Chapter 675 — The Quiet Sleeve

CHAPTER 675

The Quiet Sleeve

“Nine hundred thousand,” Madam Liu Su said, and laid a thin grey manual on the table. “Not one copper less, young master.”

Shi Feng looked at the cover. It said Quiet Sleeve Art in faded ink, and under that, Shattering Void-grade.

“Madam Liu, you raised the supplement herbs forty-five percent,” Shi Feng said. “At least let me haggle for the sake of my pride.”

“Haggle, then,” Liu Su said, pouring tea.

He haggled for one full minute. He talked about the faded ink and the Seam fever. Liu Su drank her tea and didn’t move by a single copper.

“Nine hundred thousand,” Shi Feng said happily, and paid.

Liu Su slid the manual across. Then she kept two fingers on it.

“A word of warning, free of charge,” Liu Su said. “The Sleeve hides a man’s qi and intent, so other people’s senses slide off him. But the more you cover something, the more it shows. Wearers of this art are always remembered for what they hide.”

“I’ll test its limits before I trust it, Madam Liu,” Shi Feng said, looking again at the warning on the manual.

She lifted her fingers and didn’t smile.

After the Sleeve and Old Zuo’s rope gear, his purse stood at eight and a half million. Shi Feng read the manual that night by one lamp, with Ji Yuanhe counting the pages beside him. It was Shattering Void-grade on paper, but in his hands it would only reach Deity Transformation-grade, and that was more than enough.

By dawn he could fold his intent into his sleeve and keep it there. The Quiet Sleeve Art had reached Entry.

He wanted to test it, and the test walked in at noon.

Shi Feng was halfway through a bowl at the noodle house when a young man in a sword-grey robe sat down across from him without asking. A long sword lay across his knees. His aura was late Deity Transformation, sharp and clean.

“The cook says you eat here every noon,” Meng Chuyang said. “I asked him where to find the noodle-pot man.”

Behind the counter, the cook suddenly found his pot very interesting.

“And you are?” Shi Feng asked.

“Meng Chuyang,” Meng Chuyang said. “Ninety-ninth.”

The one right below me, Shi Feng thought. How convenient.

“Bei Hong is my sworn brother,” Meng Chuyang said coldly. “His family asked me to see what you are. I’m not being paid, and I won’t take anything from you. What the ear hears is empty. What the eye sees is real.”

“A bout?” Shi Feng asked.

“With nobody watching,” Meng Chuyang said. “I don’t want your name and mine in the same rumour.”

“And when it’s done?” Shi Feng asked. “What will Bei Hong hear?”

“Nothing,” Meng Chuyang said. “A sworn brother’s shame isn’t settled by another man’s win.”

“Usually there’d be a fee for this,” Shi Feng said, putting down his chopsticks. “But you’re in luck, Young Master Meng. Today, I’d almost pay you.”

Meng Chuyang frowned. He didn’t understand, and Shi Feng didn’t explain.

The cook’s back yard was a square of packed earth with a well and a pile of firewood. Meng Chuyang drew his sword. The blade sang once, very softly.

He was fast. His sword went straight for the place where Shi Feng’s aura said he was standing.

Shi Feng wasn’t there.

He had only stepped half a pace to the left, but the Sleeve held his intent, and Meng Chuyang’s senses slid right past him. The sword cut empty air. Meng Chuyang turned and struck again, and again the blade found nothing.

So it works, Shi Feng thought. Nine hundred thousand well spent.

On the second exchange, he stepped inside the sword and laid one palm on Meng Chuyang’s chest.

Meng Chuyang went backward into the woodpile. Firewood rolled across the yard.

The swordsman sat there among the logs. Then he stood, brushed the bark off his robe and sheathed his sword. His face was sour, but his voice was exact.

“My sword never found you,” Meng Chuyang said. “Not once.”

“Your second cut nearly found me, Young Master Meng,” Shi Feng said, giving the swordsman time to collect himself.

Meng Chuyang turned the sheathed sword and held it out hilt-first across both palms.

“A forfeit,” Meng Chuyang said.

“Keep it,” Shi Feng said. “You lost the bout, not the sword.”

Meng Chuyang looked at him without expression. Then he put the sword back through his belt.

“Then the list was right,” Meng Chuyang said, and walked out through the noodle house without looking back.

The list didn’t change. A bout with no witness wasn’t counted, and Meng Chuyang would never tell anyone it had happened.

That evening Old Zuo came to Willow Ford with a coil of ring-grass and tied it around the leg of the kitchen table.

“Over, under, back through, and pull,” Old Zuo said. “That’s the Zuo knot. It doesn’t slip, and it doesn’t jam. You can untie it with one hand even when a fold’s got you upside down. Again.”

Shi Feng tied it. Old Zuo untied it.

“Again,” Old Zuo said. “Skill comes from practice. My grandfather made me tie it ten thousand times before he let me near the ring.”

By the fortieth knot, Shi Feng could do it with his eyes closed. Ji Yuanhe sat across the table and counted every one.

When Old Zuo left, Ji Yuanhe kept staring at the table leg.

“Twelve nights,” Ji Yuanhe said.

“Twelve nights,” Shi Feng agreed.

“If you’re not back in twelve nights,” Ji Yuanhe said slowly, “I’ll count the neighbours. House by house. Every one.”

Shi Feng laughed.

“The poor neighbours,” Shi Feng said. “They’ll be so sorry.”

“Then I’ll count you,” Ji Yuanhe said.

Shi Feng stopped laughing. Ji meant it. The threat wasn’t about numbers. Ji Yuanhe was afraid he wouldn’t return, and Shi Feng regretted laughing.

Ji Yuanhe took a short piece of ring-grass from the table, tied it around Shi Feng’s left wrist in a clumsy Zuo knot and pulled it tight.

“One,” Ji Yuanhe said.

That night Shi Feng read the Quiet Sleeve manual again, all the way to the end. The last page was blank except for one line, written in a different hand.

A sleeve is not a wall.