Chapter 619 — Lesson Twenty-Nine

CHAPTER 619

Lesson Twenty-Nine

The shop was shuttered by the second watch, but nobody in it was asleep.

In the back room, Ji Yuanhe sat on his pallet and counted. Tao Xiaoyu sat on the crate beside him and counted with him, one number behind, the way she did at the furnace. Tao Erniang had shouted twice over the wall that a girl of fourteen needed her sleep, then sent over a bowl of noodles and stopped shouting.

Shi Feng sat cross-legged on the shop floor with a paper lantern in front of him.

He drew his Spirit Sense into a single thread and began to twist it. The Nine-Turn Spirit Needle wanted nine turns. For three weeks the thread had held three, then frayed apart. Tonight his mind was sharp and cold, and it held four. Then five.

He pushed the needle at the lantern. It went through the paper and out the other side, and the flame inside didn’t even lean.

Minor Success. Shi Feng let the needle go and sat back.

Of course it works tonight, he thought sourly. Nothing teaches like fright.

It couldn’t touch the thin man. He knew that. But at ten paces it could read a servant’s realm, or a stranger in a queue, or a pill hidden under a cloth, and tomorrow that might matter.

He looked at the shutters, then at the door, and made himself think it through.

Shi Feng forced himself to separate what he'd seen from what he feared. The man bought pills and left. Nothing proved he recognised either of them. Panicking now would only make them easier to find.

“Are we leaving?” Tao Xiaoyu asked from the back-room doorway.

She’d stopped counting. Ji Yuanhe went on alone behind her.

“You’re supposed to be counting,” Shi Feng said.

“Uncle Ji can count by himself for a bit,” Tao Xiaoyu said. “Are we?”

Shi Feng looked at her. Fourteen, ink on her fingers, chin up. She’d said “we”.

“First,” Shi Feng said, holding up a finger, “the man in the chair doesn’t know who I am. He bought from Feng Shi because the whole city buys from Feng Shi. If he knew, he’d have come to the counter himself.”

“All right,” Tao Xiaoyu said.

“Second,” Shi Feng said, “if the busiest alchemist in Wanhe shuts his door the morning after a grey sleeve buys five sets, that’s the first strange thing that man has seen all year. A tidy man notices strange things. Running is the one thing that would make him look.”

“And third?” Tao Xiaoyu asked.

“Third, the river landings have bounty boards,” Shi Feng said. “A ragged old alchemist and a mad boy. I’ve already torn that drawing down once.” He shrugged. “Here, I’m a sign over a door and a book full of clients. Out there, I’m a sketch.”

Tao Xiaoyu thought about it with her lips pressed together.

“So we stay,” Tao Xiaoyu said.

“We stay,” Shi Feng decided. “We'll keep the shop running and give him nothing unusual to investigate.”

He opened the Commission Book to the very back page, where nobody ever looked, and wrote a rule in his own hand.

When grey sleeves queue, Uncle Ji counts in the back room. Feng Shi serves them like anyone else. Nobody runs.

He read it over twice. Writing it down helped. The danger hadn't vanished, but now Tao Xiaoyu knew what to do if another servant came.

Then he turned back to the day’s page, found ticket forty-one, and wrote underneath it.

Five sets held for collection, one afternoon. Storage: fifty stones. Owed.

Tao Xiaoyu leaned over his shoulder and read it.

“He paid everything up front,” Tao Xiaoyu said. “Why are you billing him?”

“Senior Brother Lin’s Lesson twenty-nine,” Shi Feng said. “Bill the man who frightens you.”

“Did your senior brother really say that?” Tao Xiaoyu asked suspiciously.

“He would have, if he’d thought of it,” Shi Feng said. “He’ll be furious that he didn’t.”

“And if the servant never comes back?” Tao Xiaoyu asked.

“Then I won't chase him for fifty stones,” Shi Feng replied. “If he comes back, I'll ask him to pay it like any other client. He came to Feng Shi's shop. That's who he'll deal with.”

He blew on the ink until it dried. The fifty-stone entry was something ordinary he could handle. Shi Feng couldn't read the man's strength, but he could stop letting every thought end with that folding chair.

Tao Xiaoyu went back to the crate. Somewhere past seven hundred her voice slowed, and by eight hundred her head was on her arms. Shi Feng put his outer robe over her shoulders and took up the count himself, one number behind Ji, all the way to morning.

Ji Yuanhe looked at him once, when the shutters began to turn grey.

“Nine hundred and twelve,” Ji Yuanhe said, and his voice was calm again.

Someone knocked at the shop door.

Shi Feng’s hand went to the Slag Weight before he heard the voice.

“Master Feng! Master Feng, open up!” Fan Baoshou called through the shutters, sounding thrilled with himself. “Don’t tell me you’re still asleep! I’ve found it!”

Shi Feng opened the door. The broker’s face was pink with excitement, and he was waving a thick bound catalogue.

“You told me weeks ago to watch for anything of old Mo’s,” Fan Baoshou said, panting. “Anything at all. The Pavilion’s autumn sale, Master Feng. Page nine!”