Chapter 487 — What the Lane Saw

CHAPTER 487

What the Lane Saw

The furnace room door banged open at dawn, and a roar of laughter came in with the draught.

Shi Feng didn't look up. He was sealing the last of twelve jars of Clear Marrow Pill, and every pill in the batch had come out perfect. It was the steadiest night's work of his life. He would have preferred nobody mention it.

“Junior Brother!” Lin Langtian wheezed.

He was holding the door frame with one hand and a sweet potato with the other. His robe was dusty from the Duanyang road, and tears were running down his cheeks. He tried to speak again, failed, and had to lean his forehead against the wall.

“Close the door,” Shi Feng said. “You're letting the heat out.”

“The heat!” Lin Langtian howled. “He's worried about the heat!”

He staggered inside and kicked the door shut. Old Soot lifted its head from the hearth, looked at him, and went back to sleep with an air of long suffering.

“I walked in through the lower gate an hour ago,” Lin Langtian said, wiping his eyes. “The whole lane was out. Do you know what they were shouting?”

“I can guess,” Shi Feng said.

“You can't! You can't possibly!” Lin Langtian protested, drawing a breath. “‘The champion ran away at midnight!’ That was the first one. Then a boy said, ‘With a lantern!’ And an old woman said, ‘She was sitting on the bed!’ And a fourth man said, ‘Who? The princess?’ And the old woman said, ‘Folded her hands and everything!’ And a fifth man said, ‘A toad lusting after swan meat, and the swan sat down to wait for him!’”

Shi Feng lowered the lid on the jar.

“Wu Qiang opened a pool at first light,” Lin Langtian said. “Fled, thrown out, fainted. He's giving four to one that you fainted. I put ten stones on ‘remembered a furnace’, and he told me nobody had seen that one coming.”

“Who told him about the furnace?” Shi Feng asked.

“You did!” Lin Langtian replied gleefully. “Wu Qiang's shutter faces your door. He says the whole lane heard ‘furnace’ in your gravest voice!”

Shi Feng put the jar on the rack. Straight-faced, he picked up the next one.

Lin Langtian looked at him. He stopped laughing long enough to realise what Shi Feng wasn't admitting.

“Hold on,” Lin Langtian said. “Let me do this properly. Wu Qiang says she was sitting on the bed. Hands folded. Not hiding. Not shouting. Not walking out.” He leaned forward. “Junior Brother. Who sat?”

“Hold the lid,” Shi Feng said.

“Who sat?” Lin Langtian demanded again, refusing to be distracted.

“The lid,” Shi Feng repeated, pushing it into his hand.

Lin Langtian held the lid. His whole body shook.

“She waited?” Lin Langtian whispered. “And you left? Junior Brother, I have taught you nothing!”

He slid down the wall until he was sitting on the floor with the sweet potato in his lap, and then he lay down. The echo of his laughter shook dust from the furnace room beams. It rolled out of the door into the lane, where a cart driver stopped his ox to listen.

“I taught you billing,” Lin Langtian gasped. “I taught you bluffing! I taught you to lie with a straight face to a man holding your own knife! And you...” He wiped his eyes. “You ran from a woman sitting down. You, who took a Palace Master's pressure on one knee! I will have to send word to the Pavilion. A new category. Retreat, personal.”

“It's a tactical withdrawal,” Shi Feng said.

“Say that to Wu Qiang! He's already put it on the board!” Lin Langtian exclaimed.

“Then I'll bill him for the board,” Shi Feng replied without looking up.

“There he is!” Lin Langtian cried, sitting up. “That's the man! Say it again, louder, so the lane can learn the price!”

Shi Feng sealed the jar and set it with the others. Sima Lan had outplayed him by sitting still. Shi Feng was embarrassed, but he wasn't angry with her. He simply didn't want Lin Langtian discussing it with the entire lane.

A knock came at the doorframe.

Zhu Liu stood in the doorway with his abacus on his hip, a receipt book in one hand and a lacquered case about the size of a loaf of bread held in both arms.

“Senior Brother Shi,” Zhu Liu said. He glanced at Lin Langtian, who was lying on the floor, then at Shi Feng, then away, trying very hard not to mention why he was in the furnace room. “The Pavilion courier came to hut nine at first light. I didn't go in. Attendant Sima was sweeping the step. She said you were here.”

“Did she say anything else?” Shi Feng asked.

“She said, ‘Good morning,’” Zhu Liu said. “To me. Twice.”

Lin Langtian made a small strangled noise and bit his sweet potato.

“This is the ginseng,” Zhu Liu explained, relieved to change the subject. He set the lacquered case on the rack and opened the lid. A thin cold mist rose from the jade lining. “From the verdict. The Palace's delivery slip says ‘surrendered under protest’. I wrote a receipt.”

Inside lay a single root as long as Shi Feng's forearm, pale gold, with nine leaves pressed flat along its stem. The air in the furnace room seemed to deepen.

Lin Langtian stopped laughing.

He got to his feet slowly and stood over the case with his hands behind his back. For a moment, the grin was gone from his face entirely. The root clearly meant something to him beyond its price.

“Nine leaves,” Lin Langtian said quietly. “Take it slowly, Junior Brother. A root that old doesn't ask whether your core is ready.”

“I know,” Shi Feng said.

“I know you know,” Lin Langtian replied, his grin returning a little late. “Now sign for it, and then go and apologise to your bed.”

He slapped Zhu Liu on the back and left the furnace room, roaring the word waited at the morning sky.

By noon the tale had reached Duanyang.