Chapter 613 — The Perfect Pill

CHAPTER 613

The Perfect Pill

The old general arrived in a sedan chair, and he didn’t like it.

“Put me down,” Ge Hongtu growled, gripping his staff. “I’m not a bride.”

Four soldiers lowered the chair at the mouth of Lamp-Oil Lane. The man who climbed out was over three hundred years old, broad as a door and leaning on a staff of black iron. One sleeve was pinned up empty. His Soul Formation aura wavered with every step. Even the porters could tell that he was badly hurt.

The porters on the right-hand bench went quiet and moved their bowls out of his way.

His aide hurried ahead with a long box. He was a grey-haired officer with a soldier’s back and a clerk’s tired eyes.

“Master Feng. Yue Shan, aide to Old General Ge Hongtu,” Yue Shan said, bowing. “The Pavilion branch sent us. Two sets of Soul-Mending herbs. The general’s soul pool was cracked at the Black Ford, forty years ago. Every year the crack widens.”

“Forty years,” Shi Feng said. “Why come now?”

“Because every pill he’s tried was Common, and Common only glues it,” Yue Shan said. “The general has kept these herbs for two years and refused every hall that couldn’t promise better. Iron rusts when idle. This is his morning.”

Old General Ge Hongtu lowered himself onto the noodle bench and glared at the shop.

“A boy,” Ge Hongtu said. “The Pavilion sent me to a boy.”

“A boy with a furnace, General,” Shi Feng said cheerfully. “And a fee of nine thousand. Paid before the lid comes off, since you’re going to shout at me either way.”

Ge Hongtu stared at him. Then the old man laughed, one hard bark, and nodded to his aide. Yue Shan counted out the stones. Tao Xiaoyu wrote it down so fast her brush squeaked.

The back room was hot and dim. Shi Feng opened the first set and laid out the herbs in their order.

“Master Ji,” Shi Feng said. “I need you today.”

Ji Yuanhe looked up from his stool.

“Count for me,” Shi Feng said. “Slow. One count a breath. Don’t stop, whatever you hear.”

“One,” Ji Yuanhe said.

Next door, Tao Xiaoyu had gone back to stirring the big pot, and her ladle knocked the rim in time. Shi Feng lit the fire.

“Two. Three. Four,” Ji Yuanhe said.

At the twelfth count the first herb melted. At the thirtieth he fed in the soul-moss, and the fire dipped and steadied. Ji Yuanhe counted steadily, without speeding up when the furnace shook. Shi Feng trusted that rhythm and concentrated on controlling the fire instead of counting breaths himself.

“Sixty. Sixty-one,” Ji Yuanhe went on.

The cold herbs went in at ninety. The furnace shook. Outside, the queue had gone completely silent. Even the porters had stopped slurping.

“One hundred and four,” Ji Yuanhe said.

Shi Feng lifted the lid.

The pill rose, pale gold with a thin blue line around its middle, and the clouds gathered over the roof of Lamp-Oil Lane.

One. Two. Three. Four.

“Four clouds!”

Five. Six.

“Major Success!”

Seven.

“Seven again, like at the Zhuo hall!”

Eight.

The eighth cloud spread wide and white above the lane, and stayed.

“Eight…”

“That’s Perfect. That’s a Perfect pill!”

“From a shop next to a noodle stall?”

“…”

Shi Feng let the fire die. Eight was right. Eight was the number a lucky boy reached on a very good day.

In the crowd at the lane’s mouth, an old man with whiskers had pushed to the front with a notebook under his arm. It was Master Hou, from Zhuo’s tea room. His hands were shaking.

“A Perfect Soul Formation-grade pill from a 3 Mark,” Master Hou said hoarsely. “The last one in Wanhe was eleven years ago. Old Master Qiu, the month before he sat his 4 Mark. A thing like that is as rare as phoenix feathers and qilin horns.”

The whole lane heard him.

Shi Feng carried the pill out on a white dish. Old General Ge Hongtu looked at it for a long time. Then he swallowed it without a word and closed his eyes.

Ge Hongtu’s wavering aura steadied. Colour returned to his face, and Yue Shan realised the pill was working better than the general’s old medicine.

“…Hm,” Ge Hongtu said.

Yue Shan turned away and wiped his eyes with his sleeve.

The second set came out at seven clouds and went into the furnace column. Nobody even noticed.

“Rent first!” Tao Erniang shouted.

She was standing in the doorway with her ladle, before the general’s sedan had even left the lane.

“The three months are up today,” Tao Erniang said. “Today! I don’t care if you made a phoenix egg. Four thousand, or I’ll put the old man’s stool out on the street myself.”

“Auntie, I just made the best pill in eleven years,” Shi Feng said.

“And I made the best noodles in eleven years every morning since you came!” Tao Erniang snapped. “Pay up!”

Shi Feng paid. He did it gladly. Three months ago he’d stood on this step with less than eight hundred stones and a counting old man on his back. Now he counted out four thousand without looking, and the box still felt heavy.

Tao Xiaoyu ran the abacus twice and wrote a line at the bottom of the page.

“Sixty thousand,” Tao Xiaoyu announced. “And twelve copper.”

“…Twelve,” Ji Yuanhe said, looking very satisfied with the number.

Shi Feng laughed so hard that Tao Erniang hit him with her ladle.

That was when the runner came down the lane in a Zhuo house apron. He bowed and held out a folded slip with a red seal.

The runner handed over Grandmaster Zhuo’s message: an appointment at the Records Hall the day after tomorrow. At the end, the old master warned him to bring ten thousand stones.