Chapter 674 — A Rope Is Not a Person

CHAPTER 674

A Rope Is Not a Person

“Broth Brother! Over here!” Old Zuo shouted, waving above the crowd.

The square below the Ninefold Tower was packed from wall to wall. Thousands of cultivators had come to hear the Pavilion’s notice, and a man in bright purple silk was shoving through them with both elbows.

It was Old Zuo. A season ago, he had been lying in a ditch at the Hanyan ring with a coil of rope and holes in his boots. Now he had a jade ring on every finger.

“Old Zuo,” Shi Feng said, delighted. “I almost didn’t recognise you. You’ve bought yourself quite a coat.”

“Thirty years east of the river, thirty years west!” Old Zuo said proudly, stroking his sleeve. “I sold the Deity beast story to nine teahouses. Nine! Then every fool in the capital wanted rope for the Seam, and there’s only one rope worth buying.”

He slapped the coil at his hip. It was grey-green, thin as a finger, and braided so tightly it looked like one solid cord.

“Zuo ring-grass rope,” Old Zuo said. “My family’s grown that grass on the ring’s edge for six generations. A fold can bend space, bend your legs, bend your head inside out. It can’t bend this. Tie a party on ring-grass and they come out together.”

So that’s why he got rich so fast, Shi Feng thought. Everyone else is selling maps. He’s selling the only thing that works.

A bell rang from the Tower steps, and the square went quiet.

Surveyor Ju Dewei stood at the top in a plain white robe, holding a scroll with the Pavilion’s seal. He bowed to the crowd before he spoke.

“The Sky Pavilion thanks the honoured guests for their patience,” Ju Dewei said. “A nation has its laws, and a house has its rules. These are the rules of the Seam.”

He read them one at a time, slowly, so the back of the square could hear.

The Seam would open on the night of Mid-Autumn and stay open for twelve nights. Only cultivators below Profound Heaven could pass the door. Every party had to be roped. Every party leader had to sign the Pavilion’s ledger and pay a bond of two million. There would be no blood at the gate.

“Finally,” Ju Dewei said, “every unaffiliated entrant will be recorded by name and realm, and the record will be posted.”

The square exploded.

“Two million just for the bond?”

“Posted? So everyone knows who went in alone?”

“Sects only, then. They might as well say it.”

“…”

Shi Feng’s heart sank a little.

An unaffiliated man showing only Soul Formation would be turned back at the ledger, and that was the good outcome. The bad outcome was that they let him in, and his name and realm went up on a public board for every watcher in Tianjing to read.

He waited until the crowd broke up, then climbed the steps and bowed.

“Surveyor Ju,” Shi Feng said politely. “A question from a bumpkin. Does the ledger list everyone on a rope?”

Ju Dewei recognised him at once. He didn’t say so.

“The ledger lists the party,” Ju Dewei said. “The leader and his fighters. Porters on a rope are not listed, honoured guest. A rope is not a person.”

He bowed and went back inside.

Shi Feng waited until Ju Dewei had gone inside before smiling. If porters weren’t named, he could enter without giving the watchers his trail.

“Well,” Old Zuo said, climbing up beside him, “I know a man who needs porters.”

Pan Hongzhu was the loudest man in the Ox Market.

He was a freelance rope-holder at Shattering Void, with a thick black beard and a voice that carried across three stalls. He’d hired Old Zuo as his ropeman and had twelve fighters sitting around a table, all of them eating noodles on his bill.

“A porter!” Pan Hongzhu boomed. “Zuo says you survived the ring. Good! I don’t need a man who finds things. I’ve got twelve men who find things. I need a man who carries what they find and doesn’t drop it in a fold!” He jabbed a finger. “Name?”

“Ah Fu,” Shi Feng said, bowing low.

Old Zuo coughed into his silk and said nothing.

“Ah Fu!” Pan Hongzhu said. “The terms are simple. You carry. You don’t find. You don’t get a share. Two thousand silver a night, paid at the gate. A single strand can’t make a thread, eh, Zuo? Every man on the rope does his job!”

Two thousand a night, Shi Feng thought. My Marrow-Returning Pills cost a hundred and sixty thousand each. Senior Brother would say this was a terrible deal. Senior Brother would also say to read the whole contract.

“Leader Pan,” Shi Feng said humbly. “Can this porter add one small clause?”

The twelve fighters stopped eating.

“A clause!” Pan Hongzhu roared with laughter. “The porter wants a clause! Go on, then.”

“Whatever the party throws away,” Shi Feng said, “the porter keeps.”

Pan Hongzhu stared at him.

“The rubbish?” Pan Hongzhu asked.

“The rubbish, Leader Pan,” Shi Feng said. “Broken roots, bruised leaves, anything too heavy to bring out. A porter’s family is poor. They can sell scraps.”

Pan Hongzhu slapped the table so hard the bowls jumped.

“Done! Take all the rubbish you want!” Pan Hongzhu said, grabbing a brush. “Zuo, write it down. The porter gets the rubbish. Ha! Nobody throws away anything in the Seam. You’ll come out with an empty pack and a sore back, boy!”

He wrote the clause himself, in big crooked characters, and signed it.

Shi Feng pressed his thumb beside the signature very carefully.

Lesson forty, Shi Feng thought, folding his copy into his sleeve. When they say there’s never any waste, sign for the waste.

He had never once seen Lin Langtian sign for rubbish. But he was fairly sure Senior Brother would have approved.

Old Zuo walked him to the market gate. For a long time, the rope-seller said nothing. That was unusual for him.

Then he shook his head.

“Forty years,” Old Zuo said, “and I never saw a porter ask for the rubbish.”