Chapter 685 — Buns and the Second Asking

CHAPTER 685

Buns and the Second Asking

“FOUR HUNDRED AND NINETEEN!” Ji Yuanhe shouted at the top of his voice.

Shi Feng was over the courtyard wall before the count finished.

At the lane mouth a hired carriage stood with its door open. Two men in plain coats had Ji Yuanhe by the arms and were hauling him toward it. Ji Yuanhe had gone white, and he was still counting, as loudly as he could.

Bang!

Auntie Niu’s steamed-bun tray came down on the first man’s head. Buns flew everywhere. The man collapsed, letting go of Ji Yuanhe’s arm.

“In broad daylight, under a clear sky!” Auntie Niu screamed, raising the tray again. “Grabbing old men off my lane? Do you think this old woman’s buns are for decoration?”

The second man howled. Niu Tiezhu had his teeth sunk into the man’s hand and wasn’t letting go.

Shi Feng took the second man by the collar and lifted him off the ground. The driver whipped the horse and the empty carriage fled.

“Let go, Tiezhu,” Shi Feng said.

“He tasted like horse,” Niu Tiezhu said, spitting.

Shi Feng didn’t smile. Ji Yuanhe was shaking from head to foot, and his count had slipped back to three hundred and something. Auntie Niu guided him onto her bun cart and held his shoulder until he could stay upright.

The lane had never seen the thin tenant angry. It saw him angry now. His voice wasn’t loud, but the neighbours who’d come running stopped where they were and didn’t come any closer.

Within the hour, Sergeant Chai of the Ward Watch stood in the courtyard, looking at the man with the bun-shaped lump on his head.

“Nothing happened, I assume,” Sergeant Chai began.

“Something happened, Sergeant,” Shi Feng said. “First, a resident of your ward was nearly taken off your lane in daylight. Second, the man who did it is sitting right here with a lump on his head. Third, I want it written down at the Ward Watch and at the Pavilion within the hour, under both seals, so that next time nobody can say they weren’t told.”

Sergeant Chai looked at him for a long moment.

“…Something happened,” Sergeant Chai agreed, and started writing.

“A man paid me!” the hired man blurted. “One arm, with a grey band on the empty sleeve! He said take the old one and the porter will come looking for him!”

So he wants the porter, Shi Feng thought coldly. Not the alchemist.

The one-armed man had lost his arm in the Seam to a porter’s lucky trick, and all he knew was that the porter had a friend who counted. If he’d known that porter was the alchemist the Pit had lost, he wouldn’t have sent a hired carriage and two men who lost to a bun tray.

The attempt would go into both records. Next time the man reached for Master Ji, he wouldn’t be able to hide behind hired hands.

At the Ninefold Tower a steward in white bowed deeply over the report and offered Ji Yuanhe a night-room in the tower’s guest wing, under tower law, until the matter was settled.

Ji Yuanhe shook his head.

“I count,” Ji Yuanhe said. “I would like to do it where somebody can hear.”

Shi Feng looked at him for a breath and didn’t argue.

On the third day before Winter Onset, the 3 Mark desk called ticket 3041.

It wasn’t Si Jiahe who called it. A tall woman in grey-blue robes stood behind the desk with a jade ruler in one hand, and the junior keepers around her were all standing a little straighter than usual.

“Ticket three thousand and forty-one. Feng Shi, 3 Mark,” Hua Yi said. “I am Hua Yi, head of this desk. I asked to call your ticket myself.”

“I’m honoured, Keeper Hua,” Shi Feng said. “May I ask why?”

“Junior Keeper Si says you thank the Hall every time it refuses you,” Hua Yi said coolly. “A man like that is either a great nuisance or something greater. I wished to see which.”

“And?” Shi Feng asked.

“I haven’t decided,” Hua Yi said, and opened his file. “Your second ask first. The person of the Serene Jade Sect. Her record is beyond your current grade.”

“How far beyond?” Shi Feng asked.

“The Serene Jade Sect has raised its seal on that entry to the 6 Mark desk,” Hua Yi said.

She didn’t look at the old clerk dozing at the far end of the hall. Shi Feng did.

“And my mother?” Shi Feng asked.

“A family record of the Empire is answered at the 4 Mark desk or above,” Hua Yi said. “Not at mine.”

“Then I’ll come back with a better Mark,” Shi Feng said.

Hua Yi closed the file.

“The Hall accepts declarations for the winter sitting from any Mark holder until the first bell on the eve of Winter Onset,” Hua Yi said, as if she were reading the weather. “I mention it only because it is the rule.”

“Thank you, Keeper Hua,” Shi Feng said, and bowed. “You’ve refused me very kindly.”

“The Hall refuses everyone kindly,” Hua Yi said. “You, I refused personally.”

On his way out he passed the far end of the hall, where the old clerk dozed. The clerk’s brush rolled off the desk, and Shi Feng caught it before it hit the floor. The old clerk’s hand was already open on the desk, eyes shut.

“Nine,” the old clerk said. “Ten if you stop to bow again.”

Hua Yi’s jade ruler stopped.

Shi Feng went down the stairs in a very good mood.

In the lobby below, Yuwen Dewei’s circle was waiting by the pillars.

“Look, it’s Feng Shi!” Yuwen Dewei called out, loud enough for the whole lobby. “I hear a frontier 3 Mark went upstairs and asked 6 Mark questions! He really doesn’t know the height of heaven or the depth of the earth!”

Laughter rolled across the lobby.

A broad man stepped out from among them, smiling, with a jade ring on his thumb. The air around him grew heavy, the way air did around Shattering Void.

“Don’t mock him, Brother Yuwen,” Ruan Peizhi said pleasantly. “Let’s be courteous. Perhaps a little courtesy test, to see what the frontier is sending us?”