Chapter 694 — The Sixth Desk and North

CHAPTER 694

The Sixth Desk and North

The 4 Mark desk had no queue at all.

At the 3 Mark desk across the Records Hall, forty people stood holding tickets. At the 4 Mark desk there was one padded chair, a pot of hot tea, and a keeper who rose and bowed before Shi Feng had even sat down.

“Master Shi. Congratulations on your Mark,” the keeper said. “Two questions are permitted at this grade. Please ask.”

Shi Feng had asked the first one so many times that it came out smoothly.

“A woman brought from an Empire border contract, twenty-three years ago,” Shi Feng said. “Any record of her. Any at all.”

The keeper took a jade slip from a drawer, held it to his brow for a long time, and set it down.

“No record, Master Shi,” the keeper said gently. “I’m sorry.”

“Four askings, four answers, all the same,” Shi Feng said. “At least the Pavilion’s consistent.”

He’d expected that answer and still hoped for a different one. Shi Feng paused to settle his disappointment before asking about Nangong Xiuyi.

“Second question,” Shi Feng said. “Nangong Xiuyi, of the Serene Jade Sect.”

The keeper didn’t need a slip for that one.

“The entry exists,” the keeper said. “The Serene Jade has sealed it above your grade. It is read at the 6 Mark desk.”

The 6 Mark desk, Shi Feng thought. Two more Marks. Good. Now he knew the grade he had to reach. No bribe or clever question would open that entry sooner.

“Thank you,” Shi Feng said, and meant it.

When he stood, Hua Yi was waiting beside the chair. The head of the 3 Mark desk had left forty tickets standing in her queue to walk across the hall. Her hands were folded in her sleeves, and her face was as calm as it had been on the day she refused him.

“Keeper Hua,” Shi Feng said, bowing. “I’m afraid I won’t be troubling your desk any more. Please forgive me for refusing it.”

“Return home in brocade,” Hua Yi said coolly. “I am pleased to have been refused by you.”

She bowed exactly as low as Pavilion courtesy required, not one inch lower, and went back to her forty tickets.

On the steps outside, the Pavilion’s results board had a fresh sheet pasted up.

The 4 Mark. Shi Feng. Twenty-two. Deity Transformation.

Beside the steps, a paper-seller was crying the Tianji Mansion’s latest issue. Ji Yuanhe bought one with his own copper, turned to the list of the Hundred Famed Tianxing, and held it next to the board.

Ninety-eighth. Shi Feng.

Ji Yuanhe pointed at the board. Then he pointed at the issue. Then he looked at Shi Feng.

Shi Feng burst out laughing. He laughed so hard that two clerks on the steps turned to look.

“Same name as a fighter on the Tianxing,” a passing alchemist said to his friend, glancing at the board.

“Shi’s a common surname,” the friend said. “Ninety-eighth? Nobody reads past fifty anyway.”

They walked on.

That night, back in the Willow Ford courtyard, he refined Ji Yuanhe’s lotus pill.

It was a 4 Mark-grade pill from a pale lotus out of his Cistern winnings, a poorer cousin of the Quiet Soul Lotus he’d lost in the summer. After the Glass Hall it felt easy. It was done before the second watch, at seven clouds, with nobody counting.

Ji Yuanhe took it in both hands and swallowed it.

He lay down on his bedding. His lips moved once, out of habit, and then they stopped.

Shi Feng sat in the doorway and waited for the count to start again. It didn’t. Ji Yuanhe’s breathing went long and slow, and he slept, silently, for the first night since the Pill Pit.

Shi Feng climbed onto the courtyard roof with his private book and a lamp.

He tallied the year in short lines. Taken at Luoxia. The Pit. Out, with Ji. Wanhe. Tianjing. The 4 Mark, in his own name. Seven million in cash, near enough, and the Orchard herbs unsold. Owed: the hairpin. Owed: the rest of Ji’s cure.

Then he wrote the last line and looked at it for a while.

After the seal: north.

Shi Feng closed the book. He knew what he owed and where he meant to go. For now, Master Ji was sleeping quietly. He blew out the lamp.

In the morning he took a small parcel to the Pavilion’s courier desk.

“Declared value, honoured guest?” the courier clerk asked politely.

“Postage only,” Shi Feng said.

The clerk weighed it. A single roast sweet potato from the cart at the lane mouth, two coppers, wrapped in a cloth. It wasn’t Senior Brother’s. It was the best the capital had.

“Return address?” the courier clerk asked.

“None,” Shi Feng said. “They’ll know.”

He wrote the destination in plain characters: Artificer Hall. Hut nine.

Shi Feng watched the clerk drop the parcel into the south sack and tie it shut.

Far to the south, in four days, the Artificer Hall would close its books for the year.