight face. No blink. You even added the unit price.”

“It's true,” Shi Feng said.

“It's about sixty percent true. That's the best kind,” Lin Langtian said, patting his shoulder to Shi Feng's surprise. The hand was warm and heavy, and stayed for one breath longer than the joke needed. “Keep it. Whatever it is. Keep it exactly like that.”

“I will,” Shi Feng replied, accepting the rare serious advice.

“Good,” Lin Langtian said, standing and tossing the potato peel off the roof. “Because there's a returned pill jar waiting with Zhu Liu, and I don't think it's about pills.”