Chapter 609 — The Book and the Tang Offer

CHAPTER 609

The Book and the Tang Offer

The ten days ran out on a hot morning, and the left-hand queue came back to collect.

Tao Xiaoyu had the Commission Book open on the counter, with a brush in her hand and her tongue between her teeth. She’d written the first full page in her neatest characters, and she turned it round so every client could read it.

Sets: 10. Delivered: 5. Furnace: 4. Eaten: 1.

“Eaten?” the grain merchant asked, squinting.

“It’s what the shop calls a loss,” Tao Xiaoyu said briskly. “When a pill dies, the shop eats it.”

Shi Feng kept his face innocent. None of the clients knew that he actually ate the failed pills.

The clients bent over the page. Then they looked at the four pills in the furnace column, which were not theirs.

“Four!” the grain merchant said. “Four surplus pills out of ten sets!”

“He told us,” Uncle Pan said, unbothered. “Nine in ten.”

“My son’s pill is seven clouds,” the grain merchant muttered, holding his little jade bottle up to the light. “Seven…”

He grumbled all the way to the end of the lane. Then he turned round and joined the back of the left-hand queue with a new box under his arm.

So did two others.

“Ha! Look at them,” Tao Erniang said, wiping her hands on her apron in the noodle shop’s doorway. “They read the page, they cry, and they line up again! No merchant without a trick, and this boy’s the worst of them!”

“Rent first, Auntie,” Shi Feng said, and set a small cloth bag on her counter. “That’s what you always say, so I’ve paid it first.”

Tao Erniang weighed the bag in her hand. The debt chalked on her board under PORK BONE, TWO STONES had been three thousand three hundred and twenty since the patrol sergeant’s hundred came off. She looked at the bag, looked at him, and rubbed the chalk off with her sleeve.

“Eighteen thousand one hundred and eighty left,” Tao Xiaoyu announced from the counter. “After the debt.”

Eighteen thousand. A month and a half ago he’d been a slave in a pit. Shi Feng was in such a good mood that he gave the next porter two Stamina Pills instead of one.

At noon a carriage stopped at the mouth of the lane.

It was plain grey, without a crest. But its two horses were matched, its wheels made no sound on the cobbles, and the driver didn’t get down to clear the porters out of the way. He simply waited, and the porters moved by themselves.

“That’s a big family’s carriage,” someone in the queue whispered.

“No crest. That’s a bigger family’s carriage.”

A thin middle-aged man stepped out. His robe was dark grey and perfectly pressed, and he carried a flat lacquered box. He walked past forty porters without looking at any of them and stopped in front of the shop.

“Good day,” Tang Wenbo said politely. “I’m looking for the owner of the sign. Master Feng Shi.”

“That’s me,” Shi Feng said, wiping his hands.

The man bowed exactly as deeply as was correct.

“Tang Wenbo. Steward of the Tang Family,” Tang Wenbo said. “I’m here with an offer.”

The queue went silent. In Wanhe, the Tang name could move grain prices on three rivers.

The Tang Family? Shi Feng thought. A family that large wouldn’t send its steward here just to buy a few pills.

Tang Wenbo opened the lacquered box and held out a sheet of heavy paper.

“The Tang Family will buy this shop,” Tang Wenbo said. “The lease, all current contracts, the Commission Book, and ten years of Master Feng’s hands. Eighty thousand stones, paid in full today.”

Somebody in the queue dropped a bowl.

“Eighty thousand!”

“For a shop with one furnace?”

“The Tang don’t pay for furnaces. They pay for the man at them.”

“…”

Shi Feng took the paper. He read the first line. Then he cleared his throat and read it out loud.

“‘Article one. The Tang Family acquires the shop known as Feng Shi, its lease, sign and goodwill,’” Shi Feng read. He turned to the queue. “That means the sign. Xiaoyu painted that sign. She owns sixty percent of the first day’s tickets.”

“I do!” Tao Xiaoyu shouted.

“‘Article two,’” Shi Feng read on happily. “‘All current commissions transfer to the Tang Family on the same terms.’ So all of you would belong to the Tang. Congratulations.”

The left queue muttered unhappily.

“Master Feng, this is a private offer. It might be better discussed—” Tang Wenbo interrupted, keeping his expression polite.

“‘Article three,’” Shi Feng went on. “‘Master Feng Shi will refine exclusively for the Tang Family for ten years, at a stipend of’—oh, that’s a small number—‘and will not take outside commissions.’” He lowered the paper. “Uncle Pan, what’s ten years of my hands worth, at nine in ten?”

“More than eighty thousand,” Uncle Pan called at once. “A lot more.”

“‘Article four,’” Shi Feng read.

“Master Feng,” Tang Wenbo said.

Tang Wenbo was still polite, but he was no longer comfortable. Sweat appeared at his temple as forty porters watched him try to stop the public reading.

“Might we,” Tang Wenbo said carefully, “step inside?”