Chapter 633 — The Betting Book

CHAPTER 633

The Betting Book

“The book is open!” Gongsun Ce shouted, slapping a fresh ledger down on the Artificer Hall’s long table. “Junior Brother Shi’s return! Any day, any condition, any odds! Zhu Liu holds the stakes!”

It was the sixteenth day of winter. Snow lay on the tower steps, and the hall’s one brazier was doing its best. A week earlier, Zhu Liu had closed the year’s books at the winter audit, and Gongsun Ce had been waiting for a clean page ever since.

Zhu Liu sat at the end of the table with a strongbox and a brush, looking anxious.

“I hold the stakes for one copper in fifty,” Zhu Liu said earnestly. “Even between brothers, the accounts must be clear. I’ll write a receipt for every bet.”

“You would write a receipt for a sneeze,” Gongsun Ce said, watching the brush already move.

“I have,” Zhu Liu said. “Twice.”

Gongsun Ce ignored him and turned the ledger around.

“I shall start,” Gongsun Ce announced, claiming the first space. “My old bet stands. He comes back with less than he left with. Less cultivation, less money, less face. The Empire eats country boys.”

“That bet isn’t paid,” Zhu Liu pointed out.

“Because he is not back!” Gongsun Ce protested. “The higher the climb, the harder the fall. Write it down.”

The door banged open, and cold air and Lin Langtian came in together.

“Somebody’s opened a book on my junior brother without me?” Lin Langtian roared, shaking snow off his shoulders. “Outrageous! Who taught that boy everything he knows? Yours Truly! Who has the right to bet on him first? Yours Truly!”

“You can bet now, Senior Brother,” Zhu Liu said quickly. “One copper in fifty.”

“Robbery,” Lin Langtian said with approval. “Good. You’re learning.”

He swept up the brush, thought for one breath, and wrote in big, sprawling characters across half the page.

“Before the year is out,” Lin Langtian read aloud. “With more than he left with.”

Gongsun Ce leaned over and read it twice.

“Which year?” Gongsun Ce asked suspiciously. “This one only has a few weeks left.”

“The Hall’s year,” Lin Langtian said. “Zhu Liu closed it a week ago. So the next one closes at next winter’s audit. Before the ninth day of next winter, my junior brother walks through that gate richer than he left.”

“And your stake?” Gongsun Ce asked.

Lin Langtian dug in his sleeve, found nothing, dug in the other one, and slapped down a pouch of fifty stones. It was what was left of the hut nine rent his junior had sent from Wanhe.

“His own money,” Lin Langtian said proudly. “If I lose, he paid for it. If I win, I’m keeping his share.”

Gongsun Ce opened his mouth, closed it, and wrote it down.

A broom handle tapped the floor behind them. Sect Master Li Changyuan was standing at the brazier with his hands tucked into his sleeves. Nobody had heard him come in. Nobody ever did.

“Sect Master!” Zhu Liu said, jumping up. “Do you wish to place a bet?”

“A broom,” Li Changyuan said.

“On what condition, Sect Master?” Zhu Liu asked, brush ready.

Li Changyuan looked at the book, then at the snow outside the door, then at nothing in particular.

“That he comes,” Li Changyuan said quietly. He left the broom against the table and went out without asking for odds.

Zhu Liu wrote out a receipt for one broom and pinned it beside the other one.

That night, the lamp was lit in hut nine.

Sima Lan had swept it, aired the bedding and wiped down the table, as she did every third evening. Lin’s map of the Empire was still pinned to the wall, with a red mark over a river city called Wanhe. Beside it, chalked on the wall in her own neat hand: Received. No dispute.

She took down the old list from behind the door to dust the nail.

It was Shi Feng’s handwriting. His debts, written in his flat little characters before the trip. Sect Master Li, cabbage fund, thirty-one stones and nine copper. Senior Brother Lin, two hundred stones, lent at the stall, terms unreasonable. Sima Lan, wage, three months, rate disputed.

Sima Lan read it once. Then she took a brush from her sleeve and added a line at the bottom.

Interest, from the day you left.

“Oh? Is that legal?” Lin Langtian asked from the doorway.

He was leaning on the frame with a cup of hot wine, clearly having followed the light. Sima Lan didn’t turn around.

“Senior Brother Lin. You’re letting the cold in,” Sima Lan said.

Lin Langtian came over and read the new line with great seriousness.

“As his senior brother and legal representative, I dispute the rate,” Lin Langtian said, without a trace of a smile. “His draft already paid your back wage at three percent a month. Interest from the day he left counts the same months twice. That’s double billing. He’d never stand for it.”

“He taught me double billing,” Sima Lan said coldly.

“…I taught him,” Lin Langtian said.

“Then the rate stands,” Sima Lan said, and hung the list back on its nail.

Lin Langtian laughed, toasted the list with his wine and went out into the snow, still arguing with himself about compound interest.

Sima Lan remained in the quiet hut after the laughter faded. She missed the arguments when Shi Feng was there to answer them.

The side door at the back, the one that opened onto the path behind the huts, was still unbolted. She had left it that way since the Lantern Festival, because he always came in by the side door when he was late. She hadn't meant to count the nights, but she knew each one. Two hundred and sixty-four. Two hundred and sixty-five. Two hundred and sixty-six…

She stopped.

Then she turned down the lamp and left, and did not bolt the side door.