Chapter 661 — No Priority

CHAPTER 661

No Priority

“Two hundred and eleven. Two hundred and twelve,” Ji Yuanhe counted aloud.

He climbed the river stairs of Tianjing one step at a time and counted every one. Above them the Water Gate rose out of the dawn mist, black stone forty zhang high. Three hundred junks were tied up along the docks below it.

Shi Feng had the noodle pot on his back and both bundles in his hands. Behind them, the passengers off the night boats grumbled.

“Old man, are you counting your coffin nails?” a merchant shouted. “Move!”

“Two hundred and thirteen,” Ji Yuanhe said, at exactly the same speed.

“He’s counting the stairs, brother,” Shi Feng said cheerfully over his shoulder. “If you want the total, it’s a copper. Waiting is free.”

The merchant decided he didn’t want the total.

At the top sat the gate clerk, with a stamp and a spike of papers as thick as his arm. He read Shi Feng’s token and yawned.

“Feng Shi. 3 Mark. Wanhe register,” the clerk said. “Sect?”

“None,” Shi Feng said.

“Family?” the gate clerk asked, holding the stamp over the paper.

“None,” Shi Feng said.

Bang. The stamp came down. PROVINCIAL. NO PRIORITY.

Shi Feng handed over Cen Rong’s letter. The clerk pushed it down onto the spike unopened.

“Recommendations for the Ninefold Tower. The runner takes them up on the first of the month,” the clerk said, and ran his thumb down the pile. “You’re behind four hundred and six.”

“Four hundred and seven,” Ji Yuanhe said softly.

“Entry is two silver a head,” the gate clerk continued. “One silver for baggage. And fifty silver furnace levy on that.” He pointed his brush at the pot.

Shi Feng’s face lit up. A real fee, with a real board behind it. He’d missed this.

“Brother clerk,” Shi Feng said loudly, so the whole queue could hear, “let’s read your board together. First, line six says the furnace levy is for a furnace brought in for trade. This is a noodle pot. Second, line two says a man’s own pack isn’t baggage, and I’m carrying it, so it’s my pack. Third—”

“It has three legs,” the gate clerk said, pointing stubbornly at the pot. “It’s a cauldron.”

“So does a stool,” Shi Feng said. “Third, if it’s a furnace, write me a paper saying the Water Gate of Tianjing certifies my noodle pot as a furnace. Then I’ll sell noodles at triple the price and thank you with every bowl.”

The queue burst out laughing.

“Give him the paper!”

“I’d buy that noodle!”

“…”

The clerk’s mouth worked for a moment. “Four silver,” the clerk said. “Go.”

Tower Street ran straight from the gate to the Ninefold Tower, nine white storeys standing over every roof in the city. Halfway up, the crowd made way for an old man in a plain grey robe.

Shi Feng’s Spirit Sense brushed him and slid off, as if it had touched a cliff in the dark. Beyond Shattering Void. Mo’s memories had a name for that, and it wasn’t a name anybody said in the street.

Then the grey-robed elder stopped, stepped to the side and bowed first, to a stooped old man with two cabbages in a string bag. The old man nodded and shuffled on.

“Who was that?” Shi Feng asked the fruit seller, waiting until the two old men were out of earshot.

“Where are you from, the frontier?” the fruit seller said. “That’s a 6 Mark.”

To think that a man like that would give the road to a pair of cabbages, Shi Feng thought, delighted. In Tianjing, a 6 Mark outranked almost anyone alive, and every fruit seller knew it.

In the Three Kettles teahouse farther up the street, the patrons were counting them.

“Old Tower Master Dai. Jiang Xu. The Pavilion holds nearly every one of them,” a fat silk merchant said. “The palace has Xuanyuan Gui, and the Serene Jade Sect has one nobody’s seen in a hundred years.”

“And Qu Hanshan of the Azure Sun?” his friend asked.

“Eight clouds on the register—close to 6 Mark certification, but he hasn’t passed it,” the fat merchant said. “And there isn’t a living 7 Mark.”

“Count the eggs before the hen sits,” a thin scholar said.

The table nodded, and the fat merchant poured.

“Did you hear about Wanhe?” the scholar went on. “Some 3 Mark there called down a pill tribulation.”

“A Tribulation Pill from a 3 Mark?” the fat merchant snorted. “A bought stunt from the frontier. A provincial with no sect paid somebody for those clouds.”

Shi Feng turned his stool around.

“Exactly right,” Shi Feng agreed warmly. “Those frontier people will believe anything. I’m from the frontier myself, and even I don’t believe it.”

“See?” the fat merchant said. “Even the bumpkin knows.”

The table laughed, and Shi Feng laughed with them, and meant it. Let them doubt the story, Shi Feng thought. If they dismissed him, they wouldn’t be looking for the secrets behind his pills. Senior Brother would have bought these fine gentlemen a round for that.

Madam Liu Su received them in a back room on Silk Lane. She was a woman of about forty with a sandalwood fan, and she tapped it on the table once for every number she said.

“Steward Zhuo writes that you pay on time and argue about everything, Young Master Feng,” Liu Su said. “So I’ll give you the price first.” Tap. “A courtyard at Willow Ford. Two rooms, a kitchen with a flue, a well, a willow, and a neighbour who sells buns.” Tap. “One million a year, paid ahead.”

Ji Yuanhe counted the taps under his breath.

Shi Feng paid without a word. A quiet house with a flue was worth more than a loud one with a garden.

“And the other thing Zhuo wrote about?” Shi Feng asked.

Liu Su glanced at Ji Yuanhe before answering. “There’s one Quiet Soul Lotus in the capital this year,” Liu Su said quietly. “It goes under the hammer at the end of summer. For two hundred thousand, I can make the house hold it for you.”

Shi Feng counted out the deposit himself.

[Money: 12.0M → 10.8M]

“One more question, Madam,” Shi Feng said. “If a man wanted a herb that isn’t in any catalogue or any auction, where would he look?”

Liu Su’s fan stopped tapping.

“There is one place no auction house touches,” Liu Su said. “It is two days south, and it eats people.”