Chapter 578 — The Corridor Alchemist

CHAPTER 578

The Corridor Alchemist

“Receiver Ning’s orders,” the guard said, dropping the cot’s legs on the stone. “Let the boy see what uncooperative looks like.”

The man on the cot was small and bald, wrapped in a blanket with old burn holes in it. His fingers never stopped moving. They stirred a furnace that wasn’t there, round and round, very slowly.

Shi Feng knew the voice before he knew the face.

“Ah,” Pei Wuyan said, looking up at the slot in Shi Feng’s door. “The rude boy. They have given me a room with a view.”

After the guards left, Pei Wuyan spoke politely to an absent charcoal merchant. Shi Feng had never heard of the city he named. Then the old man stopped mid-word and looked toward the slot. For a moment, he recognised where he was.

“My soul is cracking, young friend,” Pei Wuyan said, in his ordinary formal voice. “Nine years of refusing has a cost. It comes in pieces now. Soon it will not come back.”

“What do you need, Master Pei?” Shi Feng asked through the slot.

“A suppressant. The Still-Lake Pill. I can give you the formula,” Pei Wuyan said. “It buys three clear days. After that, the crack runs all the way, and the rest of the year goes with it.” He smiled a little. “Three clear days, against a year of talking to charcoal merchants. It is a good price.”

Shi Feng thought about where the herbs would come from.

He could only take them from his quota. Keeping the scraps from one short furnace would cost him half rations. Shi Feng considered that price without hesitation. Pei Wuyan needed the pill, and the kitchen couldn’t punish him for anything more than a failed batch.

Then I’ll pull it short, Shi Feng decided.

He didn’t say so.

“Young friend?” Pei Wuyan asked. When there was no answer, his voice went thin. “Please. I have no right to ask. I have nothing to pay with. I have not begged anyone in nine years, and I am begging you.”

“Three days is a bargain, Master Pei,” Shi Feng said cheerfully. “I’ll take the rest of the year on credit.”

“…” Pei Wuyan said.

Then the old man laughed, a small, rusty sound, and slowly recited the formula through the slot.

The next cycle, at his third quota furnace, Shi Feng dropped his tongs.

“Short furnace! Station nine!” Kong Ba shouted. “Half rations, boy! That’s twice now you’ve thrown my herbs on the floor!”

“S-sorry, Overseer Kong,” Shi Feng said, and swept the spilled scraps into his apron like a boy cleaning up his shame.

He kept them there until the dead hour.

The dead hour came near the end of every shift, when the halls were full of steam from twelve furnaces and Clerk Shu’s count slowed to its sleepiest. Shi Feng lit his last furnace for the quota pill, and in the corner of the same fire, on a scrap of iron, he set the scraps.

The Still-Lake Pill was a simple recipe. It was a 3 Mark’s pill, and Pei Wuyan’s formula was clean. The trouble was the herbs. They were root ends and leaf dust, swept off the floor. But Shi Feng had eaten enough sweepings by now to know exactly what was in each one.

Root ends and dust would have to serve, Shi Feng thought. Pei Wuyan didn’t have time for him to wait for better ingredients.

The quota pill gave four clouds, steady and unremarkable. Beside it, tucked into the steam, the scraps gave two more, so small and pale that they melted straight into the others.

“Station nine. Four. Pass,” Clerk Shu said, without looking up.

He lifted the small brown pill from the fire with two fingers. Two clouds, Common, and ugly by any alchemist’s measure. Shi Feng was deeply relieved. For once, the appearance of his work didn’t matter; he only needed it to keep a man lucid.

He tucked it inside his cheek and went back to his cell looking miserable about his rations.

Kong Ba was sitting on an upturned bucket in the corridor that night, cracking melon seeds beside the cot.

“Receiver Ning wants to know when he goes,” Kong Ba said, spitting a shell. “I’m to sit here and tell him. Boring job.”

“Is he very sick, Overseer Kong?” Shi Feng asked through the slot.

“He’s very stubborn,” Kong Ba said. “Same thing, down here.”

Pei Wuyan was talking to the charcoal merchant again.

“Master Pei,” Shi Feng said, pushing his empty water bowl out through the slot. “Could you give my bowl to the guard? It’s too far for me.”

Kong Ba didn’t even look up. He was working on a stubborn seed.

Pei Wuyan’s moving fingers found the bowl. Under it, a small brown pill rolled into his palm. The fingers closed. A moment later, he put his hand to his mouth like an old man coughing.

Shi Feng watched through the slot. Pei Wuyan had refused this house for nine years. If Ning Zhe could display his broken soul until every prisoner accepted the warning, refusing would become harder for the next man. He wouldn’t help them make that lesson.

Pei Wuyan lay still for a long time.

Then his fingers stopped stirring.

He lifted his hand and looked at it, as if it belonged to somebody else. He turned his head, very slowly, and looked straight at the slot in Shi Feng’s door with clear, sharp, entirely sane eyes.

“Young friend,” Pei Wuyan said quietly. “That was a terrible pill.”

“Two clouds, Master Pei,” Shi Feng whispered back. “You’re welcome.”

Kong Ba yawned, spat out a shell and looked at the cot.

“Huh. The old fool’s stopped talking to himself,” Kong Ba said, unbothered. “They do that near the end.”

“Good evening, Overseer,” Pei Wuyan said politely. “I find I have three days. I intend to spend them complaining.”