Chapter 630 — The Stool

CHAPTER 630

The Stool

“Two hundred stones a day,” Shi Feng said. “For the stool.”

Zhuo Tingsong stopped halfway into sitting down. It was late autumn, and the shop smelled of wet leaves and hot iron. The new stool stood beside the main furnace, three-legged and freshly varnished, close enough to see the lid and far enough not to touch it.

“You bought a stool so you could charge me for it?” Zhuo Tingsong asked.

“I bought a stool so a 4 Mark grandmaster wouldn’t have to stand,” Shi Feng said, smiling. “The charge is for the view. You've been watching my hands for free since summer, Grandmaster.”

Zhuo Tingsong looked at the stool, then at the furnace, then at Shi Feng’s face, which was perfectly sincere.

“Fine,” Zhuo Tingsong said, and sat. “Two hundred. If I learn nothing, I’m asking for it back.”

“You’ll learn something,” Shi Feng said. “That’s why it’s two hundred and not fifty.”

The old man snorted and folded his hands over his knees. His beard had grown back since the bang in the lane, but he still touched the burnt side of it when he was thinking.

In the main furnace sat a salt-guild master’s Soul Formation-grade set, the fourth of the day. At the back furnace Ji Yuanhe was counting softly over a tray of Nascent Soul-grade pills, and the numbers came out as even as ever.

“When I’ve watched enough,” Zhuo Tingsong said, “you’ll sit on that stool and watch me work a fold, and I’ll pay you the same two hundred for the hour.”

“The same two hundred,” Shi Feng agreed. “I’ll try to learn something.”

“Two hundred and eight,” Ji Yuanhe said.

He’d hardly slept in three nights. Since the commission season began, he’d counted with Ji until dawn, and something deep in his dantian had been watching the count with him. Now he added the third herb and turned the fire, and the Nascent Soul, which had kept its eyes open for three nights, looked straight up at him.

The sound went out of the world.

The furnace was black iron. The walls were black stone. The lamp-stone overhead was pale and weak, and his sleeves were grey.

Shi Feng looked down at his hands. They were steady on the ladle, already adding the next root at exactly the right moment. Across the hall, a clerk counted pills into a tray, every number taking the same time.

Hall Two. The Pill Pit.

So that’s how it is, Shi Feng thought. He wasn’t afraid. He was almost impressed. Heaven had looked through his whole life and picked the one room he’d sworn never to sit in again.

He knew exactly what this was. Nascent Soul ended in a tribulation of the heart. Outside, it would last a breath. Inside, it could last a lifetime. He’d learned the rule at the end of Golden Core: you didn’t fight an illusion. You endured it until it ran out of things to show you.

Fine, Shi Feng thought. He knew the room wasn't real. He had to remember that no matter how long Heaven made him sit here. Outside, Zhuo Tingsong was still watching his hands by the furnace.

“Station nine!” Kong Ba boomed, stomping past with his tongs. “Four clouds! Same as yesterday! The same is what Receiver Ning likes!”

“Yes, Overseer Kong,” Shi Feng said.

The first year went by in quota. He made three passes a cycle, then four, then six. His hands learned every root in the Pit by its smell. The clouds rose over his lid at exactly the count he wanted. He controlled every firing, but the work never ended.

In the second year, Ning Zhe’s chair unfolded beside his stool.

“You’re settling in, Alchemist Shi,” Ning Zhe said pleasantly.

“The service is excellent, Receiver Ning,” Shi Feng said.

He said it with a grin, the first time. By the fourth year he said it without one. He didn’t notice when the grin stopped. That was the trick of the place.

In the sixth year his hands could make a Perfect pill without him. He noticed it one cycle and felt proud, and then he felt nothing, because pride took effort and the quota didn’t need it.

“Station nine,” Clerk Shu said. “Eight clouds. Pass.”

“Eight,” Shi Feng agreed.

In the eighth year he tried to remember Senior Brother’s face, and got the voice instead. Junior Brother, let Senior Brother teach you the ways of the world! He held onto the voice for three cycles. Then it was only a loud noise he’d once liked.

His thoughts got shorter. He noticed that too. A long thought used up a count, and the counts were what kept the hall still.

In the tenth year he sat at station nine with a Perfect tray in front of him and the lamp-stone fading, and said a number to the wall.

“Four hundred and nineteen,” Shi Feng said.

The wall didn’t answer. The wall never did.

He tried to think of the place he’d lived before. There had been a shop. There had been a lane, with a noodle stall and a board on the wall. The lane had a name. It smelled of oil. He’d painted the name on a sign, or someone had painted it for him.

He couldn’t find it.

Shi Feng sat very still. Ten years here, he thought, and I can't remember the name of the place I left.

It should have frightened him that he couldn’t remember. It only felt like a missing count.

Then he looked down, and saw a thin black cord tied around his own left wrist, running down to a ring in the floor.

It was Ji’s cord.