Chapter 528 — The Third Day

CHAPTER 528

The Third Day

Zhu Liu had been awake for fifty-one hours, and the water clock was still dripping.

He sat on his stool at the foot of the Thunder Cliff path with the receipt book on his knees. Every hour he made a mark. Every third hour he got up, walked to the Register Hall wall, and checked a line of old faded characters carved into the stone.

Longest closed-door tribulation in the history of the sect: two days and two nights. Third Sect Master, Qin Wenhai.

“Fifty-one,” Zhu Liu muttered. “Three hours longer.”

“Longer than what?” Wu Qiang asked, appearing at his elbow with a bun.

“The Third Sect Master’s record,” Zhu Liu said.

“By being quiet?” Wu Qiang said.

“By being alive,” Zhu Liu said, shocked. “Nobody's heard a sound from that cliff in two days. Elder Tian Luo says there's no clouds. No thunder. No… anything.”

“That's good, isn't it?” Wu Qiang said.

“Elder Tian Luo went white when he said it,” Zhu Liu said. “He looked frightened, Wu Qiang. I’ve never seen him like that.”

Wu Qiang stopped chewing.

The sun climbed over the east ridge. At the third bell, which didn't ring because the bell rope had stuck an hour ago, Elder Tian Luo came down the Register Hall steps with a brush in his hand and walked to the wall. He looked at the old characters for a long moment. Then he took out a small chisel.

“Elder?” Zhu Liu said.

“Don't speak,” Tian Luo said. “I'm busy being history.”

He began to carve. Wu Qiang whispered the new line aloud as the chips fell.

Two days, two nights and three hours.

“It's going up,” Wu Qiang said, awed. “It's still going up. A single step to the heavens!”

A stir ran through the crowd at the gate. Zhu Liu looked round. Someone in a violet inner robe under a Valley green outer one had stopped under the gate arch with a travel pack on her shoulder.

“Madam Ling?” the gate guard said, startled. “The sect is closed to visitors until—”

“I know. I have leave from the Valley. Elder Mu Shuyun signed it,” Ling Qingzhu said.

“Then may I ask what business—”

“I'm waiting for a herb delivery,” Ling Qingzhu said.

The guard looked at Ling Qingzhu’s pack. Her knuckles had whitened around its strap. She was worried, and he knew the herb delivery wasn’t why she’d flown here. He chose not to press her for another answer.

Ling Qingzhu sat on the bench beside the left gate pillar, setting down her pack. Her white veil stayed tied. She didn’t ask about Thunder Cliff, but she sat straight-backed and ready to wait. No one tried to make her leave.

A cup appeared at her elbow.

“Tea,” Sima Lan said.

“I didn't ask,” Ling Qingzhu said.

“It's on his account,” Sima Lan said.

Ling Qingzhu looked at the cup for a breath.

“Then I'll drink it,” Ling Qingzhu said.

Sima Lan inclined her head, very slightly, and went back to her stall without another word.

Sometime after the last bowl, the courtyard fell apart.

It didn't break all at once. Shi Feng sat among the rotting grey walls, and one of them simply stopped being a wall. Light poured through the gap. It was warm and it smelled of rain.

Then he heard wheels.

A flying carriage settled onto the packed earth, its lacquered sides gleaming, a jade lotus carved on the door. An old woman in grey held the reins. She did not look at him.

He knew it. He had ridden on its outer bench for a day.

An illusion. The thought came calmly, from far away. It copied the carriage from my own memory. But I never saw inside.

The door opened a hand's width.

“Shi Feng,” Nangong Xiuyi’s copied voice called.

It was her voice. Soft, unhurried, and certain, the sound he had heard through a closed door in the rain. His chest tightened, as it always did.

“You've been sitting there a long time,” Nangong Xiuyi’s copied voice said. “You're tired. There's a seat inside, and tea, and nobody will ask for anything. Come out of the rain. Rest.”

Shi Feng sat still.

The offer tempted him. After two days in a cold courtyard with nothing to eat, he wanted that warmth. The voice was perfectly copied too: patient, kind and free of the contempt he’d heard on the road.

Nangong Xiuyi, he thought.

He had made a vow at the village well. He would find her, and he would repay her. A life for a life was a debt he refused to carry.

He looked at the carriage again.

She saved me, Shi Feng thought. She sent water and a pill, then gave me her name. But she never offered a seat inside. I stayed on the outer bench, and her door stayed closed.

The real woman had given him what he needed to survive. The illusion offered what he wanted afterward. Recognising the difference hurt, but it also made his answer clear. He wouldn’t mistake a copied voice for the person he meant to find.

“No,” Shi Feng said.

“Shi Feng—” Nangong Xiuyi’s copied voice began.

“Thank you for the offer,” Shi Feng said. “I'll come to her on my own feet.”

The carriage door closed softly. The wheels turned. The jade lotus faded into the grey, and the grey closed over the place where it had been.

Far above the courtyard, as if something very large had bent down to read, the sky began to look at him.