Chapter 649 — The Idiot’s Basket

CHAPTER 649

The Idiot’s Basket

Before the register opened, the Old Houses lit incense at their account tablets. The Zhuo tablet stood at the row’s head, black stone worn smooth by three generations of thumbs.

Zhuo Heng carried the proxy token to it, laid it flat and stepped back while the incense burned. Then he lifted it again, the same token in the same hand, and held it flat in both palms. The Du elder and the grey-haired master of the Yao House watched, and neither looked away.

“The Zhuo House names its proxy,” Zhuo Tingsong said. “Feng Shi of Lamp-Oil Lane.”

The Old Houses’ hall went quiet.

It was the first month of the new year, and the Spring Contest’s register lay open on the long table. Three days, one furnace per house, and the pill belonged to whoever made it. The prize sat under glass at the end of the table, a pale root with seven white leaves. It was a late Soul Formation herb.

Zhuo Heng stood beside his grandfather with the house’s proxy token already in his hand. He’d been carrying it since the autumn.

“Grandfather,” Zhuo Heng said quietly. “The house has always sent a Zhuo.”

“The house sends whoever wins,” Zhuo Tingsong said, not looking at him. “Give it to him.”

Zhuo Heng’s lips went white. Then he turned, walked to Shi Feng and held out the token with both hands, and bowed.

Shi Feng took it with both hands too. He didn’t tease him. There was a time for teasing, and this wasn’t it.

“I’ll do my best for the house, Zhuo Heng,” Shi Feng said. He put the token away carefully rather than wave it at the stands.

Zhuo Heng said nothing and went back to his grandfather’s side.

The bluff round was held in the square outside, in front of the stands.

Forty baskets of herbs stood in a row on trestles, every one different. Each proxy walked the row once and picked a single basket in front of everyone. Whatever was in it, he had to refine with it.

The Du House champion took a basket of fire-red marrow vine and got a cheer. The Azure Sun alchemist, a tall man in a crimson robe, took the most expensive basket on the table and got a bigger one.

Shi Feng walked the row slowly, stopped near the end and picked up a basket of cheap herbs that had gone the wrong colours. The cloudvein roots were bruised purple instead of white. The dew moss was grey. Half of it looked like it should’ve been thrown out last week.

The stands burst out laughing.

“Is he blind? That’s frost-bitten trash!”

“The noodle man picked the leftovers!”

“A newborn calf doesn’t fear the tiger,” the Du House champion said loudly, smirking. “He doesn’t even know what he’s holding.”

Shi Feng carried his basket to the Zhuo table, beaming as if they’d all applauded.

Tao Xiaoyu was waiting there in a borrowed Zhuo apron, with the counting board under her arm. She was the house assistant today, by Shi Feng’s request.

“Master Feng,” Tao Xiaoyu whispered. “They’re right. That’s frost-bitten.”

“It is,” Shi Feng whispered back, delighted. “Frost does half the fire’s work on a cloudvein root. It’s already been cooked once by the weather. Nobody believes that, so nobody wants it. That’s the first reason.”

“And the second?” Tao Xiaoyu asked.

“I want to see who keeps watching,” Shi Feng said. “Most of them think I’ve already lost. If somebody still touches this basket tonight, they know more than they’re saying. Keep the herbs together so I can check them tomorrow.”

In the front row of the stands, an old man in a plain red robe with a gold sun stitched on the cuff hadn’t laughed at all. Elder Fei Lun of the Azure Sun branch opened a small book on his knee and wrote one line in it.

Shi Feng saw him write. He smiled and waved.

Fei Lun closed the book.

On the morning of the first day, Shi Feng checked his basket and found one herb wrong.

It was a single cloudvein root, white instead of purple. Somebody had come in the night and swapped one bruised root for a healthy one. To this recipe, a healthy root would run hot three breaths too early and crack the pill from the inside.

Shi Feng turned the white root over between his fingers. The person who had changed it understood the formula. He checked the rest of the basket twice before setting the root back on top.

He didn’t say a word about it.

The gong sounded. Every other table lit its furnace at once. Shi Feng sat down on a stool beside his own cold furnace, took the lid off a bowl of Tao Erniang’s noodles and started eating.

The stands jeered at him even louder.

“He’s eating! The gong’s gone, and he’s eating!”

“Hey, noodle man! Are you here to cook or to eat?”

“Both!” Shi Feng called back, lifting the bowl. “There’s time.”

A few people laughed despite themselves.

When the bowl was empty, he lit the furnace. He tossed the herbs in one after another, and when the white root went past his fingers, he flicked it with a thread of Thousand Forge fire, just once. Its outer skin scorched purple in a breath, and it went into the furnace with the rest, bruised like its brothers.

Tao Xiaoyu saw it and opened her mouth. Shi Feng winked at her. She closed it again.

Six hours later, the square was very different.

At the Du House table, the champion’s furnace was shaking. He threw water on it too late, and the lid blew straight up. Bang! Black smoke rolled over the front row.

At the Azure Sun table, the crimson-robed alchemist’s pill rose, gathered four clouds over the lid and stopped there. He pushed and pushed, sweating, and no fifth cloud came.

Then the Zhuo table’s lid lifted.

“One,” Tao Xiaoyu said clearly, standing on her stool so the back rows could hear. “Two. Three.”

The stands stopped laughing.

“Four. Five. Six,” Tao Xiaoyu called, raising her voice over the jeers.

The Azure Sun alchemist turned to look, and his face went pale.

“Seven,” Tao Xiaoyu said.

The clouds kept rising.