Chapter 608 — The First Commission Ledger

CHAPTER 608

The First Commission Ledger

“Sixty-two,” Ji Yuanhe said, and put the last grey lump on the table.

Sixty-two failed pills lay in rows on the shop counter, scorched, cracked and lopsided. Shi Feng counted out sixty-two coppers into the tallest apprentice’s hand. The three of them ran off down the alley, giggling, sure they’d just cheated the frontier bumpkin out of a whole string of money.

Shi Feng swept the lumps into a jar and sealed it. Sixty-two pills’ worth of Nascent Soul-grade herbs, for the price of a bowl of noodles. Shi Feng was pleased with the purchase. The apprentices had no idea how valuable those failures were to him.

By morning the queue had split in two.

Tao Xiaoyu had painted a new board and hung it on the doorpost. STAMINA PILLS: RIGHT. COMMISSIONS: LEFT. The right side was porters, as usual. The left side was something new: men in good silk, holding boxes against their chests.

“Soul Formation-grade sets,” Tao Xiaoyu whispered, peeking out. “Master Feng, there are ten of them!”

Nobody else in Wanhe would take a Soul Formation-grade set. The Zhuo hall was booked through the winter. The Pavilion’s own halls quoted a year’s wait, and a man with an old wound or a stuck breakthrough didn’t always have a year. Word of the seven clouds over the Zhuo hall had gone round the city.

The first client was a fat grain merchant. He held his box out with both hands and didn’t let go of it, clearly afraid to entrust such expensive herbs to a stranger.

“Two sets of Soul-Tempering herbs,” the grain merchant said. “For one pill. My son’s breakthrough.”

“Two thousand four hundred a set, paid now,” Shi Feng said. “You’ll have the pill in ten days. Xiaoyu, read him the clause before he signs.”

Tao Xiaoyu cleared her throat and read from the template in her loudest voice.

“Sets beyond the delivered half, and any waste, belong to the furnace!” Tao Xiaoyu read.

“And if there’s a surplus?” the grain merchant asked.

“Then it belongs to the furnace,” Shi Feng said.

The queue laughed. Everyone knew there was never a surplus. The grain merchant laughed too, wiped his eyes, and finally let go of his box.

Behind him, a young man in a blue robe was reading the template with a frown. An old steward with a white queue leaned over his shoulder.

“First time?” Uncle Pan asked.

“My father wants a pill,” the young man said. “But this clause…”

“Listen,” Uncle Pan said, tapping the paper. “We plan on half. He gets nine in ten. And we still come.”

The young man stared at him. “Then why does anyone sign?”

“Because his pills come out at six and seven clouds. Because it’s ten days and not a year. And because nobody else in this city will even light the fire.” Uncle Pan shrugged. “Good steel goes on the blade’s edge, young master. You’re not paying for the herbs. You’re paying for the fire.”

Shi Feng beamed at them both.

“He’s right,” Shi Feng said, addressing the young man directly. “I’ll explain the odds before you decide. I succeed about nine times in ten. You bring two sets. One pill goes to your father. If the second one lives, it’s mine. If one dies, the loss is mine too. Most weeks, I win.” He bowed to the steward. “Thank you for the honest arithmetic, Uncle. Nobody ever does my sums for me for free.”

The young man looked at the board, at the queue, and at the old steward. Then he signed.

The last client in the left queue had no box of money at all. He was a lean swordsman with a patched sleeve, and he set down a set of herbs and a thin, worn book.

“I can’t pay the fee,” the swordsman said stiffly. “That’s the Nine-Turn Spirit Needle. Nascent Soul-grade, a Spirit Sense art. It was my master’s. It’s worth more than your fee.”

Shi Feng turned a page and saw the diagrams. The man wasn’t lying.

“It is,” Shi Feng agreed after checking the diagrams. “Xiaoyu, write him down as paid.”

Two days and ten furnaces later, nine pills had lived. The tenth had cracked at the fifth cloud. Shi Feng had felt it go and had let it, because a shop with a perfect record attracts the wrong kind of questions.

That night the lane was quiet. Ji Yuanhe sat at the back table with a small knife, scraping black wax off two bundles of roots. The wax had sealed them since the Pill Pit’s vault. Every scrape was counted.

“Forty,” Ji Yuanhe said. “Forty-one.”

“You haven’t missed a scrape, Master Ji,” Shi Feng remarked, watching his steady hands.

“Forty-two,” Ji Yuanhe said.

Shi Feng ate the cracked pill first. Then the jar of sixty-two. Then the two lots of Pill Pit roots, raw, one after the other.

The Pill Pit roots released a fierce heat in his stomach. The All-Devouring Physique took them apart and poured their worth into his dantian. His Nascent Soul, stalled at mid Nascent Soul for weeks, began to absorb the incoming qi and swell. Its outline sharpened. The small face on it grew clear, and its hands closed into fists.

This is the supply I needed, Shi Feng thought. Sixty-two failed pills at a copper each, plus the roots from the Pit. He could finally advance without wasting months looking for affordable herbs.

Something gave way with a soft click inside him.

Late Nascent Soul.

He sat in the dark for a while, breathing, until the heat settled. Then he opened the swordsman’s book. The Nine-Turn Spirit Needle gathered Spirit Sense into a single thread and drove it through a point instead of sweeping it across a room. By the time the roosters started, he could make one turn of the needle without the thread falling apart.

Entry. He grinned at the ceiling. Somebody’s master had been a very good teacher.

The back door creaked. Tao Xiaoyu came in with the Commission Book under her arm and an ink brush behind her ear, yawning.

“Master Feng,” Tao Xiaoyu said, opening the Book to a fresh page. “What do I write under ‘Furnace’?”