Chapter 607 — Tea with the Old House

CHAPTER 607

Tea with the Old House

“Your hall isn’t badly built, Grandmaster Zhuo,” Shi Feng said, pouring the second pot. “It’s just facing the wrong way.”

Zhuo Tingsong put his cup down. Half his beard had been trimmed short to hide yesterday’s scorch. The other half was still burnt at the tips.

The Zhuo house sat on the river terrace at the far end of Lamp-Oil Lane. Its tea room looked across a strip of water at the furnace hall, a grey building with four tall vents on its river side. Two old masters shared the table, Master Hou and Master Ruan, both 3 Mark, both invited that morning to get a good look at the frontier boy.

They’d got their look. Neither of them had been impressed.

“The wrong way?” Master Hou asked, stroking his whiskers. “That hall has stood for eighty years, boy.”

“Then your afternoon firings have run hot for eighty years,” Shi Feng replied, setting down his cup.

“Explain,” Zhuo Tingsong said.

“Your vents face the river,” Shi Feng said. “Every afternoon, around the hour of the Goat, the wind comes up the water from the south. It pushes into the vents instead of pulling the smoke out. Your fire jumps by a third. Yesterday your apprentice put his third herb in at his morning count. The count was right. The fire wasn’t.”

“Nonsense,” Master Ruan snapped. “A Soul Formation-grade fire is held by the alchemist’s qi, not by some breeze.”

“It is, for a 4 Mark,” Shi Feng agreed. “Your apprentices aren’t 4 Marks.”

Master Ruan’s face went red. Shi Feng tore a strip from his napkin, walked to the window and held it out over the water. The cloth streamed straight back toward the furnace hall, showing them the wind’s direction.

“It’s the hour of the Goat now,” Shi Feng said. “Look at the smoke.”

Three old heads turned. The smoke from the four vents wasn’t rising. It bent over, dipped and slid straight back inside the building.

Master Hou’s expression changed. Master Ruan’s mouth opened and stayed open.

“Close the two river vents after noon,” Shi Feng said. “Or fire the hard herbs in the morning. Either one. It costs you nothing.”

Master Hou already had a notebook out. Then Master Ruan pulled out his. The table was too small for a drawing of the whole hall, so Master Hou spread his sheet on the floor and knelt over it. Master Ruan got down beside him, muttering about vent angles. Soon both old men were kneeling over the drawing with ink on their fingers, too interested to worry about their rank.

Zhuo Tingsong looked around. The boy was standing at the window. His two guests were on the floor. He was the only person in the room still sitting in a chair.

Zhuo Tingsong coughed and stayed in his chair. He was deeply interested too, but refused to join his guests on the floor.

“Hearing you speak once is better than ten years of reading books,” Zhuo Tingsong said slowly.

Shi Feng only smiled and sat back down.

“The waves behind push the waves ahead,” Master Ruan murmured, still drawing.

Zhuo Tingsong refilled his own cup and looked at Shi Feng for a long time.

“Young friend,” Zhuo Tingsong said.

Shi Feng noticed. Yesterday it had been “boy” all afternoon.

“This old man will be plain,” Zhuo Tingsong went on. “First, a letter in my hand to the herb houses on Mortar Street and to the other Old House. With the Zhuo name, you’ll buy at wholesale and on credit. Second, a standing seat at our table on the first of every month, when the masters of this city drink tea and insult each other. Third…” He snorted. “My grandson says you asked his apprentice what was in the slag pot. If you want waste, take it. My apprentices make a sack a week.”

Shi Feng’s heart jumped. On the outside, he only nodded politely.

A sack a week. Every failure in that sack still held the full worth of its herbs, and the old man was offering it like kitchen scraps.

“That’s generous, Grandmaster,” Shi Feng said. “Could I have it in writing?”

“You want this old man’s word in ink?” Zhuo Tingsong asked, raising his eyebrows.

“That’s a question,” Shi Feng said pleasantly. “At my counter, questions cost a copper.”

The room went quiet. Master Hou snorted into his notebook. Zhuo Tingsong stared at the frontier boy who was billing a 4 Mark in his own tea room. Then he dug into his sleeve and slapped a copper coin on the table.

“Thank you,” Shi Feng said, pocketing the copper. “Here’s your answer. I can show the herb houses a letter with your seal. If I arrive repeating your promises, they’ll send someone to bother you for confirmation.”

“Shameless!” Zhuo Tingsong said. But he was already grinding the inkstick.

He wrote three lines, stamped the Zhuo seal and pushed it across. Shi Feng read it twice and folded it into his sleeve.

The old fox wants me close enough to advise him again, Shi Feng thought happily. A letter and a seat are a cheap price for that. But he has no idea how much that weekly sack is worth to me.

That night the lane was dark except for one lamp in Old Tao’s kitchen.

Shi Feng was sweeping the shop floor when someone knocked at the back door. It was three careful taps, very soft, the knock of someone who didn’t want the neighbours to hear.

Ji Yuanhe looked up from his stool by the cold furnace.

“…Three,” Ji Yuanhe said.

Shi Feng opened the door. Three young apprentices in Zhuo house aprons stood in the alley. Between them, they dragged a heavy sack that scraped along the alley stones. It clinked when they set it down.

The tallest one glanced over his shoulder and grinned.

“Failures,” the apprentice whispered. “A copper each.”