Chapter 477 — With Thanks

CHAPTER 477

With Thanks

Zhu Liu read for the better part of an hour, and nobody in the hearing hall dared to cough.

“Pages one to four,” Zhu Liu said, carefully, remembering his rehearsal inside the coffin. “Damages to the sect. Lamp oil, hinges, doors, forty roof tiles, and fire damage by Old Soot, voluntarily inflicted on Martial Palace property. One iron case, reconditioned after habitation. Two hundred and eleven disciples on their knees, billed per knee. A sum for the sky, since the sky was disturbed. Subtotal, two thousand one hundred and forty stones.”

“The sky?” Hui Cang said.

“The Hall believes it was inconvenienced,” Zhu Liu said.

Hui Cang looked at the ceiling again. His shoulders had begun to shake.

“Page five,” Zhu Liu went on. “The Wujin ore blockade, eleven thousand stones, as named aloud by Shi Feng at the duel and not denied by Elder Wei Chengyuan. Page six. Medicine for wounded disciples, six hundred and forty stones. Storage of one black jade war seal, held since the duel for redemption, fourteen days at five stones a day, seventy stones.”

Peng Yan made a small noise. Tuoba Hong, in his crimson robe with the gold pillars on the sleeves, sat with his arms folded and said nothing. Shi Feng had noticed his steward waiting outside the doors with something long wrapped in cloth, which a warden had refused to let in.

“Three broom bristles,” Zhu Liu read, “at four coppers each.”

“Is that a joke?” Qu Jiang snapped.

“It's an item,” Zhu Liu said, truthfully, and went red to the ears.

“Page seven,” Zhu Liu said.

He stopped. He turned the page and looked at the figure. Shi Feng watched him decide whether to read it softly and then, with the courage of a man who'd had a receipt written for him in advance, read it at full volume. Sima Lan had written that figure, and he wouldn't pretend it wasn't there.

“One attendant, wounded below the left shoulder by a thrown blade while shielding a Qi Condensation junior. Charged as high as a Nascent Soul cultivator's left arm. Nine thousand nine hundred stones,” Zhu Liu read.

The Palace table erupted.

“For a maid?” Qu Jiang shouted. “Nine thousand—she's a servant! The girl's a runaway princess with a wage of forty stones!”

“Attendant,” Sima Lan said.

She hadn't raised her voice. She hadn't moved her hand from the chair. In the round hall it carried to every pillar.

“Elder Qu Jiang,” Sima Lan said, “you've mispronounced my rank. The correction is free. Everything after it is billed.”

Su Wanning nearly squealed, then covered her mouth. Ling Qingzhu pressed her fingers to her mouth.

“Order,” Yin Zhao said. His tone was firm. “The arbiters have heard the figure. Continue.”

“Total,” Zhu Liu said. “Twenty-three thousand seven hundred and fifty stones.”

Tian Luo cleared his throat.

“The Hall will accept settlement in kind,” Tian Luo said. “The Palace is understood to be short of coin, and even a clever housewife cannot cook without rice. For that reason the statement proposes an alternative. One Nine-Leaf Soul Ginseng, six hundred years old, presently held in the Palace's third vault.”

Nobody breathed.

“The Hall understands it is gathering dust,” Zhu Liu read, because it was written there.

Peng Yan stood up so quickly that his chair rocked. He opened his mouth to say the vault had never held a ginseng. He looked at Qu Jiang. Qu Jiang's beard had begun to tremble. Then Peng Yan's eyes found Wen Lu's dry brush, still resting over a record that included, among other things, the Palace's balance at the Duanyang tower. He sat down.

“The Palace,” Wen Lu said, in her flat voice, “holds four hundred stones in its Duanyang account. The Pavilion would not recommend a coin settlement.”

“The statement closes,” Zhu Liu said, “with a note of thanks.”

He unrolled the last sheet. Shi Feng had written it himself, in his best hand, on the best Pavilion paper.

“‘The Hall wishes to thank Martial Palace for its generous contributions at the Duanyang auction, amounting to twenty-eight thousand four hundred stones, for six Mending Spring Pills and one grey blade. The Hall received them with gratitude and has not billed for the trouble of selling them. With thanks,’” Zhu Liu read.

Hui Cang choked on a laugh. He clapped his sleeve over his mouth. His round shoulders shook, and his eyes streamed.

“Arbiter?” Yin Zhao said, without turning his head.

“I have a cough,” Hui Cang said, behind the sleeve.

Peng Yan slid slowly down in his chair until only the top of his head showed. Tuoba Hong didn't move, but his jaw had gone hard. Whatever the steward was holding outside, the Palace had paid eighteen thousand eight hundred stones for it.

Shi Feng sat still. He'd said none of it aloud, and he intended to keep it that way. The scheme had been his, but the reading belonged to Zhu Liu, and Zhu Liu was now holding the rod with both hands trying not to look toward the furious Palace delegation.

The three arbiters conferred for twenty breaths. Then Yin Zhao rose.

“The Pavilion finds,” Yin Zhao said, “that the death of Wei Renshan of Yunze was a matter already heard, and that Shi Feng's account of it stands. The Pavilion finds that the declaration of war rested on that matter and nothing else. It finds that the Palace sent sixty men to a sect which had broken no law, and that its elder issued a challenge and lost a duel in the open. The Pavilion orders reparations in the sum of twelve thousand stones, to be paid in two years, together with the Nine-Leaf Soul Ginseng, to be delivered within thirty days. The war seal is returned on payment of the storage fee.”

“Twelve thousand,” Qu Jiang whispered. “Twelve.”

“It was twenty-three, before the Pavilion read the Palace's account,” Wen Lu said.

At the end of the Palace table, Qu Jiang's hand went inside his sleeve and came out with a jade token the size of a thumb. It was warm. It had just arrived, carried by no courier at all.

He read it twice. His face went from red to grey.

“The Palace Master has spoken,” Qu Jiang said, in a very different voice. “Elder Wei Chengyuan is stripped of rank and title, and will be confined to Tianwu Mountain until the Master permits otherwise.”

A gasp ran round the hall.

Shi Feng didn't gasp. He looked at the empty chair at the Palace table. He thought of the cracked core, the hammer-flat knuckles, the quiet letter in Wei's ring: If he is, I will end it before you need to speak. Wei Chengyuan lost his core, and now his own sect had abandoned him. As the saying goes, when a wall is falling, everyone pushes.

“Is that all?” Yin Zhao asked.

“That is all,” Qu Jiang said.

The Palace had given its answer. Shi Feng thought he might feel pleased or angry, but neither came. He was simply hungry after the long hearing.