Chapter 642 — Clause Four

CHAPTER 642

Clause Four

Ouyang Jie arrived exactly at noon, and the queue on the left forgot it was a queue.

He was a slim man of forty-one in a dove-grey robe, with an imperial sponsor’s seal hanging from his belt on a yellow cord. He didn’t look around the shop. He sat on the customer’s stool as if it had been carved for him. Behind him stood a round-faced steward with a writing case, already sweating in the winter air.

“A Soul Formation-grade pill that weighs like the grade above,” Ouyang Jie said. “The tea houses are calling it a miracle. I call it a frontier stunt with good lighting.”

“The lighting was free,” Shi Feng said cheerfully. “The roof wasn’t.”

Ouyang Jie didn’t smile.

“I’m the youngest living 4 Mark,” Ouyang Jie said, as calmly as a man stating the weather. “I don’t believe a frontier 3 Mark can make a pill that weighs like a 4 Mark’s. So I’d like you to try, in front of me, and fail.”

“And if I don’t fail?” Shi Feng asked.

“Then I’ll be surprised,” Ouyang Jie said. “It’s been a long time. Is it a mule or a horse? Take it out for a walk.”

Tao Xiaoyu, behind the counter, gripped her brush hard enough to bend it.

Shi Feng leaned on the counter, openly enjoying himself. The youngest 4 Mark in the Empire had come all the way down to Lamp-Oil Lane to insult him in person. That was a compliment worth more than the queue.

“Say your terms, Master Ouyang,” Shi Feng said.

The steward opened his case and read from a prepared paper. The same 4 Mark-grade formula for both men, the same hour, in the Pavilion courtyard. Two hundred thousand stones staked on each side. Most clouds wins. The loser bows at the Pavilion gate.

“That’s fair,” Shi Feng said. “Now my terms. An entry fee of fifty thousand, since Master Ouyang wants my furnace for a whole day. And a viewing fee of one silver a head at the courtyard gate. People will come, and people who come should pay.”

“A viewing fee?” the steward squeaked.

“Senior Brother says that if the whole city wants to watch you work, you’re not a craftsman anymore, you’re a theatre,” Shi Feng said. “Theatres sell tickets.”

“Pay it,” Ouyang Jie told his steward.

The steward wrote the fees in. Then he passed the contract across the counter, and Shi Feng read it from top to bottom.

Then he read it again, slowly, from top to bottom, with his finger under every line.

The steward’s forehead grew wetter with every line. Ouyang Jie sat perfectly still, drinking Tao Erniang’s tea as if it were imperial tribute. Shi Feng paused over a line and glanced up. The steward hurried to wipe his forehead. Ouyang Jie had not bothered to inspect the contract himself; he was leaving the unpleasant part to his servant.

He stopped at clause four.

“Both parties, bearing a 4 Mark certificate of the Sky Pavilion, wager as follows. Should either party not bear such a certificate, the wager is void and all stakes return.”

Shi Feng did not bear a 4 Mark certificate. Everyone in Wanhe knew it. The provincial register said 3 Mark in black ink.

So that’s the trick, Shi Feng thought. If I lose, I bow. If I win, the paper says I was never in the bet, and the stakes go home. He can’t lose two hundred thousand to me no matter what my furnace does.

Shi Feng stopped smiling long enough to check the return-of-stakes wording. His own money was safe too. Once he had confirmed that, he understood exactly what this contest could give him.

Because what Shi Feng wanted wasn’t the two hundred thousand. A loss on paper would only hand his stake back. The fees were his either way. And a Pavilion courtyard keeps a cloud book, and nobody can void a number once the whole city has counted it.

He picked up the brush.

“Master Feng,” Tao Xiaoyu whispered urgently, “clause four...”

“I read it,” Shi Feng said. “Twice. It’s a very good clause.”

He signed. The steward breathed out so hard his paper fluttered.

Ouyang Jie stood, bowed exactly as deeply as a 4 Mark should bow to a 3 Mark, which was barely at all, and left.

That evening Shi Feng set up a practice furnace in the lane with a cheap 4 Mark-grade set.

A 4 Mark-grade pill carries a Deity Transformation weight. The hotter the fire, the harder it tries to rise through the lid. His first two practice pills slammed into the lid like trapped birds and cracked. He ate them on the spot.

On the third, he tried something new. He folded the Thousand Forge fire back on itself, so the outer layer ran cool and the heart stayed hot. The pill sank into the fold and sat there, turning, quiet and heavy.

“Again,” Zhuo Tingsong said from the dark.

The old Grandmaster had been standing at the lane mouth for half an hour. Shi Feng hadn’t charged him for it yet.

Shi Feng did it again. The fourth pill rose clean, six clouds, without touching the lid.

Zhuo Tingsong stepped into the light. His singed beard didn’t move, but his eyes did.

“That fold isn’t taught in any hall I know,” Zhuo Tingsong said quietly. “And I know all of them in the south.”

“I learned it just now,” Shi Feng said. “From the lid.”

Zhuo Tingsong looked at him a long time.

“The sea can’t be measured with a bucket,” Zhuo Tingsong murmured, and went home without another word.

The next morning Shi Feng took the contract to the Pavilion tower. Branch Master Cen Rong read it once, stopped at clause four, and read that clause again herself.

She stamped it without a word. Then she held it out to him by one corner.

“You read that clause twice and signed it,” Cen Rong said.

“Yes,” Shi Feng said. “Lesson thirty-five. Check what you can actually gain before arguing over a bad term. I want that public record, and he agreed to let everyone watch.”