Chapter 631 — My Own Things

CHAPTER 631

My Own Things

Shi Feng looked at the cord for a long time.

“It suits you,” Ning Zhe said from his chair. “You’ll never want to leave the rope now.”

“Four hundred and twenty,” Shi Feng said.

The number came out by itself. His hands reached for the next root.

Then a small, cheeky thought came up from somewhere very deep, in a voice he almost didn’t recognise as his own.

Why am I counting their things? Shi Feng thought. I’ve got plenty of my own.

He put the ladle down.

“Station nine,” Clerk Shu said. “You’ve stopped.”

“I’m taking inventory,” Shi Feng said.

He shut his eyes and started with the brightest thing he could find.

“Luoxia, third street, Lantern Festival,” Shi Feng said. “One red lantern at the bridge. Two at the sugar seller’s pole. Three over the wine shop…”

He counted them one by one, the way he’d walked under them that night. A fish lantern. A lotus lantern. A rabbit lantern, held in a woman’s hand, which didn’t count because it wasn’t hanging up. He even counted the one that had gone out and been relit.

“Two hundred and six,” Shi Feng said.

The lamp-stone flickered overhead.

“That isn’t on the board!” Kong Ba shouted, frowning.

“It’s on mine,” Shi Feng said. “Next. Sect Master Li’s cabbage fund. Thirty-one stones and nine copper, kept in a jar under the broom shelf, and he thinks nobody knows.”

The furnace in front of him cooled a little. He kept going, faster now, and the grin came back without being asked.

“Sima Lan’s wage. Three months owed when I left, at the rate she set herself, which was robbery,” Shi Feng said. “Paid since, with interest, so she can’t complain. She’ll complain anyway.”

“None of this is quota,” Ning Zhe said, still pleasant.

“Zhu Liu’s receipt for the trip,” Shi Feng went on, ignoring him. “Four hundred and twelve stones, six copper. Unsigned, pinned over his desk.”

He stopped, did the sum in his head, and nearly laughed out loud. It was correct. Every copper of it was correct. Ten years in this hall, and Zhu Liu’s receipt still added up perfectly.

The walls creaked.

“A green paper,” Shi Feng said, more quietly. “Folded twice. TERMS written on the outside. She takes the bed. I take the floor. No touching each other’s things.”

The cord on his wrist went slack.

He knew what came next on the list. He’d only said it once in his life, into a dark sky where nobody could hear it.

“Qingzhu,” Shi Feng said.

The whole hall shuddered.

Dust rained from the ceiling. Clerk Shu’s tray tipped, and the pills rolled away without a sound. Kong Ba opened his mouth to shout, and nothing came out. Ning Zhe’s chair folded itself shut with Ning Zhe still in it, and then there was nobody there at all.

Shi Feng slipped his wrist out of the cord and stood up.

The hall had changed. One wall was gone. In its place stood a little hut with a wooden door, and the door was open. Inside, a lamp was burning on the table. Leaning beside the door frame was an old broom, worn down on one side the way only one old man’s broom was worn.

Hut nine.

His feet took a step toward it before he told them to. It was warm in there. Someone had lit the lamp for him, and any moment Senior Brother would bang on the wall and demand his share.

Shi Feng stopped.

Who lit it? Shi Feng thought.

Nobody was inside. The lamp had lit itself. In a real hut, a lamp burned only when somebody put fire to it, and in a tribulation, a lamp that lit itself was a hook with bait on it. Walk in there, and he’d sit down by that lamp and never want to stand up again.

So that’s the last trick, Shi Feng thought. The ten years were to break me. This is to keep me.

“Not bad!” Shi Feng said to the hut, admiringly. “Really, not bad. But I’ll go home on my own feet.”

He turned his back on the lamp. At the far end of the hall, low in the black stone, was a thin crack with grey light behind it. He walked to it without hurrying, put his hand in, and pulled.

“…and the third herb goes in,” Zhuo Tingsong said. “Why have you stopped?”

Sound came back all at once. The fire roared. Rain dripped off the shop’s eaves. The lid of the main furnace was rising under its own pressure, and white clouds were pouring up through the vent.

Shi Feng’s hand was still on the fire. He turned it, exactly once.

Six clouds. Seven. Eight.

He let the ninth fade before it formed. A pill rose, round and pale gold, and dropped into his palm.

“Perfect,” Zhuo Tingsong said, leaning in. “Eight clouds. Soul Formation-grade.” He frowned. “You paused for a breath there. What was that?”

“I was deciding when to end the firing,” Shi Feng replied, keeping the ten years to himself.

Zhuo Tingsong snorted and looked away. He’d seen a breath; Shi Feng had spent ten years in it. He could still remember every year, and he was glad the old master had seen only a pause.

Then Zhuo Tingsong got up off the stool.

“Tomorrow, then,” Zhuo Tingsong said. “I sit at your bench and work a fold, and you tell me what’s wrong with my hands.”

“Bring your own herbs,” Shi Feng said.

Inside him, the Nascent Soul had dissolved. In its place something vast had opened, deep and still and wider than he could see across. It was no pool, and no river either. It was an ocean. Early Soul Formation. The fire in his hands felt different too. The Thousand Forge Flame Art, which he’d pushed for months, obeyed him without the smallest hesitation. Perfection.

Shi Feng looked up.

The first face he saw was Ji Yuanhe’s. The old man was standing at the back furnace with a pill forgotten in his fingers, and he was looking straight at Shi Feng, as if he’d watched the whole ten years go by.

“…One,” Ji Yuanhe said.