Chapter 512 — Her Name

CHAPTER 512

Her Name

The village was called Willow Ford, and it had eleven roofs.

The carriage set down beside its well at dusk. Smoke rose from three chimneys. A dog barked once, saw the green lanterns and decided against a second bark. Behind a half-closed door, a woman's eye appeared, vanished and did not appear again.

Shi Feng climbed down from the outer bench on his own legs.

They held. He stood in the mud beside the well with a strip of grey cloth wrapped across half his face, the Sword in his hand and the first full breath he had taken in two days. Behind him, the carriage's wheels hung a finger above the ground.

“Finally,” Yuzhu said. She had come down with her umbrella furled and her sleeve over her nose. “We're two days late already. Next time, young miss, please leave the roadside to the roadside.”

“Yuzhu,” Lanxin said quietly.

“What? I'm only saying what Matron is thinking.” Yuzhu looked Shi Feng up and down. “Look at him. The clothes of a labourer, the face of a ghost. He's got no sect token, no ring that I can see, and not one word of thanks to his name. Our Serene Jade—”

“Yuzhu!” Lanxin said sharply.

Yuzhu closed her mouth so fast her teeth clicked.

Matron Yue turned her head without speaking. Under that look, Yuzhu’s lips went white. She stopped looking at Shi Feng and stared down into the well instead. This time she didn’t dare continue.

Shi Feng heard the unfinished sentence and said nothing about it.

Serene Jade. Shi Feng remembered those words along with the white jade lotus. He didn’t know any sect of that name. Whatever power owned this carriage lay beyond the region he knew; even its name meant nothing to him yet.

Lanxin stepped forward and held out a small cloth pouch. It clinked.

“From the young miss,” Lanxin said. “For a room and a meal. Perhaps a physician, if the face... if there's anyone nearby.”

Shi Feng looked at the pouch, then at her.

“Please thank her,” Shi Feng said. “But no.”

“Is it too little?” Yuzhu said. “Ungrateful...”

“A debt paid in silver is a smaller debt,” Shi Feng said. He wasn't speaking to Yuzhu. “I'd like to keep this one whole.”

Lanxin lowered the pouch and studied him thoughtfully. Yuzhu kept her mouth open but said nothing. Shi Feng wasn’t trying to bargain for more silver. He wanted to remember this as a debt of gratitude, not a payment he’d accepted.

Shi Feng turned and faced the carriage's closed door. He set the Sword on the ground, put his hands together and bowed. It was the full bow, from the waist, with his forehead nearly touching his knuckles. He had given it to his master once, and to the sect elders. He had never given it to a stranger.

“This junior is Shi Feng, of Artificer Hall in Great Liang,” Shi Feng said. “I was nearly dead on the road. Your carriage stopped, and I am alive. I owe this life to the young miss. I will not forget it, and I will not leave it unpaid.”

The old woman beside the carriage went still.

Matron Yue’s hand tightened on the rein, then eased. Her iron-coloured eyes turned toward him and stayed there one breath too long. Shi Feng noticed the pause. Nothing in her face told him why hearing his name had caused it.

“Shi Feng,” Matron Yue said.

“Yes,” Shi Feng said.

She said nothing more. Her face did not change. Her eyes moved over his shoulders and his hands, and the stillness around her seemed to turn over once.

“Hm,” Matron Yue said. “Nothing. Go on.”

Shi Feng didn’t know what she was looking for. He couldn’t tell whether she’d found it, either. The old woman offered no explanation, and he had no right to demand one. He left the question alone.

He straightened.

“I have one more thing to ask,” Shi Feng said. “If the young miss permits. Her name.”

Yuzhu laughed. It was a short, bright, unpleasant sound.

“Her name?” Yuzhu said. “Do you think a name like our young miss's can be spoken by every ruined cripple on a roadside? You should be grateful she let you hear her...”

“Yuzhu,” the voice said.

The word was gentle. Yuzhu's laugh died.

“Let him ask,” the voice said. “He asked properly.”

“But, young miss,” Yuzhu said.

“Nangong Xiuyi,” Nangong Xiuyi said through the closed door.

Shi Feng listened carefully, determined not to forget a single syllable of the name.

“Nangong Xiuyi. That is my name. Rest well, young sir. Get your face seen to if you can. And eat something warm tonight.”

Shi Feng didn't move.

Shi Feng held the bow a moment longer. He repeated her name slowly in his mind, fixing it in his memory as carefully as a recipe he couldn’t afford to lose. Nangong Xiuyi. He still knew nothing about her face. Only the name, the lotus and that voice.

When he straightened, the carriage door was still closed.

The old woman had already climbed back onto the driver's bench.