Chapter 521 — So-So, Again

CHAPTER 521

So-So, Again

The door to the top floor of the Sword Pagoda was a single slab of dark wood with no handle. It had been shut for eleven years.

“It was sealed after the last candidate,” Keeper Bian said, lifting his lantern. “He was carried out. He is fine. He lives in the south hall and does not discuss swords.”

“I heard he died,” Pei Gang said unhappily.

“He did not die. He stopped talking about swords. Some people consider that worse,” Keeper Bian said.

The other three candidates who’d passed the cavern waited at the door with Shi Feng. Keeper Ou, Keeper Yan and half the inner court stood behind them. Each candidate received one incense stick. They had to sit before the tablet until it burned out, or learn the art. Either result would pass the round.

Lu Heng went first. He lasted three breaths, then came out with blood running from his nose and apologised to the doorframe.

Yao Min went second. She lasted twelve, bowed to the dark room as if it were a person, and walked out with her braid standing straight up on end.

Pei Gang went third and lasted twenty breaths, the longest of the three. He came out pale and limping but still upright. “Excellent door,” Pei Gang said faintly, as though thanking it for letting him leave.

“Candidate Shi Feng,” Keeper Bian said.

Shi Feng took the incense stick and stepped through.

The room was square and empty apart from a plain stone tablet at its far end. Evening light entered through the western window in a single long beam. One line was cut into the tablet. There were no pictures to study, and pressure bore evenly against Shi Feng from every side.

Sunset-Splitting Sword. Soul Formation-grade.

Behind him, the door shut. Shi Feng sat down in front of the tablet, lit the incense and looked at the line for a long time.

Last time I came here, I said “not yet,” Shi Feng thought. That was the right choice. Now, at peak Golden Core, he could bear the pressure and understand its purpose. It wasn’t trying to injure him. It marked the standard of a cut so complete that what it divided still hadn’t rejoined.

He closed his eyes and read it with his body, as Mo Tianheng's old voice had once taught him: not what the art said, but where it ended.

At the end, there was a line, and on either side of the line there was something different.

The incense burned halfway.

Shi Feng opened his eyes and stood. He reached over his shoulder for the Sword.

His right hand closed on the hilt, and it did not shake.

He stood still for a breath. It was an ordinary hilt, wrapped in ordinary cord, but he held it until he was sure. Last week he couldn't hold it for nine breaths. Then he drew, and made one cut.

It was not fast and not loud. The Sword moved through the long beam of evening light coming through the window, from top to bottom, and the beam split. One half stayed where it had been. The other drifted a hand-width to the side, and the two lines of gold lay on the floor side by side, with a clean strip of shadow between them that did not close.

Entry.

Shi Feng sheathed the Sword. Outside, someone knocked on the door. The incense had burned a little past halfway.

He opened it.

“Keeper Bian,” Shi Feng said.

“Yes?” Keeper Bian said, and then looked past him at the two beams of light on the floor. His lantern wavered.

“I finished,” Shi Feng said.

“Entry?” Keeper Bian said, in a very small voice.

“Yes,” Shi Feng said.

“In one sitting?” Keeper Bian said.

“Yes,” Shi Feng said.

Keeper Ou choked back a cry. Pei Gang, Lu Heng and Yao Min stared at the separated light, then turned toward Shi Feng. Their shock was plain. The man whose ruined face drew whispers had learned what none of them could bear to sit before.

“The record for Entry on this floor is nineteen years,” Keeper Bian said faintly. “Beyond the sky there is another sky; beyond people there are other people.”

“It's a good tablet,” Shi Feng said.

Keeper Bian lowered himself to the floor with the lantern on his lap. He needed to sit down before his legs gave way. This was the second time Shi Feng had made him do that.

“Well?” Keeper Ou demanded, shaking. “How was it? What do you think?”

Everyone leaned in. Pei Gang held his breath. Zhu Liu, at the back, lifted his brush.

Shi Feng considered it honestly.

“So-so,” Shi Feng said.

“…”

“So-so?”

“He said so-so about the Soul Formation-grade art!”

“I told you! I told you he would say it!”

“I bet him he wouldn't!”

“Then pay up!”

Keeper Bian stayed on the floor and did not get up. Down the stair, in a tone of deepest pain, Keeper Ou was already explaining to somebody that he'd been saying “so-so” for three years and nobody had ever taken it seriously.

Shi Feng walked down the stair. Halfway, Sima Lan fell in beside him with her ledger.

“Tomorrow,” Sima Lan said, “is Gongsun Ce.”

“I know,” Shi Feng said.

“He's been up since last night,” Sima Lan said. She flipped a page. “He asked Song Tai for the keys to the whole storehouse. He had to be told twice that the eight iron coffins are not puppets.”

“What did he say?” Shi Feng said.

“That they should be,” Sima Lan said.