Chapter 641 — Seasoned Ash

CHAPTER 641

Seasoned Ash

The lane was still silent when Shi Feng scooped the two little heaps of ash out of the furnace and put them in his mouth.

Steward Tan Shou made a strangled sound.

“Master Feng! What are you doing?” Tan Shou cried.

“Eating the furnace’s share,” Shi Feng said, chewing. “Line one. Whatever is wasted belongs to the furnace. I’m the furnace’s owner, so I’m collecting.”

The ash tasted of scorched bone moss and lightning. Under that, the herbs’ worth was all still there, and it slid down into his meridians as warm as soup. Two pills’ worth of Soul Formation-grade herbs, cooked by heaven itself.

“This is the best-seasoned lunch of my life,” Shi Feng said happily, licking his thumb.

“That’s poison!” Fan Baoshou shouted from behind the noodle board. “Waste pills are poison! Everyone knows that!”

“Don’t copy me,” Shi Feng said, swallowing the last of it. “You would need an antidote. I don’t.”

Fan Baoshou opened his mouth, looked at Shi Feng’s cheerful face, and shut it again.

Tan Shou recovered first. He was a steward, and stewards always went back to the paper.

“The commission says six,” Tan Shou said stiffly. “You are holding four.”

“The commission also says what happens to waste and to roofs,” Shi Feng said, setting the four red pills in a jade tray. “And I think, Steward Tan, that these four are worth more than any six in this city. But don’t take my word for it. I’d rather you took someone else’s.”

He didn’t have to send for anyone. The tribulation had been seen from half of Wanhe, and the Sky Pavilion’s tower stood less than a street away.

A sedan chair came down Lamp-Oil Lane before the noodle water had stopped steaming. The crowd split at once. Branch Master Cen Rong stepped out in her grey Pavilion robe, with Clerk Rao behind her carrying a weighing case.

She didn’t look at Shi Feng, or at the hole in Tao Erniang’s roof. She looked at the pills.

“The wise fish avoids the bait,” Cen Rong said quietly. “Bring the scale, Rao Yingchun.”

Rao Yingchun opened the case. Cen Rong set one red pill on a jade pan and the weights on the other. The pan with the pill sank. She added more weights. It still sank. She frowned and added a third set, the set Shi Feng had only ever seen used for Deity Transformation-grade pills.

The pans balanced.

“Soul Formation grade, by its pitch,” Cen Rong said. “Weighing nearly like the grade above. It passed through its tribulation.” She finally looked up. “This is a One-Tribulation Pill. The first made in Wanhe in three hundred years.”

The lane exploded.

“Three hundred years?”

“And he made it next to a noodle stall!”

“I sat on that stool! That stool’s worth money now!”

“...”

Tao Erniang, who owned the stool, suddenly looked very thoughtful.

“My report will go to headquarters in Tianjing tonight,” Cen Rong said, writing on Rao Yingchun’s board. “Under the name on your register. Feng Shi.”

“As you like, Branch Master,” Shi Feng said politely.

He watched her brush move and was very much amused. The provincial copy had already written his name backwards, and now the Pavilion was about to send that backwards name all the way to the capital with a seal on it. That made two misfilings, both done for him, free of charge.

Lesson thirty-four, Shi Feng thought. Check the registered name before correcting official paperwork. That mistake was still protecting him, and he meant to keep it.

Tan Shou cleared his throat.

“The City Lord’s household tastes every pill before it reaches the commander,” Tan Shou said. “Branch Master, with your permission.”

Cen Rong nodded. Tan Shou shaved the thinnest sliver from one pill with a silver knife and touched it to his tongue.

For a breath, nothing happened.

Then the steward’s face went red, his eyes went wet, and his knees simply gave up. He sat straight down on Tao Erniang’s bench. His hand pressed his own knee, then his lower back, as if he were checking that they were still his.

“My back,” Tan Shou whispered. “I’ve had that back for twenty years.”

“That sliver was worth about eight hundred stones,” Shi Feng said kindly. “I’ll take it off the damages.”

Tan Shou didn’t argue. He didn’t say anything at all.

By evening, the story had left Lamp-Oil Lane by every bridge.

By the next morning, the tea houses on the north bank said the lightning had come down in the shape of a dragon. The tea houses on the south bank said there had been two dragons, and the alchemist had eaten one.

“Ten years at a cold window and nobody asks, but one success and the whole world knows!” Fan Baoshou said when he came by at noon, rubbing his hands. “This Fan has had nine requests for introductions already. Nine!”

“Tell them the queue is on the left,” Shi Feng said.

When he walked into the Pavilion hall that afternoon to file the damage bill for three roof tiles, Rao Yingchun was already holding his forms. All of them were stamped. Shi Feng hadn’t reached the counter yet.

“Master Feng,” Rao Yingchun said, bowing. “We took the liberty.”

“You saved me another wait,” Shi Feng said, taking the stamped forms. “Thank you, Rao Yingchun. Tao Erniang has noodles ready if you haven’t eaten.”

“For you, Master Feng, we’ll try,” Rao Yingchun said with a perfectly straight face.

That night Tao Erniang sold out of noodles twice.

At dawn, someone knocked on the shutters.

It was a young servant in a plain blue robe. He bowed and held out a single letter with both hands. The paper was red, and the seal was a crane folded out of white wax.

“From my master, Ouyang Jie,” the servant said. “He’ll call in person at noon.”

Shi Feng turned the letter over in his fingers. Everyone in Wanhe’s alchemy halls knew that name.

The youngest living 4 Mark in the Empire wanted to see him.