Chapter 636 — That Is Not Tea

CHAPTER 636

That Is Not Tea

The bell over the door was still ringing when the man bowed.

“This one is Chu Ze, an envoy from a clan in the north,” Chu Ze said, smiling. “I’m looking for Master Feng Shi.”

He had a round, pleasant face and a smile that never moved. Behind him came two porters in plain brown, carrying a lacquered hamper on a pole. They set it down without a sound and went to stand by the back door, hands folded and eyes on the floor.

Porters who walk without a sound, Shi Feng thought. Porters don’t learn that by carrying turnips.

“You’ve found him,” Shi Feng said cheerfully, wiping his hands on a rag. “What does the north want?”

“A 4 Mark-grade set,” Chu Ze said. “The tea houses say a 3 Mark on Lamp-Oil Lane makes pills a 3 Mark shouldn’t. My clan likes things that shouldn’t exist.”

“Four hundred thousand,” Shi Feng said. “Half up front, your herbs, the furnace clause, and a damages schedule.”

“Damages?” Chu Ze asked.

“Customers break things,” Shi Feng said, and wrote it into the paper in a big, clear hand. “One cup, forty stones. One floor, sixty. One door, a hundred. I’ve learned.”

It was an absurd price. Zhuo Tingsong would have thrown his stool at it. Shi Feng waited happily for the haggling to start.

Chu Ze read the paper once and signed.

“He didn’t even ask for a discount,” Tao Xiaoyu whispered.

“No, he didn’t,” Shi Feng agreed.

He hasn't questioned four hundred thousand once, Shi Feng thought. A serious client would ask about the result before signing. Steward Tan said that broker had other buyers. This visit could be one of them.

“In the north, we seal a contract with tea,” Chu Ze said warmly. “I’ve brought our own leaf.”

Shi Feng watched the hamper instead of the envoy's friendly face. He wanted to know exactly what this man expected him to drink.

One porter opened the hamper, took out a flask and a white cup, and poured. Steam rose. Shi Feng smelled it from three steps away: bitter first, then sweet underneath, like burnt honey.

He knew that smell. He had smelled it once in the Pill Pit, on a tray carried to a man who argued with the guards. The next day, the man stopped arguing. One cup, and a man did whatever he was told for a year.

“That’s not tea,” Shi Feng said.

He took the cup from the porter’s hand and dropped it on the floor.

Crash!

The liquid hissed and ate a black ring into the boards. Since the Pit, he’d swallowed a Common antidote with his congee every single morning.

“One cup, forty stones,” Shi Feng said, pointing at the shards. Then he pointed at the smoking boards. “One floor, sixty. It’s in the paper you just signed. You read it.”

Chu Ze’s smile didn’t change.

“What a pity,” Chu Ze said gently. “My clan prefers guests who come willingly. Failing that, it prefers guests who come quietly.”

He stepped out, and the shutters dropped behind him. Something heavy slid across them from outside. The bolt on the back door was already shut. The porters had done it from the inside before the tea was poured.

Both porters straightened up. Their auras rose, and the lamp flames leaned away from them. Soul Formation, both of them.

Tao Xiaoyu went white.

“Xiaoyu,” Shi Feng instructed, keeping his voice steady, “take Uncle Ji under the main furnace stand. Stay behind the iron legs and count loudly for him.”

She dragged Ji Yuanhe down behind the iron legs. Ji Yuanhe looked at the two men and didn’t stop counting.

“...One,” Ji Yuanhe said, at the first porter’s step.

The first porter came in with a palm. Shi Feng didn’t dodge it. It hit him square in the chest, and its qi poured into him, and the All-Devouring Physique absorbed it before it could harm him.

“That won't work,” Shi Feng told the palm man calmly. “Try something else.”

The second porter had gone low while he talked. A knife flashed and bit into his left calf, and a cold numbness ran up the leg at once. Poison on the blade, too.

“Two!” Tao Xiaoyu shouted from under the stand.

“Keep counting, Xiaoyu,” Shi Feng said, shifting his weight onto the uninjured leg. “Stay where I can hear you.”

“You’re laughing?” the knife man hissed. “You’re poisoned!”

“I’m poisoned every morning,” Shi Feng said. “You’re late.”

The knife man lunged again. Shi Feng caught his wrist, pressed two fingers to the vein, and folded Thousand Forge fire straight into his meridian.

The man screamed. Smoke came out of his sleeve, and his whole arm hung dead.

The palm man froze for one breath, and one breath was enough. Shi Feng stepped in on the good leg, took him by the collar and slammed him face down beside his partner. Then he pulled the rope off the hamper pole and tied them both, wrists to ankles, with the knot Lin Langtian used on sacks of stolen potatoes.

“Nine,” Ji Yuanhe said.

Two Soul Formation fighters, Shi Feng thought, rubbing his calf. At Nascent Soul, I put down Soul Formation guards with my bare hands. They should have sent five.

The numbness was already fading. The antidote in his blood was enough.

Outside, someone shouted. The shutters splintered inward, and Branch Master Cen Rong’s two Pavilion guards came through the hole, followed by four of Steward Tan Shou’s men with drawn sabres.

“Master Feng Shi!” the first guard called. “Are you hurt?”

“A little,” Shi Feng said, waving at the floor. “Two porters, one hamper and a flask of very bad tea. Take all of it. The flask is evidence.”

He looked at the smashed shutters and smiled.

“And the door,” Shi Feng added happily. “That’s a hundred. It’s in the paper.”

In the lane, Tan Shou’s men had Chu Ze by both arms. He still looked pleasant. He held up a small black token in two fingers, and the sergeant holding him looked at it and let go of his sleeve as if it were hot.

“My clan always pays its bills, Master Feng Shi,” Chu Ze said. “Steward Tan will want to see this.”