Chapter 482 — The Usual Currency

CHAPTER 482

The Usual Currency

“I can't test it on myself,” Shi Feng said.

“Why not, Senior Brother Shi?” Zhu Liu asked, studying the little white jar with growing suspicion.

“My body takes in the herbs. It doesn't take in what the pill adds,” Shi Feng explained without looking up from his notes. “If I swallow a calming pill, I get the worth of the ingredients. I don't get the calm. Somebody else has to.”

“Somebody who isn't me,” Zhu Liu said quickly.

“I didn't say that,” Shi Feng said.

“I'm saying it for you,” Zhu Liu said.

Morning light came through the doorway of hut nine, which still had no door. Sima Lan had put the repair on a waiting list, and the carpenter had put her on one. On the table lay Shi Feng's new work: eleven Golden Core-grade herbs, a mortar and a half-finished recipe titled Still Heart Pill in his small square hand.

The tribulation at the top of a Golden Core wasn't a fight. It was a long sit, and Lin Langtian had said what happened to men who got bored. It was a long way off, which was exactly why he wanted to start now. A good calming pill would take a year to get right.

“What is it for?” Gongsun Ce asked stiffly from the doorway.

Gongsun Ce stood in the empty frame with his puppet case under one arm. He had come to return a bellows, and he had plainly heard the last half of the conversation, because he was looking at the jar.

“A pill to calm the mind,” Shi Feng said. “Golden Core-grade, quarter dose. It needs testing. There's a risk.”

“What kind of risk?” Gongsun Ce asked.

“I don't know. That's why it's a test,” Shi Feng said.

Gongsun Ce set the bellows down.

“I volunteer,” Gongsun Ce said.

Zhu Liu made a small sound of relief and tried to turn it into a cough.

“Why?” Shi Feng asked.

“I owe you a great deal, and the ledger between us is long. A drop of water's kindness should be repaid with a spring,” Gongsun Ce said. “I would like to reduce my side by half, in the usual currency.” He drew himself up. “Also, I am told I am not calm. I would like to find out.”

“Who told you?” Shi Feng asked.

“Everybody. Often,” Gongsun Ce said.

Shi Feng considered it. Usually, whenever something needed testing, the tester had been himself. It was strange to be offered a volunteer.

“Half,” Shi Feng said. “In the usual currency.”

“Accepted,” Gongsun Ce said.

“You'll be watched all night,” Shi Feng said.

“By whom?” Gongsun Ce asked.

Sima Lan had reached the empty doorway without a sound. She stood in her grey blanket with her slate against her chest, and her colour was nearly her own again. Gongsun Ce eyed the slate nervously. Sima Lan would keep a record of everything he did.

“By me,” Sima Lan said. “Everything you say. Everything you do. Charged to the contract.”

“It is my contract,” Gongsun Ce pointed out.

“Then you'll be able to read it,” Sima Lan said.

The pill was ready at dusk.

It was a plain grey bead the size of a grain of millet. Gongsun Ce took it from Shi Feng's palm, looked at it for a long time, then swallowed it dry, determined to see the test through. He waited with his eyes closed for a full thirty breaths.

“I feel nothing,” Gongsun Ce said.

“That's normal,” Shi Feng said.

“Is it?” Gongsun Ce asked.

“I don't know. It's the first time,” Shi Feng said.

“I notice I am not worried that you do not know,” Gongsun Ce said, opening his eyes calmly. “This is unlike me.”

Sima Lan wrote it down.

Shi Feng turned and took a second jar from the shelf, a dark clay one with a waxed lid. He had finished it before the Still Heart, with the first firing of the day's clean furnace.

For two years, the pills Sima Lan bought at ingredient cost had come from the second furnace, made with what remained. The clean first furnace went to the stall. She had never complained. She weighed each pill on her little scale, wrote the weight in her ledger and said “adequate”.

“Your monthly pills,” Shi Feng said, and put the jar in her hands.

Sima Lan turned it over. She took out the stopper, sniffed once and shook a pill into her palm. It was creamy and round, with a pale green seam. It was a first-furnace pill.

Sima Lan was surprised. He'd kept the clean first-furnace pills for her instead of selling them.

Gongsun Ce had begun humming under his breath, a tune with no tune in it. Shi Feng stood with his hands behind his back and his face carefully blank.

Sima Lan didn't say a word. She weighed the pill on her thumb, as she always did. She folded her fingers over it, pushed the stopper home and slid the jar into her sleeve. Her ears reddened as she put the jar away, too embarrassed to thank him aloud.

“Attendant has a subject to observe,” Sima Lan said at last, and sat down on the doorstep with her slate.

Gongsun Ce rose from the stool. His face was perfectly serene.

“I think I will go and look at the puppets,” Gongsun Ce said.

“Why?” Shi Feng asked.

“No reason. It is the first time I have done anything without one,” Gongsun Ce answered with an unusual smile. “It is very pleasant.”

Sima Lan wiped her chalk on her sleeve, wrote Dusk. Subject calm. Subject humming. Subject leaving, and stood up to follow.

Shi Feng set the white jar back on the shelf. Across the yard, the storehouse door creaked open, and a soft, steady voice began to speak to someone in the dark.

“You are doing very well,” Gongsun Ce told a puppet in the dark.