Chapter 626 — The Lessons Reach the Hall

CHAPTER 626

The Lessons Reach the Hall

“Sect Master! A draft from the Pavilion!” Zhu Liu shouted, running across the Artificer Hall’s yard with a paper held over his head.

Li Changyuan kept sweeping. The autumn leaves had been falling for a week, and he refused to pay anyone else to sweep them.

“Read it,” Li Changyuan said.

Zhu Liu unfolded it with shaking hands.

“From the Sky Pavilion’s Wanhe grand branch,” Zhu Liu read. “‘The Hall's letter has been passed to the sender.’ There's a note in the margin, Sect Master, in a clerk's hand.” He swallowed. “‘For the Hall’s interest. Alchemist Feng Shi of Lamp-Oil Lane is known in this city for quoting the lessons of a certain Lin to his clients. And for billing by them.’”

The broom stopped.

“Write that down,” Li Changyuan said. “Small characters.”

“In which book, Sect Master?” Zhu Liu asked earnestly.

“The one with the cabbage money,” Li Changyuan said, and went back to sweeping.

By noon the whole Hall knew. By evening, Lin Langtian came down from the roof to find four outer disciples arguing under the eaves.

“Senior Brother Lin’s lesson! Always bill the gravedigger first!” the first junior said.

“No, you idiot, it’s never buy rope from a grave!” the second said.

“It’s something about rope and a grave, anyway,” the third said.

Gongsun Ce, leaning in the doorway with a cup of wine, was laughing so hard he had to hold the frame.

“They are getting every one of them wrong,” Gongsun Ce said, barely able to speak through his laughter.

“Good,” Lin Langtian said, with enormous satisfaction. “A lesson nobody remembers properly can’t be argued with!”

Then he stopped. He counted something on his fingers, and his face fell.

“Wait. The brat’s quoting lessons I never gave him,” Lin Langtian said. “That means he’s ahead of me!” He spun round. “Zhu Liu! Bring your receipt book! Senior Brother has a new one, and it’s going in before he can steal it.”

Zhu Liu ran up with his brush ready.

“A junior who runs away from home,” Lin Langtian announced, “still owes rent on the floor he slept on.”

Zhu Liu hesitated with the brush in the air.

“Senior Brother, is that a lesson or a bill?” Zhu Liu asked.

“In this Hall, there’s no difference!” Lin Langtian said proudly.

“Master Feng! This Fan has brought you a gold mountain!” Fan Baoshou shouted, coming through the shop door with his hat crooked, and he slapped a name card on the counter.

“Situ Hongzhang,” Fan Baoshou said. “Head of the Situ branch house on the east bank. Situ, Master Feng! One of the five families! Their people sit in half the ministries of the Empire!”

“And what does a Situ want with a noodle lane?” Shi Feng asked.

Fan Baoshou lowered his voice.

“His son is six,” Fan Baoshou said. “Frost in the marrow. A dozen healers have been through that house in a year, and every one of them said it was a body illness, so nobody thought to call an alchemist. The last one left this morning.” He shook his head. “Pitiful are the hearts of parents under heaven.”

Shi Feng was already taking off his apron.

“A house call is two thousand,” Shi Feng said. “Tell them I’m walking.”

The Situ branch house had high grey walls and no music. The servants moved on tiptoe.

Situ Hongzhang met them in the inner hall. He was a heavy man in a plain dark robe, with ink on his right forefinger and red eyes. He didn’t bother with courtesies.

“Twelve healers have come through that door,” Situ Hongzhang said. “You’re the thirteenth. I’ll be honest with you, alchemist. I’m tying my cart to an ox and expecting speed.”

“Then let’s see the boy, Lord Situ,” Shi Feng said.

The boy lay under three quilts in a room with two braziers burning. His lips were blue. His small hands were as pale as paper.

Shi Feng looked once, and his Spirit Sense went in after his eyes.

The frost wasn’t spreading through the body. It sat in the marrow of the long bones in small, still pockets, and it didn’t move at all. When a healer pushed warm qi in, the frost simply drank it and grew.

“It isn’t a body illness,” Shi Feng said. “It’s a pill matter.”

Situ Hongzhang’s head came up.

“Needles and qi can’t reach it, so every healer feeds it,” Shi Feng said. “A pill can. A Nascent Soul-grade marrow pill, built round a sun-marrow root. I happen to have one in my surplus.”

A thin man in a steward’s grey hat stepped forward with a little cough.

“Pu Gen, steward of this house,” Pu Gen said. “Before we go further, alchemist, the house-call fee is excessive. Healers come for five hundred.”

Shi Feng turned to the steward, unwilling to waste time bargaining while the boy lay ill.

“You've paid twelve healers five hundred each, Steward Pu,” Shi Feng said bluntly. “Six thousand, and none could name the illness. I named it before sitting down. My house-call fee stands. And the time you've spent arguing adds another two hundred.”

Pu Gen’s face went red, then white. He turned anxiously to Situ Hongzhang, then back to the alchemist, realising he'd only increased the charge.

“Pay him, Pu Gen,” Situ Hongzhang said heavily. He didn’t take his eyes off his son. “Alchemist. When?”

“Tomorrow at noon,” Shi Feng said. “If I’m wrong, you can throw me in the river.”

“If you’re wrong, my son will be dead,” Situ Hongzhang said. “I won’t care about the river.”