Chapter 517 — Convalescence Grade

CHAPTER 517

Convalescence Grade

“Quietly,” Keeper Bian whispered. “He's reading.”

Keeper Ou nodded and tiptoed across the third floor in borrowed cloth shoes. Keeper Yan followed with a cushion in both hands, taking equal care not to make a sound. Both avoided looking directly at Shi Feng beneath the tablet wall. Their caution made their arrival impossible to ignore.

Shi Feng had been reading the Severing River tablet since morning. He tried holding the Sword, but his grip shook after nine breaths. His meridians were knitted and still weak. Until his hand obeyed him again, he could only study the art instead of practising its cuts.

“Keeper Bian,” Shi Feng said.

“Yes?” Keeper Bian whispered.

“Please walk normally,” Shi Feng said.

“We don't want to disturb—” Keeper Bian said.

“You're disturbing me more,” Shi Feng said. “Stomp. Drop things. Please.”

The keepers exchanged embarrassed looks. Keeper Ou forced himself to stamp once. Keeper Yan dropped her cushion, but it landed so softly that the effort was useless. All three looked guilty about disturbing him, despite doing exactly what he’d asked. Shi Feng wanted his ordinary mornings back.

Shi Feng sighed and turned the page.

“The face, you know,” Keeper Ou whispered to Keeper Yan, “it doesn't look so bad.”

“It looks terrible,” Keeper Yan whispered back.

“I know, but it doesn't look so bad,” Keeper Ou said. “A blessing in disguise, perhaps.”

“I can hear you,” Shi Feng said.

“Yes,” Keeper Bian said. “That was the whole point of whispering. We wanted you to know we were being kind.”

Gu Zhan was waiting at the Pagoda's foot when he came out at sundown.

Gu Zhan stood straight in his grey robe, his spear wrapped on his back. A scar ran down his face beneath a clouded eye. Plain black iron now covered the forearm the Ruin treasure had shattered. He studied Shi Feng’s burned face without surprise or pity. He knew what a lasting injury looked like.

Shi Feng waited. Gu Zhan never rushed his words.

“Soul-fire,” Gu Zhan said.

“Yes,” Shi Feng said.

“Does it stay?” Gu Zhan said.

“I don't know,” Shi Feng said.

Gu Zhan lifted two fingers and touched the old scar beside his own eye, once. “Mine stayed. It is a face.”

“I'll keep that in mind,” Shi Feng said.

“Your grip.” Gu Zhan's good eye moved to Shi Feng's right hand, which was tucked into a sleeve. “It shakes.”

“It comes back,” Shi Feng said.

Gu Zhan nodded, as if that were the correct answer to a test. He turned to go, took two steps, and stopped with his back still to the Pagoda.

“When your face heals,” Gu Zhan said. “Again.”

“And if it doesn't?” Shi Feng said.

Gu Zhan thought about it for the whole length of a breath.

“It will,” Gu Zhan said, and walked down the stair without looking back.

The door of hut nine flew open that night with a bang.

“Junior Brother!” Lin Langtian said. “Convalescence!”

He had two sacks over one shoulder and a sweet potato in his hand. Behind him Sima Lan stood in the doorway holding a lamp, with the expression of a woman who had tried to stop him and been walked around.

“No,” Shi Feng said from the bed.

“You haven't heard what's in them,” Lin Langtian said.

“Whatever's in them, it isn't for convalescence,” Shi Feng said.

“Soul Formation grade!” Lin Langtian dropped the sacks on the quilt. One of them clinked, and a root the colour of old gold rolled out and stopped against Shi Feng's knee. “Dragon-Vein ginseng. Moon-Frost lotus, three petals. A very gentle pill, the Soul-Calming Pill. Nineteen herbs, four pages. Written by a man who had never been ill a day in his life.”

“You can't just give me a Soul Formation-grade recipe,” Shi Feng said. “I'm a 2 Mark.”

“Yes, now that the 2 Mark is boring,” Lin Langtian said happily, “you can fail at the next one.”

Sima Lan set the lamp on the stool. She said nothing, but she dragged the little bronze travelling furnace to the bedside and set it on the quilt, with a cushion under it.

Shi Feng looked at the furnace, then at her, then at the ceiling.

Shi Feng refined the pill from bed. His left hand held a thin thread of fire; his right trembled uselessly on the quilt. He added the roots one by one. Lin Langtian sat cross-legged on the floor peeling his potato, unusually quiet. At the fourteenth herb, the pill cracked. Grey smoke rose from the furnace.

Shi Feng opened the lid. A dull, shapeless lump sat at the bottom.

“A waste pill,” Sima Lan said.

“A very expensive one,” Shi Feng said.

“You knew it would fail,” Shi Feng added, looking at Lin Langtian.

“Of course I did,” Lin Langtian said. “It's convalescence. Nobody said the pill had to work.”

Shi Feng ate it. The qi of nineteen herbs went down warm and slow, with a faint taste of ginger and old coins.

[Devoured: failed Soul-Calming Pill | Gain: the herbs' worth, exactly | Note: nobody asked it to work]

Lin Langtian stood. At the door, he stopped.

“I went to find them,” Lin Langtian said quietly. “The carriages were already gone north.”

“You told me at dawn,” Shi Feng said.

“I'm saying it again. I was late,” Lin Langtian said.

“You weren't there,” Shi Feng said.

“That's what late means,” Lin Langtian said. He scratched his neck. “I'm not telling you not to be angry. Be angry with a full stomach, that's all.”

Then the grin returned and he was gone down the lane, shouting that somebody had stolen his potato.

Sima Lan chalked a line on the wall outside. Her hand was steady. It was exactly the same line as before the Ruin.