Chapter 478 — Senior Brother Shi

CHAPTER 478

Senior Brother Shi

The guards on the tower steps put their hands behind their backs, all together, as if someone had given the order.

There were twelve of them, in Martial Palace crimson, lined up on both sides of the broad stairs with their eyes on the sky. Each one had a ring on his hand. None wanted Shi Feng looking at his storage ring. Shi Feng came down the first flight with Zhu Liu at his elbow and Sima Lan two paces behind, and a ripple of tucked fingers ran ahead of him all the way to the street.

“Last time they only covered the ring,” Zhu Liu whispered. “Now they cover the whole hand.”

“Progress,” Shi Feng said.

“I'm recording it as the final flinch,” Sima Lan said, from behind him, writing on her slate as she walked. Her stride was short and careful. “What will they hide next? The whole person?”

Halfway down, a man stood at the edge of the landing in a captain's crimson, not hiding anything.

Hou Ping.

His eyebrows had grown back thin and crooked. He had been a Golden Core captain at the Shimen Pass for a month, and he still carried himself like an outer disciple who'd been told off. He stood with his heels together and his arms at his sides. His eyes went to Shi Feng's face, then to the sleeve where a ring might be, then back to his face.

Over the past year Hou Ping had called him trash, cripple and worse. Today he couldn't bring himself to use the old insults.

He stepped to the edge of the landing, away from the middle of the stairs, and left the whole width open.

“…Senior Brother Shi,” Hou Ping said.

Zhu Liu stopped in the middle of a step.

Shi Feng looked at Hou Ping for a moment. The man didn't say it with any warmth. His jaw was tight and his greeting reluctant, but he'd finally shown respect.

“Captain Hou,” Shi Feng said. “Is the Shimen road open?”

“It's open,” Hou Ping said.

“Good. The ore is on the bill,” Shi Feng said.

“I know,” Hou Ping said. “I carried the pages.”

Shi Feng nodded once and walked past him, and the captain stood where he was with his heels together until the whole Hall party had gone by.

“Rung five,” Sima Lan murmured, once they were beyond hearing. She tapped her chalk against the slate. “Closed. Balance carried to the Palace's account.”

“You wrote that down?” Shi Feng asked.

“I write down everything. Someone has to,” Sima Lan said.

He slowed on the next landing. A woman in a violet inner robe and a white veil was coming down the stairs from the side entrance, not quickly, and she had positioned herself so that the paths met at the turn. Su Wanning trailed behind her, bouncing, and Mu Shuyun stood two flights higher, pretending to study the roof tiles.

“Don't look at me like I followed you,” Ling Qingzhu said. “The stairs go this way.”

“I didn't say anything,” Shi Feng said.

“Your face did,” Ling Qingzhu replied, falling into step on his left, close enough for their sleeves to nearly touch. Her voice dropped. “You're limping. Your shoulder's still cracked, and don't tell me it isn't. You hold it like it might fall off.”

“It's healing,” Shi Feng said.

“It's healing badly,” Ling Qingzhu insisted, watching the steps rather than his face. “What will you do with the ginseng?”

“Eat it,” Shi Feng said.

“I knew you'd say that,” Ling Qingzhu complained, pressing her thumb to her sleeve. “You'll eat the whole thing in one night, like a snake trying to swallow an elephant. You don't know what a Nine-Leaf does to a core that isn't ready for it. The Valley's herb hall has two of them in the records. One was split into forty portions across a decade. The other one—” She stopped.

“What happened to the other one?” Shi Feng asked.

“The person who took it is very, very short on hair,” Ling Qingzhu warned. “Do you want that recorded beside your name? It's none of my concern, but the Valley would have to record the loss.”

“The Valley would record a loss?” Shi Feng asked.

“The Valley would be inconvenienced,” Ling Qingzhu said.

“Big Sis Qingzhu is worried!” Su Wanning sang from three steps up. “She's worried, she's worried, she's—”

“Su Wanning,” Ling Qingzhu said, without turning around, “I'll feed you to the Heart Garden.”

Su Wanning went silent. Her mouth was visibly still moving.

Behind them, Sima Lan's slate scratched.

“She should be in a bed,” Ling Qingzhu said, lower, glancing back. “The attendant. She's so pale she's translucent.”

“She says attendants stand,” Shi Feng said.

“She's right,” Ling Qingzhu said. “She's also an idiot. Both of those are true.”

“Attendant hears,” Sima Lan said, behind them, in a voice without any expression at all.

Ling Qingzhu didn't turn around. Her ears went pink. Shi Feng was amused that she'd worried about Sima Lan while scolding her.

They reached the foot of the stairs. The street was loud with carts and wardens and the quick rustle of a crowd that had heard the verdict and was already rewriting it. “Thirty years east of the river, thirty years west,” an old man told his tea stall. “Don't bully the young for being poor.” Ling Qingzhu stopped in the shade of the tower wall.

“The Valley owes the Hall the pact herbs,” Ling Qingzhu said. “Its share. I'll bring them myself.”

“Send a courier,” Shi Feng said.

“I'm not a courier,” Ling Qingzhu replied, lifting her chin. “Have your yard swept before I come. I'm not walking through that mess again.”

The violet hem turned into the crowd, and Su Wanning's shriek followed it.

Zhu Liu looked at Shi Feng. Shi Feng looked at the street.

“Attendant,” Sima Lan said, “did not hear any of that.”

“Good,” Shi Feng said.

“Attendant,” Sima Lan said, writing, “has already written it down.”