Chapter 50 — A Bag Full of Air

CHAPTER 50

A Bag Full of Air

“Rent is due!” Jiang Meilan announced, stepping around the cloth on the table without even glancing at the medicines. “And your roof needs a tile!”

Shi Feng was sorting roots into three groups, checking each against the amounts the bone manual required. Some could be sold. Others would save more money if he used them himself. Every merchant called a root common when buying and rare when selling.

“Good morning, Auntie Jiang,” Shi Feng said without raising his head.

“Wind is a natural event,” Jiang Meilan declared. “Broken tiles are the tenant’s problem!”

Shi Feng counted out the rent in front of her and laid the receipt beside the rental agreement.

“The roof was included,” Shi Feng said. “You said so yourself when I paid.”

“One tile isn’t a roof,” Jiang Meilan said.

“Then you won’t mind replacing it,” Shi Feng said.

Jiang Meilan glared up at the tile from the courtyard, hoping to find proof that he’d climbed up and smashed it himself. She found none.

“Hmph. I’ll send someone when the weather gets better!” Jiang Meilan said, and took the rent.

The sky was cloudless.

“The weather’s been fine since spring!” Granny Qin shouted from across the lane, flipping a cake. “Auntie Jiang, that tile’s been waiting for months! The whole lane knows you’re stingy!”

“Old woman, mind your brazier!” Jiang Meilan shouted, and swept out.

Shi Feng smiled slightly. A sound came from the kitchen, Ling Qingzhu moving a bowl out of the sun. She was learning how to keep ingredients fresh, and nobody had told her it was a household duty.

He thought about the coming costs. Medicines, supplies, another trip to the mountains, and ordinary food that somehow stopped being ordinary once she arrived. It was time to open the payment bag.

He’d left it as a reserve for the next large expense. His own stones covered the daily purchases, and the Hengyun pass supplied what he couldn’t buy cheaply. That plan seemed sensible before the daily purchases multiplied.

Shi Feng took down the pale storage bag from the high kitchen shelf and loosened the knot. The stitching was clean, the cloth unmarked. He reached into the little space inside.

Nothing.

He looked inside.

Still nothing.

He turned the bag upside down over the table.

Air came out, free of charge.

Empty? Impossible, Shi Feng thought. Ten thousand stones can’t just vanish!

Maybe he’d missed something. He used storage bags often, and a well-made one could hide a fastening or an inner fold from a careless owner. He felt the seams. No damage. No broken clasp. No second chamber. The space opened properly, and held absolutely nothing.

He put one spirit stone inside. It vanished into the space exactly as it should. He took it out again without trouble.

The bag worked perfectly. Somehow that was worse!

Shi Feng sat down. His heart sank, and his hands went cold.

He’d registered a marriage. He’d offended the crown prince. He’d bought groceries for two people, paid for a fish that cost more than a sword, and killed the first man sent to settle the matter.

And the payment was an empty bag.

A mouthful of blood shot out over the table.

“Neighbour Shi,” Granny Qin’s voice floated over the wall. “Was that a cough? Do you need ginger?”

“Dust,” Shi Feng said hoarsely.

“Dust, in this weather,” Granny Qin said, and went back to her brazier, not convinced at all.

Shi Feng stayed seated and stared at the clean cloth. His face turned pale, then dark. Even with three hundred and sixty-five meridians, he couldn’t hold this one in.

Then he moved the rent receipt away from the drops.

Anyone in the capital would have been stunned to see it: the cripple who dropped Guo Zhen, beaten by a bag. There was no wound to treat. Pure fury had broken his calm more easily than a Foundation Establishment cultivator’s refined artifact.

He drew one steady breath, then another. I won’t let an empty bag finish what Guo Zhen failed to do, Shi Feng thought grimly. Calm down!

“Did you finish counting?” Ling Qingzhu called from the kitchen. “Count twice. I won’t be called a cheat.”

Shi Feng looked at the bag. He knew the total with perfect certainty. It was zero.

“Yes,” Shi Feng said.

“Put it somewhere safe!” Ling Qingzhu said. “You leave a fortune on a shelf. Careless.”

He closed his eyes, and his expression twitched. Careless with small things? She’d handed him an empty bag, and now she was telling him to keep it safe!

She knew. She had to know. Nobody packs ten thousand spirit stones and forgets to put them in. The first fairy of Great Liang wasn’t careless at all. She was a sadist, and she was enjoying every second of this.

He washed his mouth, wiped the table, and hung the cloth where she wouldn’t mistake it for a sign of injury. Then he counted his own stones.

It wasn’t ten thousand.

It wasn’t even close.

The money from the mountain roots, the rest of his reserve, and a purse from a man who’d tried to kill him made up the total. The royal steward, Shi Feng noted bitterly, had been more honest with this household than its supposed patron.

He opened the account paper. He kept every receipt, even through foolish assumptions, and now each slip meant something new. The household oil. The carpenter’s latch. The new rope. The fish. The duck. Another fish.

He laid them in a row. There were a lot of fish.

And she’d let him buy every one of them. She’d sat at his table, praised his fish and watched him spend his own savings on her, all while she knew the bag was empty. How cruel could one woman be?

It still didn’t put a single stone in the bag.

It did tell him what to say tomorrow. The promised payment wasn’t received. He didn’t need to invent anything more complicated.

She was in the kitchen washing the mushrooms he’d brought from the mountains. He could hear her tapping soil from a stem with small, determined taps. He’d put the bag in front of her when neither of them stood over supper, and let the facts speak.

On the stove, the day’s lavish ingredients waited.

Shi Feng looked at the fish.

The fish looked back, its expensive eye staring at nothing.

He felt like they’d both been tricked.

Ling Qingzhu appeared in the doorway with the clean mushrooms and stopped when she saw the receipts across the table.

“Was Auntie Jiang that bad today?” Ling Qingzhu asked. “You’ve got your landlady face on.”

“That roof tile is going to be a long fight,” Shi Feng said.

She smiled, relieved that his dark look was only about the landlady’s greed. He took the mushrooms from her and went to the stove.

That evening, over supper, “This soup is dangerous,” Ling Qingzhu said. “I had three bowls. What’s the mountain like in autumn?”

“Wet,” Shi Feng said, “and full of things that want to be sold.”

“Like the capital,” Ling Qingzhu said, grinning.

“The capital charges more,” Shi Feng said, and she laughed.

Shi Feng watched her laugh. Look at her, he thought coldly. She’s enjoying this.

The fish was cooked as carefully as the first one, and there were no bitter greens in her bowl. She took both details as proof that the arrangement was going well.

On the shelf above the stove, the empty bag lay beside the folded agreement.

Tomorrow, Shi Feng would explain exactly how well.