Chapter 541 — Tempered

CHAPTER 541

Tempered

Second Elder Shi Zhen met the carriage at the gate in his best purple robe, and he bowed so deeply that his hat nearly fell off.

“Nephew!” Shi Zhen cried. “Nephew, at last! Look at you! Look at how tall you've grown!”

“I was tall when I left,” Shi Feng said.

“Taller, then!” Shi Zhen cried, seizing his sleeve and steering him through the gate. He kept turning toward the clansmen to make sure they saw his welcome. “Come, come! The whole clan is waiting!”

The main hall had been decorated. Red lanterns hung from every beam. Three long tables groaned under duck, pork, steamed fish and a pyramid of sticky rice cakes with red dots on top. Over sixty Shi clansmen stood when Shi Feng entered, and every one of them smiled. Several hurried to move chairs that were already out of the way.

Clan Head Shi Rong waited at the head table, an old man with a long grey beard. He nodded once, gravely, and waited until the room quieted before speaking.

“Welcome home, Shi Feng,” Shi Rong said. “Sit. Eat.”

“Thank you, Clan Head,” Shi Feng said.

Ling Qingzhu and Sima Lan took the seats beside him. Whispers ran along the tables. The first fairy. Truly, that one. And the princess, second on the register. Both of them with him.

Shi Zhen did not sit. He stood up with a cup in his hand and tapped it for silence.

“Clansmen!” Shi Zhen said. “Tonight we welcome home the pride of the Shi Clan! The tournament champion! A 3 Mark alchemist at twenty-one! A core disciple of Artificer Hall!” He wiped one eye. “And I will say, since honesty is a virtue, that I always knew he would rise.”

“Always,” a relative echoed.

“It was I who insisted on the eastern courtyard,” Shi Zhen went on, warming. “It was I who set his rations, who sent him alone into the marsh to learn the road. Some called it harsh. But the ancients said it best: jade must be cut and ground before it becomes a vessel!” He lifted his cup. “It was I who tempered him!”

“Well said!” the relatives cried.

“A wise elder!”

“What a clan!”

Shi Feng picked up his chopsticks. He said nothing about jade. After a moment Shi Zhen sat down again, slightly confused by the silence.

A servant set a bowl of rice before Shi Feng. Then another. Then a third and a fourth, in a neat row. The servant's hands shook so badly that the bowls clinked.

Shi Feng looked up. The man was heavy, with flour on his sleeve and a face that had once been full of confidence.

“Zhao Fu,” Shi Feng said.

“Four bowls, Young Master,” Zhao Fu whispered. “For the eastern courtyard. I, I thought…”

“Thank you,” Shi Feng said.

Zhao Fu bowed and fled toward the kitchen.

“Four bowls?” Sima Lan murmured, looking at the row.

“It used to be the number,” Shi Feng said.

She said nothing more. She took out her brush and wrote a very small line in the margin of her ledger.

The meal went on. Relatives came to the table, one after another, as if they had been waiting in a queue.

“Nephew Feng,” Shi Mao said, leaning over the table. His red nose almost touched the steam from the fish. “I am your Third Uncle Shi Mao. My boy Shi Bao is a good boy, a diligent boy. Artificer Hall must need diligent boys. When one man attains the Dao, even his chickens and dogs ascend to heaven, they say. A word from you…”

A woman in yellow pressed closer, calling him Cousin Feng. Her mother had been ill for years, she said; surely he could spare a small longevity pill for a relative.

A thin young man waited for her to finish, then whispered a request for a small loan, only until spring.

“Say your conditions,” Shi Feng said, to all three at once.

They stared at him. They had not been told there would be conditions.

“Tomorrow,” Shi Mao said finally, backing away. “We will discuss it tomorrow.”

At the head of the second table, Shi Zhen leaned forward, pleased with how well the evening was going. “Nephew, I hope you will not think badly of the old days,” Shi Zhen said. “I have kept careful accounts of every expense of your upbringing. Every stone. Every bowl. I would be glad to show them to you.”

Shi Feng put down his chopsticks.

“The ninth day of the second month, four years ago,” Shi Feng said.

The hall went quiet. It was not a loud voice. It simply arrived in every ear at once.

“The eastern courtyard's ration was cut from four bowls to two,” Shi Feng said. “Entered in Zhao Fu's hand. ‘By order of the Second Elder.’ The same morning, a White Crane Pavilion carriage arrived at the front gate.”

Nobody breathed. Shi Zhen's cup stopped halfway to his mouth.

“I kept accounts too,” Shi Feng said.

“Nephew,” Shi Zhen said, “that was a, a clerical…”

“I'd like to see yours,” Shi Feng said. “When the Clan Head allows.”

Shi Rong stroked his beard. “The Clan Head allows,” Shi Rong said.

Shi Zhen's face went white, then grey. A relative quietly edged his chair away from him.

A new voice rose from the doorway.

“You're thinner,” Shi Yulan said.

Shi Yulan stood just inside the hall with her arms crossed and a wooden tray on one hip. She wore a plain brown dress, and her hair was pinned up in a hurry. She did not smile. She was visibly annoyed by the crowded hall and the untouched food in front of her nephew.

“Auntie,” Shi Feng said.

“Famous people eat, I'm told,” Shi Yulan said. “So why do you look like a scarecrow?” She walked across the hall, put two steamed buns on his plate and glared at Ling Qingzhu. “And you. You're the wife. You're thin too.”

“I'm Ling Qingzhu,” Ling Qingzhu said. She hadn't looked so flustered in years. “It's an honour to—”

“Eat,” Shi Yulan ordered. “Both of you.” Then, lower, only for Shi Feng: “Tomorrow's the gift table. They've been preparing for a month. Eat well tonight, brat. You'll want the strength.”