Chapter 622 — The Seller Wants Years

CHAPTER 622

The Seller Wants Years

The seller of Lot Forty-Two was waiting in a side room behind the auction hall, and he was dying.

Shi Feng saw it before he sat down. The old man in the chair was a Soul Formation elder, but his life-light was so thin that Spirit Sense almost slid past it. A cane leaned on his knee. A small black box sat beside a pot of cold tea.

“Gongye Shou,” Gongye Shou introduced himself without getting up. “Sit. Standing costs you nothing, but watching you stand costs me breath.”

“The buyer of Forty-One,” Shi Feng said, sitting. “Your runner said you wanted me, Senior.”

“A man who pays three hundred and twenty thousand for a dead master’s pot has either stones or nerve,” Gongye Shou said. “I need both.”

He opened the box. Inside lay one seed, black, round and no bigger than a pea, and the air in the room went cold.

“Profound Heaven-grade. An Ancient Cypress seed,” Gongye Shou explained, letting him see inside the box. “I pulled it from the sale this morning. Stones are no use to me. I have eleven months.”

“Then what do you want for it, Senior Gongye?” Shi Feng asked.

“Years,” Gongye Shou said. “A Soul Formation-grade longevity pill. Eight clouds.”

Shi Feng’s eyebrows went up. Eight! The best furnaces in Wanhe topped out at five on a longevity pill. Everyone in the trade knew that number.

The door opened without a knock. A plump man in brown silk came in smiling, with a clerk at his heels.

“Elder Gongye, you’re a hard man to catch!” Jin Wenshan exclaimed. “Jin Wenshan, Jin Trading House. I’ve chased that seed through three cities.” He bowed to the old man and ignored Shi Feng completely. “Master Hua of our house is a 3 Mark. He’ll make your longevity pill at five clouds. Five is the best in Wanhe.”

“Five buys me three years,” Gongye Shou said flatly. “Eight buys me thirty. An inch of time is an inch of gold, Manager Jin, and at my age it’s more.”

Jin Wenshan finally looked at Shi Feng. His smile thinned.

“Oh, it’s the noodle-lane boy who bought the pot,” Jin Wenshan said. “Elder, nobody in this city has seen eight clouds on a longevity pill in my lifetime.”

“That’s true,” Shi Feng said cheerfully. “Want to know why?”

He didn’t wait for an answer. He turned to Gongye Shou, choosing to explain the fire control rather than trade insults with the merchant.

“The main herb is turtle-shell moss. Its years live in its oil, and the oil burns off if the fire climbs past four clouds too fast,” Shi Feng said. “Everyone pushes hard for five, the oil’s gone, and five is the ceiling. I don’t push. I hold the fire at three until the oil’s sealed, and then I climb.”

Gongye Shou’s cloudy eyes sharpened.

“Easy to say,” Jin Wenshan sneered.

“Then it’s easy to sign,” Shi Feng said. “Senior brings four portions. Half the set is delivered to you, and anything beyond that belongs to the furnace. If I come in under eight, you keep the seed and I pay for every herb.”

Jin Wenshan laughed out loud.

“If there’s a third pill at eight clouds, the Jin house will buy it for a hundred and sixty thousand!” Jin Wenshan said.

“Clerk,” Shi Feng said politely, “please write that down. Your master just made an offer.”

The clerk looked at his master. Jin Wenshan waved a careless hand, and the clerk wrote.

That evening the shutters of the shop on Lamp-Oil Lane were half down, and half the lane was crouched under them anyway.

Shi Feng laid the moss on the first fire and held it at three clouds for a long, boring time. Tao Xiaoyu counted the breaths aloud. At the back furnace, Ji Yuanhe counted with her, one beat behind, and his old hands were perfectly steady.

Then Shi Feng let the fire climb.

Four clouds. Five. Six. Jin Wenshan stopped fanning himself. Seven. Eight.

A ninth cloud began to gather, thin and pale. Shi Feng dropped the flame half a beat early, and it faded.

Eight is what the old man paid for, Shi Feng thought. Nine would draw attention he didn't want. He ended the firing before the last cloud could form.

The second furnace came out at eight clouds. So did the third. The fourth portion of moss was older than the rest and cracked in the heat, and it sank into a grey lump. Shi Feng set it aside without a word.

“Eight, three times,” someone breathed under the shutters.

“The Hua master can’t even make five every time!”

“I’m going home to tell my wife. She’ll say I’m drunk.”

“…”

Gongye Shou swallowed one pill on the stool by the door. For a while nothing happened. Then the life-light that Shi Feng had barely been able to find stopped flickering. It steadied and grew, and Gongye Shou began taking deep, easy breaths.

Gongye Shou opened his eyes and laughed once, hoarsely.

“That’s thirty years,” Gongye Shou said. “Maybe more.”

Jin Wenshan turned pale. His careless offer had become a debt in front of the whole lane. He stood very still for a long moment, then signalled his clerk. The clerk counted out a hundred and sixty thousand in stones onto the counter, and Jin Wenshan took the third pill with both hands.

“This Jin was a tadpole calling himself a dragon,” Jin Wenshan said stiffly, and bowed.

“You kept your word, Manager Jin,” Shi Feng said, pleased that he hadn't argued over the written offer. “Come back any time. I'll sell to a man who pays what he promised.”

Jin Wenshan left without answering. Tao Xiaoyu was already writing in the Commission Book.

[Stones: 90,000 → 250,000]

Gongye Shou pushed the black box across the counter with the end of his cane.

“The seed pays for the pill,” Gongye Shou said. “The years are another matter, young man. Come to my house tomorrow. This old man doesn't leave debts unpaid, and he doesn't plan to start now.”