Chapter 514 — The Same Door

CHAPTER 514

The Same Door

Zheng Yu dropped both brushes.

He had glanced at the ragged man climbing the stairs without much interest. Then the man pushed back his bamboo hat. The brushes hit the steps and rolled all the way down to the first landing.

“Senior Brother Shi?” Zheng Yu whispered.

“Yes,” Shi Feng said.

He kept climbing. It took a while. After four days on foot, his legs still shook on every third step, and the pill that had knitted his bones had left his muscles as weak as wet paper. The left half of his face, from brow to jaw, was stiff and shiny, red in the middle and grey along the seams. His left eyebrow was gone. One corner of his mouth was drawn upward, so that he seemed to be smiling at something terrible.

Cui Hong waited at the top with his burn-marked robe and his board of notes. He opened his mouth. Nothing came out.

“Is the bed leg fixed?” Shi Feng asked.

“It was fixed a year ago,” Cui Hong said slowly. “Senior Brother Shi, who—”

“Later. I'd like to sit down,” Shi Feng said.

Cui Hong stepped aside at once.

The main court was busy. Disciples hauled charcoal and argued about a broken hinge until they noticed Shi Feng. One by one, they stopped working. The argument died unfinished. By the time he reached the middle of the court, everyone was watching him in silence.

“Is that him?”

“The champion? That's the champion?”

“What happened to his face?”

“Soul-fire burns, I think… A tall tree catches the wind, as they say.”

“Quiet, you fool!”

“…”

Wu Qiang stood by the well with a bucket in his hands. Even the outer court’s loudest gossip stayed quiet. Qiu Bao lowered his eyes. Shi Feng was grateful that neither man asked him to explain. He didn’t know how he would have answered.

He crossed the court at an old man's pace. Nobody blocked his path.

Zhu Liu met him in the eastern lane with a blanket over one arm and a receipt in his hand. His eyes were red. He tried to say something about the search parties and lost his place twice.

“Put it down, Zhu Liu,” Shi Feng said.

“It's for your hut,” Zhu Liu said. “Nobody's touched anything. I counted.”

“I know you did,” Shi Feng said.

Lin Langtian was leaning against the wall of hut nine, holding a roasted sweet potato he wasn't eating. He looked at the face for a long moment.

“Junior Brother,” Lin Langtian said.

That was all. He held out the potato. Shi Feng took it and ate half, standing in the lane, and Lin Langtian watched every bite and said nothing else.

Hut ten's door was open. Sima Lan stood in it with a copper basin of water.

Sima Lan had returned from the Ruin six days ago. Her left shoulder was still stiff from the blade at the gate, and she moved carefully. She studied his face for a long moment. Shi Feng braced himself. On the road, he’d decided he wouldn’t answer questions about it.

“Your feet,” Sima Lan said.

“What?” Shi Feng said.

“Four days in those shoes. I can smell them from here,” Sima Lan said. She turned and went into hut nine ahead of him. “Sit. Clause fourteen applies after any journey over one day. Three stones.”

Shi Feng stood in the doorway a moment. Then he went in and sat on the cot.

She knelt, pulled off his shoes and put his feet in the water. It was exactly as hot as it always was. She pressed her thumbs into his arch, hard, the way she had since the first night.

“Your shoulders are a disgrace,” Sima Lan said. “They're up around your ears. Drop them.”

He dropped them.

“Better,” Sima Lan said.

She didn't ask about the road, or the hat, or the face. Her hands moved at the same pace, with the same impatient care. It was the first time in a week anyone had touched him without flinching.

Sima Lan was angry, and she wasn’t hiding it very well. Shi Feng could feel it in the force of her thumbs. He knew she wasn’t angry with him. She hadn’t been on that road and couldn’t change what happened there. His foot suffered for it anyway.

When she finished, she dried his feet and held out her palm. Shi Feng counted three stones into it.

“Receipt,” Sima Lan said, and chalked it on the doorpost. She picked up the basin and paused with her back to him. “A hundred and one new marks on the wall since you left. I haven't rubbed any out.”

“Understood,” Shi Feng said.

“Rest,” Sima Lan said, and went out.

She didn't slam the door. That was how he knew.

That night, the roof of hut nine was empty.

Shi Feng lay awake and listened to it be empty. No potato peel dropped past the window. No voice said, “Do not mind me.”

Toward dawn, someone landed lightly on the shingles. A long time later, they creaked.

“They're gone,” Lin Langtian said, from above.

His voice was quiet. There was no joke in it anywhere.

“You didn't ask who,” Shi Feng said.

“I saw your face,” Lin Langtian said quietly. “Soul-fire is the Empire’s kind of burn. I watched who entered the Ruin first, so I knew where to look. Three carriages, sun and lightning on the doors. They landed north of Qingyun City. I found the field; the grass was still flat. They’d left two days ago, Junior Brother. Straight north.”

“You couldn't have gone inside,” Shi Feng said.

“No,” Lin Langtian said.

“Then it isn't your fault,” Shi Feng said.

“I know it isn't. I've waited outside a door before.” Lin Langtian paused. “It doesn't get easier.”

Shi Feng looked at the dark ceiling.

“North,” Shi Feng said. “Then next time I meet him, it'll be at his house.”

“Yes,” Lin Langtian said.

“Then I'll go to his house,” Shi Feng said.

Shi Feng heard how calm he sounded. Under the blanket, his right hand was clenched hard enough for his nails to cut his palm. It didn’t shake. He was furious, and he kept that anger where neither Lin Langtian nor anyone outside could see it.