Chapter 530 — The First Sweep

CHAPTER 530

The First Sweep

The light behind his eyes opened like a door that had always been there.

Shi Feng felt the old gold pearl of his core fold in on itself, once, twice, and then become something else. A small figure sat where it had been. It had his shoulders and his closed eyes, and it was no bigger than a thumb. The infant opened its eyes.

Nascent Soul, Shi Feng thought. It was strange to think it so calmly.

He expected a roar of qi. Instead, his mind became deeply quiet. A new awareness reached beyond his body without using his eyes or ears. Shi Feng followed it in amazement. This was what he’d been missing before Nascent Soul.

It touched the stone beneath him and knew its grain. It touched the lamp and knew how much oil was left. Then it went through the wall as though the wall were mist, and the whole of Thousand Forge Peak lay open before him in a single breath.

Before this, he’d relied on qi, his physical senses and guesses drawn from experience. Now the details reached him directly. Shi Feng could hardly believe how clearly he perceived the mountain through the chamber’s stone walls.

The Register Hall was dark, and Elder Tian Luo slept sitting up on its steps with a chisel across his knees. The kitchen's second rice pot was still warm. On the inner-court roofs, forty-one tiles had cracked. Zhu Liu lay face-down on the receipt book at the foot of the cliff path with ink on his nose. Beside the lower terrace, Old Soot slept on a warm stone with one eye half open, watching a mouse.

A little further down, Sima Lan sat awake at her stall by a single lantern, counting copper into stacks. She was counting very fast.

On a boulder above the path, Lin Langtian sat with an untouched potato in his lap. His face tipped up toward the chamber door. Shi Feng had not made a sound, and yet the chief disciple was grinning.

Does he feel me? Shi Feng thought. Of course he does.

The sweep went on, past the bell tower and the Pagoda and the apprentice forge, down the road to the sect gate. Past the guard asleep in his box. Past the left gate pillar.

There was a bench. On the bench, a pack. Beside the pack, five teacups in a row, four of them empty.

Against the pillar, with a Valley cloak pulled up to her chin, a woman was asleep. Her veil had slipped to the side. One hand still held the strap of her pack, as if someone might take it.

Shi Feng's Spirit Sense paused there for a full breath, longer than it had stopped anywhere else.

Then, without being asked, it turned inward.

His Spirit Sense turned through his own body. His hands and throat were whole, but the soul-fire damage still marked his left face. Then he felt the burned hollows filling from beneath. The stiff skin loosened gently. Shi Feng stayed still, afraid to interrupt the restoration.

The infant in his dantian remembered his face as it had been. It had no other memory. The body followed.

He raised a hand and touched his cheek.

The skin was smooth.

For nearly three weeks, he’d avoided touching the burns unless he had to. They never felt like part of him. Now his palm rested against his own warm cheek. He touched it again to be certain. The ruined ridges were gone.

[Spirit Sense: formed | Face: restored | Note: no fee yet]

“Not bad,” Shi Feng said quietly, to the empty chamber.

The door of the chamber opened by itself.

The dawn was grey and cold. He went down the path without a sound, and not one of the sleepers woke. At the gate, someone was sweeping.

Li Changyuan worked in the half-light, in long, slow strokes, around the bench. He swept up to the edge of Ling Qingzhu's cloak and no further. Every stroke was careful. Not a grain of dust rose.

Shi Feng stopped three paces from his master. His Spirit Sense couldn’t read Li Changyuan at all, although everyone else on the peak had been clear. He remembered the words half a step. There was still far more to his master than he understood, and he kept the discovery to himself.

“Sect Master,” Shi Feng said, very low.

“Four days and a night,” Li Changyuan said, without looking up. “Qin Wenhai's wall got chiselled twice. Tian Luo is unbearable. Well?”

“It's done,” Shi Feng said.

The broom stopped.

“Done as in finished,” Li Changyuan said, “or done as in done?”

“Nascent Soul,” Shi Feng said.

Li Changyuan lifted his head and looked at him. It was a long look. The small brown eyes went from Shi Feng's forehead to his chin, and stayed on his cheek.

“Hm,” Li Changyuan said. “It was cheaper ugly. I'd got used to the discount.”

“I can put it back,” Shi Feng said.

“Don't be smart. It doesn't suit you yet.” Li Changyuan leaned the broom against the pillar and lowered his voice until it was barely a thread. “As the saying goes, a tall tree catches the wind. Listen. Inside the gate. Do you hear me? Inside. The Pavilion has been writing since you walked in. The Palace is listening. Outside this wall, you are a Golden Core who needed a very long door. Four days is a hard stage, and nobody will think twice.”

“I understand,” Shi Feng said.

“Don't sell it,” Li Changyuan said.

“I won't,” Shi Feng said.

“Not for a ring. Not for a name. Not even if the lady with the ledger asks nicely,” Li Changyuan said.

“Sima Lan will find out,” Shi Feng said.

“Then she'll find out inside the gate,” Li Changyuan said. “And she'll charge you for knowing. Go.”

Shi Feng nodded.

Li Changyuan picked up his broom again. Over his shoulder, he said:

“She's been here since the third morning. She told the guard she was waiting for a herb delivery,” Li Changyuan said.

Shi Feng looked at Ling Qingzhu asleep against the pillar. Her breathing was slow, and her lashes rested on her cheek. Without her sharp words and watchful expression, she looked younger. She’d come all this way to wait for him.

“What herb?” Shi Feng asked.

“I didn't ask. Cabbages are cheaper,” Li Changyuan said.

He stepped around her. His boots made no sound on the stone, and the veil stayed where it was. The fifth teacup on the bench was still warm. His Spirit Sense told him that too.

He walked on toward the wash trough by the guardhouse. For the first time in three weeks, he wanted to see his own face.