Chapter 538 — The Poor One

CHAPTER 538

The Poor One

A pine tree lay across the road, and twenty men stood behind it.

The carriage stopped so suddenly that Wan Hu nearly fell off the driver's bench. He raised both hands, though nobody had asked him to, and said in a very high voice that he was only a driver.

“Toll!” One-Ear Fu shouted from the front of the gang.

He was thick-armed, with one ear missing and a curved saber over his shoulder. Behind him, nineteen others waved cudgels, hooks and one hoe.

“Rings, bags and travelling cases!” One-Ear Fu shouted. “And whatever the lady is hiding behind that veil! The Seven Ridge Gang takes it all! The mountain is high and the emperor is far away!”

Inside the carriage, Sima Lan lowered her account book.

“Early Foundation Establishment,” Sima Lan said. “The rest are Bone Refinement at best. The hoe is Qi Condensation.”

“I know,” Shi Feng said.

His Spirit Sense had swept the road long before the horses slowed. He used it as quietly as he could, and he didn't mention it.

Ling Qingzhu lifted a corner of the curtain with one finger.

“Shall I?” Ling Qingzhu asked.

“No need,” Shi Feng said.

“It would be quicker,” Ling Qingzhu said.

“It would be louder,” Shi Feng said. “I'd rather try something else.”

He leaned out of the window, took a black iron badge from his belt and held it up in the winter light. It was the size of his palm. A small furnace was cast into its face, and below it was one red character: Core.

One-Ear Fu squinted at it. Then he stopped squinting.

“That's… that's…” One-Ear Fu said.

“Artificer Hall,” a bandit whispered behind him. “The core disciple badge.”

“The one with the invoices?”

“My cousin's in the Black Water gang! They pay a tenth of their wages to that sect for uniforms!”

“They took forty-three thousand stones from three Martial Palace vaults and left a thank-you note!”

“The Iron Fist Gate sent a letter and got a bill back!”

“Boss, this is the tournament champion. The one who sends the bill first. We've kicked an iron plate!”

One-Ear Fu's face turned pale. His saber slid off his shoulder and landed in the snow.

“Sir,” One-Ear Fu said, in a voice much smaller than before. “We didn't know. If we'd known, we would never have stood in your road. We would have… stood in someone else's road.”

“Move the tree,” Shi Feng said.

Nineteen men grabbed the pine at once. The hoe-carrier tried to lift it by himself and was pushed aside. Within moments the road was clear, and the gang was running up the ridge so fast that one man lost both shoes.

They had also left a small wooden toll box on the ground.

Sima Lan stepped down, picked it up, and counted it.

“Eleven stones and some copper,” Sima Lan said. “Found property. I'll file it under road maintenance.”

“Is that all it takes?” Ling Qingzhu asked. She was amused now, watching the last bandit scramble over the ridge. “A little iron badge?”

“It's a good badge,” Shi Feng said.

“Your sect has a terrible reputation,” Ling Qingzhu said.

“It's accurate,” Shi Feng said.

The Great Liang border post stood three days later at the mouth of a stone pass.

It had a red gate, a tax shed and a very long queue. A banner hung over the tower: Stone Ford Pass, Great Liang, Southern Frontier. Merchants shuffled forward with their carts while clerks stamped slips and collected coin.

A fat official in a green robe sat at the front table under an awning, drinking tea. His wooden nameplate said Registrar Pan Gui. When the carriage reached him, he held out his hand without looking up.

“Papers,” Registrar Pan Gui said.

Shi Feng passed up his badge and his travel slip. Pan Gui read the first line, then the second, and then laughed so hard that tea ran down his chin.

“Artificer Hall!” Pan Gui said. “The sect with the broom. Everyone says their champion is the poor one. Is that you?”

“Yes,” Shi Feng said.

The clerks around the table stopped working. A few merchants in the queue turned to look.

“He admits it!” Pan Gui said happily. “Poor ones use the left shed. There's a surcharge of two hundred stones for sects without a registered treasury, and a wait of three days for inspection.” He glanced at the plain carriage. “Do you have two hundred stones, young master?”

“I don't have two hundred stones,” Shi Feng said.

Shi Feng had more than enough stones. He wanted to see how far this registrar would push the false charge. Behind the curtain, Ling Qingzhu pressed her lips together very firmly.

“Then the left shed,” Pan Gui said, waving a hand. “Next!”

Sima Lan stepped out of the carriage.

She said nothing. She took a white jade token from her sleeve, carved with a coiled dragon and the single character Sima, and set it on the table, face up, beside his teacup.

Pan Gui looked at it. His face turned pale. He scrambled off the chair and fell to his knees beside the table.

“Princess!” Pan Gui cried, striking his forehead against the stones. “This lowly one is blind! This lowly one has the eyes of a pig!”

The whole queue knelt after him, without any idea why. Sima Lan collected her token.

“Stand up, Registrar,” Sima Lan said. “You're blocking the shed. Stamp the slip, and we'll go through the front gate.”

The stamp came down at once.

When the carriage rolled through the red gate, Sima Lan sat back in her seat and opened her account book.

“That's one use of my name,” Sima Lan said, writing. “It goes on your account.”

“What's the rate?” Shi Feng asked.

“It depends on how far they kneel,” Sima Lan said.

Past the gate the road bent toward Qingshi. A mile on, a white banner showed above the trees, and on it was a crane in flight.