Chapter 498 — No Bill Attached

CHAPTER 498

No Bill Attached

Gu Zhan was fighting a bronze puppet, and he was winning, and he was not satisfied.

Shi Feng stood in the doorway and watched. The puppet was a squat, faceless thing, hip-high, with two blunt arms. It had been guarding the passage between the cold forge and the great hall beyond. Every time Gu Zhan's spear broke it, the pieces crawled back together and it stood up again.

“Again,” Gu Zhan said.

He thrust three times, straight. He swept, turned his rear foot and thrust three times from the other side. The puppet broke into scattered bronze pieces. It reassembled, wobbled and raised its arms.

“Again,” Gu Zhan demanded, raising the spear.

“Is that a training puppet?” Shi Feng asked.

Gu Zhan didn't turn. The scar down the left side of his face did not move, and the clouded eye beneath it stared at nothing, but the clear one flicked toward the voice.

“Gatekeeper,” Gu Zhan said. “It rises until the hall is open. I can't open the hall. So I practise. A hundred hammerings make steel.”

“You've been here long?” Shi Feng asked, watching the pieces reassemble.

“Two hours,” Gu Zhan replied without stopping.

“And you've enjoyed it?” Shi Feng asked, amused by his determination.

“The first hour,” Gu Zhan said. The spear came round again, and the bronze splintered. “Good. You are here.”

“Do you need something opened?” Shi Feng asked, studying the puppet.

“Yes,” Gu Zhan replied, stepping aside for him.

Shi Feng crossed the threshold, stepped over a flailing bronze arm and put his palm flat on the puppet's head. He pressed a little fire into the seam under its chin, then folded it left. The puppet shuddered. Its arms dropped. Its body went still. This time, the broken pieces didn't try to rise.

Gu Zhan lowered the spear.

“Mm,” Gu Zhan said.

That was all. Shi Feng had expected a question, or at least a suspicious look. Gu Zhan only wiped the sweat from his scarred cheek with a gauntlet and glanced at the passage now clear in front of them.

“You are alone,” Gu Zhan said.

“The formation scattered us,” Shi Feng explained.

“Same,” Gu Zhan replied, wiping his cheek.

“Where are you going?” Shi Feng asked, looking beyond the opened passage.

“East gallery,” Gu Zhan said. “Master's errand. He wants something there. I won't say what.”

“I wasn't going to ask,” Shi Feng assured him.

“I know,” Gu Zhan replied with easy confidence.

Another silence followed, and it wasn't uncomfortable. Shi Feng noticed that Gu Zhan was standing on the left side of the doorway, leaving the right side open. That was a habit of a fighter who expected a partner.

“The hall beyond is the only way east,” Gu Zhan said. “And through the centre to the third arch. One guardian. Two doors. I think there will be others who want what's inside.”

“Yes,” Shi Feng said. “I met some.”

“Together?” Gu Zhan offered, resting the spear against his shoulder.

“Together,” Shi Feng said.

That was the whole negotiation. It lasted eight words.

It occurred to Shi Feng, somewhere between the doorway and the corridor, that he had not asked for a single stone. He hadn't set a rate for cover. He hadn't arranged for a share of the spoils, or a fee for the opened door, or a clause about injuries. Zhu Liu would have been appalled. Sima Lan would have looked at him for a long moment and then picked up her brush.

Shi Feng was pleased. Gu Zhan wanted a partner for the fight, without haggling over every step.

He reached into his ring and drew out the potato. It was still warm at the middle. He broke it in two on his knee and held out the larger half.

Gu Zhan looked at it.

“What is that?” Gu Zhan asked, looking at the offered half.

“A sweet potato,” Shi Feng said. “From my senior brother. He said to take it inside.”

“Why?” Gu Zhan asked, taking it.

“He didn't say,” Shi Feng admitted.

Gu Zhan took it and bit into it without more ceremony. He chewed, once, and his clear eye widened a little.

“Good,” Gu Zhan said, in the voice he used for good strokes in a fight.

“It's warm,” Shi Feng said. “I don't know why.”

“Your senior brother is a strange man,” Gu Zhan remarked between bites.

“Yes,” Shi Feng agreed, looking at the potato.

Shi Feng looked at his own hands. Ten fingers. Lin Langtian had said to count them if something inside was kind to him, and this was the first kindness he'd met. He counted them twice, to be safe. Gu Zhan watched him do it and was polite enough not to ask.

They went down the passage side by side. It was short and narrow, and it opened onto a wide round hall with a dome of drifting stars overhead. Nine bronze puppets stood in a ring on a floor of pale tiles, each tall as a doorway, each holding a weapon of a different kind. At the centre rose a pedestal, and on it, wrapped in slow lines of green light, sat a palm-sized bronze heart.

It beat. He could see it beat.

“The hall's core,” Gu Zhan said. “If anyone takes it, the nine wake.”

“And if nobody takes it?” Shi Feng asked, studying the nine guardians.

“Then they sleep for ten thousand years,” Gu Zhan said, “and my master does not get his errand.”

“So we cross the floor,” Shi Feng said, preparing to advance.

“We cross the floor,” Gu Zhan agreed, lifting his spear.

Shi Feng stepped onto the first tile. It sank a hair under his foot, and there was a faint hum underneath it. He did not like the sound.

From the far end of the hall, through the opposite door, came the sound of bored voices and the chime of a gold chain.

“Ah,” said one of them. “Locals.”