Chapter 531 — Paid in Full

CHAPTER 531

Paid in Full

Li Changyuan was weighing two cabbages against each other when Shi Feng put a folded sheet on his knee.

The old man didn't look at it. He held the left cabbage up to the light, then the right one, and sniffed both.

“What's this?” Li Changyuan asked.

“My account,” Shi Feng said.

“I keep forty accounts. Which one?” Li Changyuan said.

“The one with my name on it,” Shi Feng said.

Li Changyuan finally looked at him and opened the sheet. Zhu Liu waited two steps behind, hugging his receipt book. He’d copied the account three times that morning. Shi Feng had made sure the old man couldn’t dismiss it as an unfinished calculation.

It was a long list. Hut nine's rent for every month since Shi Feng arrived. The Pagoda points the sect had advanced him. Two sacks of Marrow-Warming Pills from the cellar. The last line was newer, in Zhu Liu's careful hand: One breakthrough room, thirty days at sixty stones, four of them used, paid by the Sect Master himself. Priceless.

Someone had crossed out “priceless” and written a number. Across the bottom, in red ink, were three characters.

Paid in full.

A heavy pouch sat beside the bucket.

“Four thousand three hundred and ten stones,” Shi Feng said. “Zhu Liu counted twice.”

“Three times, Sect Master,” Zhu Liu said. “The second time I got a different number.”

Li Changyuan read the sheet from top to bottom. His mouth went thin.

“It says paid in full,” Li Changyuan said.

“Yes,” Shi Feng said.

“Even the room? I paid for that room myself! A man gives a gift, and you hand the stones back?” Li Changyuan said.

“It's on the list,” Shi Feng said.

“A gift can't go on a list!” Li Changyuan said.

“Then why did you haggle over it for an hour first?” Shi Feng said.

Li Changyuan opened his mouth, then closed it.

“There's interest,” Li Changyuan said at last. “A bill this old has interest. Three percent a month, backdated.”

“It says paid in full,” Shi Feng said.

“I can read, boy!” Li Changyuan said.

“Then don't haggle,” Shi Feng said.

Li Changyuan glared at the red ink. Shi Feng knew why he was upset. A disciple who owed the sect money had a reason to stay. With the account closed, his master could no longer pretend that debt was keeping him here.

“You owe nothing now,” Li Changyuan said, with no haggle in his voice at all. “You could walk out that gate tomorrow.”

“I know,” Shi Feng said.

“And?” Li Changyuan said.

“I'm just not staying on credit anymore,” Shi Feng said.

Li Changyuan stayed silent for a while. Then he tucked the sheet away and carefully lifted the heavy pouch. He didn’t look pleased, but he accepted it. Shi Feng was relieved; this wasn’t a payment he wanted to argue over again.

“Short,” Li Changyuan muttered. “Zhu Liu. Write me a receipt.”

“Yes, Sect Master. What should I write?” Zhu Liu said.

“Write that I'm unhappy,” Li Changyuan said.

Zhu Liu wrote it down. He had written stranger things.

The Sword Pagoda yard was nearly empty. Keeper Ou sat by the door, and his tea stood on a flat stone twelve paces away, where it had stood since Shi Feng's first visit. Today the cup stood a little farther out.

Shi Feng stepped into the third floor's ring and stopped. The room felt crowded.

Every beam and dust mote reached him at once, along with Keeper Ou’s breathing beyond the door. His Spirit Sense was only hours old. He hadn’t learned how to ignore what it showed him. Shi Feng drew it close until it hugged his skin and left the rest of the room alone.

Better, he thought.

He drew the grey sword and ran the Severing River Sword once, slowly. The last turn had been stubborn for months. A line of qi left the blade, parted, and met itself on the far side of the ring. A bowl of water on the rack split in two. Neither half spilled. They stood side by side and sank into the floor a breath later.

Three sets of footsteps hurried in.

“That's Perfection!” Keeper Ou said. His voice came out strangled. “At your last visit it was Major Success!”

“The last man took sixty years! The waves behind push the waves ahead!” Keeper Bian said, clutching the third floor's record book.

“So-so,” Shi Feng said.

Keeper Ou sat on the floor, overwhelmed. Keeper Bian wrote the date in very small characters. This time he didn’t ask anyone to hide the result. Too many people had seen the water part; begging for secrecy now would serve no purpose.

“I'm going to need smaller characters,” Keeper Bian said.

On the way out, his Spirit Sense brushed the third pillar and stopped. A finger-wide crack ran down it, and something warm sat inside. He pulled out a parcel in oiled paper that smelled of smoke.

It was a sweet potato.

“Junior Brother!” Lin Langtian's voice floated down from the roof, wounded and loud. “That potato has great sentimental value!”

“It's still warm,” Shi Feng said.

“I sat on it for an hour!” Lin Langtian said.

“Roof tile, two floors up, four paces left of the chimney,” Shi Feng said. “Please stop moving. You're making it easy.”

A guilty rustle came from overhead.

“Spirit Sense,” Lin Langtian said, in a hushed voice. “It's a crime against potatoes!”

Shi Feng pushed the potato back into its crack and patted the pillar once.

“Leave it,” Shi Feng said. “It's yours. I'm not hungry.”

The rustle on the roof stopped. Lin Langtian, for once, had no answer.

Sima Lan was waiting at the yard gate with her slate under her arm, and she had clearly watched all of it.

“The stall opens in Duanyang tomorrow,” Sima Lan said. “I sold the first twenty places in the queue. Everyone wants to see the face.”

“You sold places in a queue,” Shi Feng said.

“Two stones each. They were gone by breakfast,” Sima Lan said. She tapped the slate. “Also, a Valley disciple stood at our gate for two days. She left an hour ago. She asked where the stall would be.”

“And?” Shi Feng said.

“I told her,” Sima Lan said. “Free of charge. Please don't mention it.”