Chapter 653 — The Draw

CHAPTER 653

The Draw

“Same herbs, same hour, most clouds wins,” Clerk Rao read aloud in the Pavilion courtyard. “The winner’s house shall be called the true alchemy of Wanhe.”

Three thousand people packed the courtyard, and every one of them had paid Shi Feng a viewing fee at the gate. The stools in the front rows had cost a seat fee on top. The three judges had agreed to a ruling fee, payable by both sides whatever happened. Shi Feng had read the letter once and written his fees in the margin, and Azure Sun had signed them without blinking.

Huo Zhiyan stood at the east furnace. He was twenty-three, in a white robe with gold sun cuffs, and he hadn’t looked at the crowd once. He’d made Perfect pills at nineteen. In Wanhe that was a story mothers told their sons.

“A man who breaks his word cannot stand,” Huo Zhiyan said calmly. “Azure Sun stands by every line of that letter, Master Feng. Fees included.”

“Then I only have one request,” Shi Feng said, and bowed to the judges’ table. “Branch Master Cen, would you certify the herbs? And remind us of the courtyard rule.”

Cen Rong rose. She opened both herb boxes, checked every root against her list and closed them again.

“Certified. Identical,” Cen Rong said coolly. “The Contest’s tribulation rule stands. No tenth cloud in a courtyard. A pill that calls lightning here is disqualified, and its maker pays for the roof.”

The crowd laughed. Half of them had been on Lamp-Oil Lane when Tao Erniang lost her tiles.

Huo Zhiyan’s attendants uncovered his furnace. It was an old bronze cauldron with three suns cast around its belly, black with centuries of fire.

“The Sun-Swallowing Cauldron!” someone gasped. “That’s Azure Sun’s heirloom!”

“They brought it out for a shop on Lamp-Oil Lane?”

“That’s not a challenge, that’s a funeral!”

Huo Zhiyan lit it, and the flame came up white.

Shi Feng looked at his own furnace, which had cost him four thousand stones in a secondhand shop, and patted its lid. Don’t be shy, he told it. You’re the one getting paid today.

The bell rang. Both men put in the first herb at the same moment.

Huo Zhiyan measured each movement carefully. He didn’t hesitate over an herb or glance toward the stands. Shi Feng worked faster, humming, and twice he tossed a root up and caught it in the lid, because the front rows liked it.

In the front row, Tao Xiaoyu stood on her stool with a board and a stick of chalk.

“One!” Tao Xiaoyu called, as the first white cloud rose over Shi Feng’s lid. A breath later a cloud rose over Huo’s. “One for Azure Sun!”

They climbed together. Three. Four. At five, the Azure Sun disciples in the stands stopped smiling. At six, Zhuo Tingsong at the judges’ table leaned forward and his beard nearly went into his tea.

“Seven!” Tao Xiaoyu shouted. “Seven and seven!”

“Eight and eight!” Tao Xiaoyu cried.

The courtyard had gone completely silent. Over Huo’s cauldron the ninth cloud formed, round and white and perfectly still. Over Shi Feng’s lid, the ninth cloud formed too.

And below it, the tenth wanted to come.

Shi Feng felt it pressing up against his palm. One more breath of fire and it would rise black, and the sky over the Pavilion would answer. He laid his hand flat on the lid and pushed it down. It fought him. He folded the fire cooler, the way he’d learned in the lane, and held it until the pill gave up and settled.

He’s good, Shi Feng thought, glancing across. Huo Zhiyan hadn’t needed to correct a single mistake. This was someone worth competing against.

“Nine!” Tao Xiaoyu cried, her voice cracking. “Nine and nine!”

Both men lifted their lids at the same moment.

The judges weighed the pills on the Pavilion’s jade scale. They held them to the light. They weighed them again.

“Both Perfect,” Old Master Du of the Du House said at last, sounding pained. “I can’t tell them apart.”

“Neither can I,” Zhuo Tingsong said, and stroked his beard. “A dragon dances, the river rises.”

Cen Rong said nothing. Her eyes went to Shi Feng’s furnace lid, where a faint grey smudge still clung under the ninth cloud’s last wisp. Then they went to his hand, and then to his face.

She knows, Shi Feng thought. She knows I held one down.

Cen Rong looked away.

“A draw,” Cen Rong said. “Nine and nine, both Perfect. Neither house is the true alchemy of Wanhe today.”

The crowd erupted.

“A draw? With the heirloom?”

“The shop on the lane tied Azure Sun!”

“I bet on Azure Sun and I’m still happy!”

“…”

Huo Zhiyan walked across the courtyard. He stopped in front of Shi Feng and bowed first, all the way, and it was a real bow.

“Nine and nine,” Huo Zhiyan said. “I will see you at the paper.”

“You will,” Shi Feng said, and bowed back just as low. Then he grinned. “Nobody wins, so everybody pays the ruling fee.”

Huo Zhiyan’s mouth moved. It might have been the first time he’d smiled all year. He paid.

That evening Shi Feng sat at the noodle board with a full bowl and found he didn’t feel like boasting. Ran Bowen had been a mouth. Huo Zhiyan was a hand. For the first time in Wanhe, he wanted another alchemy contest for the chance to test himself. Huo Zhiyan had earned his respect.

Cen Rong came down the lane at dusk, alone. She didn’t sit.

“Now Azure Sun’s Tianjing hall knows two names,” Cen Rong said quietly.