Chapter 483 — Very Calm

CHAPTER 483

Very Calm

By dawn, the roof of the old puppet storehouse looked like a parade ground for wooden men.

Sixty clay-faced puppets stood along the ridge in two straight rows, their joints oiled and their heads turned politely toward the east. Gongsun Ce walked down the line with his hands clasped behind him, stopping before each one. The sun came up over the far peak and lit his grey robe. He looked, if anything, more rested than he had at dusk.

Shi Feng climbed the last rung of the ladder and stood on the tiles.

Sima Lan sat cross-legged at the gable end with a lamp that had burned out hours ago. Her slate was full. So was the second slate. A third lay beside her, and she was writing on the back of her own sleeve.

“How long?” Shi Feng asked.

“Since dusk,” Sima Lan said, without looking up. “He has not paused. He has not sat. He has addressed each puppet individually, and some of them twice.”

“Is he in danger?” Shi Feng asked.

“No,” Sima Lan said.

“Is he hurt?” Shi Feng asked.

“He is happy,” Sima Lan said, with deep disapproval. “It is the worst symptom I've seen.”

Gongsun Ce reached the end of the row and turned, saw Shi Feng and bowed. It was a perfect, unhurried, courtly bow, from a man who hadn't slept.

“Good morning,” Gongsun Ce said. “The pill is a success.”

“How do you feel?” Shi Feng asked.

“Calm. Entirely calm. I have not been calm since I was a boy,” Gongsun Ce replied, gesturing toward the rows. “I have been telling them how well they did. During the raid. Their joints held. Their timing was exact. I did not tell them at the time because I was frightened. I am not frightened now.”

“You were in the rafters,” Shi Feng said.

“I was in the rafters, holding one wire, with my teeth chattering,” Gongsun Ce agreed placidly. “It is a fine memory.”

Sima Lan cleared her throat. She turned the sleeve toward the light and read from it precisely, determined not to leave out a single embarrassing word.

“‘Second Joint of the Fourth Row, you did not fail me.’ ‘First puppet, you have a good face, and I never said so.’ ‘To the whole line: I know you cannot hear. I wish it recorded that I tried.’” Sima Lan paused. “That was the first hour. It gets worse.”

“I stand by it,” Gongsun Ce said.

Sima Lan turned the sleeve over and went on. “‘Seventh Puppet, you are my favourite. Do not tell the others.’ Then you told the others. You said it aloud, and you said it to each of them.”

“It was true,” Gongsun Ce said.

“At the second watch,” Sima Lan said, and her voice became even flatter, “you addressed the entire line at once. ‘I am proud of you.’ And then, at the fourth watch, again. ‘I am proud of you.’” She lowered the sleeve and met Gongsun Ce's eyes directly. “You told your puppets you're proud of them. Twice.”

Gongsun Ce considered this.

“That is accurate,” Gongsun Ce said.

Nobody said anything. On the ridge, a puppet's head turned an inch in the morning wind and stopped.

“Do you want it struck?” Shi Feng asked.

“Struck?” Gongsun Ce asked.

“From the record,” Shi Feng said.

“No,” Gongsun Ce said. He seemed faintly surprised by the question. “I find that I do not mind who reads it.”

Shi Feng looked at him for a long moment. He saw how it worked. The pill had worked too well. It had taken the mind's fear and washed it clean, and in doing so it had taken the part of the mind that decided what to be embarrassed about. It left a man calm enough to ignore embarrassment, even when he should feel it. That wasn't the control Shi Feng needed for a tribulation.

“Failed,” Shi Feng said.

“It did not feel like failure,” Gongsun Ce said.

“That's the failure,” Shi Feng said.

He took the other three beads from his sleeve, still in their cloth, and swallowed them one after another, dry. The first was bitter. The second tasted of nothing. The third made the back of his neck go loose.

[Devoured: Still Heart Pill, failed batch | Gain: the herbs' worth | Note: very calm]

He stood on the roof for a moment, watching the sun climb.

The sunlight pleased him. For once, he was content to stand there without thinking about his next task.

“Shi Feng,” Sima Lan said, sharply. “Your face.”

“What about it?” Shi Feng asked.

“You are smiling,” Sima Lan said.

“Am I?” Shi Feng thought about that. “Charge it to me.”

The sect meeting began at the third bell, in the council hall behind the Register Hall, around a long black table with a missing leg that had been replaced by a stack of Qian Mo's ledgers.

Li Changyuan sat at the head, in his proper sect master's robe, with the broom propped beside the chair. Tian Luo, He Zhen and Qian Mo sat on his left. Three other elders sat on his right and looked uncomfortable. Shi Feng sat at the foot, because nobody had told him to sit anywhere else.

“The Palace's first instalment arrived this morning,” Qian Mo said, holding up a pouch. “Four hundred stones. The Pavilion's order is five hundred a month. They are short by a hundred.”

“With interest,” He Zhen said.

“With interest, a hundred and three,” Qian Mo said. “I've already sent them a polite letter. In red. But distant water cannot put out a near fire.”

“The coal debt is two thousand three hundred and eighty,” Tian Luo said. “Fan Coal House has asked—”

An elder on the right interrupted about the neglected east wall.

“Cabbages,” Li Changyuan said. “We have a very good cabbage year coming. I want to expand the beds.”

Everybody looked at Shi Feng.

Shi Feng sat with his hands folded on the table. His head was tilted to the left. His eyes were closed. His breathing was deep and slow and perfectly regular.

Another elder whispered a worried question about whether Shi Feng was still alive.

“Look at his face,” Tian Luo said, after a moment. His voice was hushed. “I've never seen it like that.”

“He looks happy,” He Zhen said. “It's horrible.”

“Leave him,” Li Changyuan said. A small, sharp smile moved at the corner of his mouth. “Let the boy sleep. He's the only man at this table who isn't shouting about money.”

“Then who decides?” Qian Mo demanded.

“The silence decides,” Li Changyuan said. “Coal first.”

Nobody argued. In the corner of the hall, Lin Langtian slid down the roof beam with a sweet potato and looked delighted to find his junior brother finally sleeping peacefully.

The door opened a hand's width. Zhu Liu's frightened face looked through.

“Sorry,” Zhu Liu whispered, to Sima Lan, who stood beside the door. “A Valley sword. It's circling the peak.”

Against the wall, Sima Lan quietly put her slate behind her back.