Chapter 696 — The Morning Queue

CHAPTER 696

The Morning Queue

“Forty-one,” Ji Yuanhe said. “Forty-two.”

He wasn’t counting buns this time. He was counting people.

The queue began at the Willow Ford gate and ran the whole length of the lane, past the cloth seller and the water carrier’s barrels, all the way to Auntie Niu’s stall at the lane mouth. Frost still lay on the roof tiles. Stewards in silk stood behind porters in felt, and every one of them held a paper.

Shi Feng stood in the gateway with a cup of hot water and looked at it for a long time.

“How many, Master Ji?” Shi Feng asked.

“Sixty-three,” Ji Yuanhe said. “Sixty-four. One just left to use the latrine. Sixty-three.”

Since the Pavilion pasted his name on its results board, word had spread through the capital. This morning half of it seemed to have found his gate.

“They’ve found the gate quickly,” Shi Feng said. “Master Ji, we’d better make room for your book.” He drank his hot water before facing the line again.

Ji Yuanhe went on counting.

At the lane mouth Auntie Niu had already understood the situation better than anyone. She had both steamers going and her grandson running trays down the line.

“Buns! Hot buns!” Auntie Niu shouted. “You’ll be standing till noon, so eat something! Three coppers!”

“It was two coppers yesterday!” a porter complained.

“Yesterday there wasn’t a queue!” Auntie Niu said. “Three!”

The porter paid three. So did the man behind him. Auntie Niu caught Shi Feng’s eye over the heads and waved a bun at him.

“Young Master Feng! Young Master Shi! Whatever you’re called this week!” Auntie Niu shouted. “Your customers are eating my whole stock!”

“Then raise it to four, Auntie,” Shi Feng called back. “None of them will give up his place for one copper.”

The queue laughed, and Auntie Niu raised it to four.

The ward runner had brought a workshop-grade fire licence at dawn, already bearing Warden Kan’s stamp. Shi Feng hadn’t applied for it. A month ago he’d received the smallest licence. Now the ward offered the largest without asking him a question. The new Mark had changed its judgment overnight.

Shi Feng set his cup on the gatepost and stepped up onto the threshold stone.

“Everyone, please listen,” Shi Feng said. “I’ll say this once, so the people at the back should listen hardest.”

The lane went quiet. Even the goose a merchant was carrying stopped honking.

“First, the fee is the 4 Mark fee,” Shi Feng said. “The cold isn’t my fault, so I won’t give a discount for it. Second, bring ingredients for two tries for every pill you order, the same as you would anywhere else. Third, whatever comes out of my furnace beyond your order stays with me.”

A murmur ran down the line.

“He’s saying it out loud?”

“Every furnace in the city keeps the surplus. Nobody says it!”

“At least we know the terms before we hand over our herbs,” someone farther back said.

“If the third rule bothers you, the Azure Sun hall on Alchemists’ Row is open,” Shi Feng said pleasantly. “Their fee is the same, and they keep the same. The only difference is that I told you to your face.”

Nobody left the line.

Ji Yuanhe had set a small table in the gateway with an inkstone and a fresh account book. He wrote each name in neat, square characters and read it back. His hand didn’t shake once.

Shi Feng was pleased to see the steady hand. Two months ago, Ji Yuanhe needed a count to manage a spoon. Now he could enter names, check them and pass each customer a receipt. It wasn’t a cure, but it was work the old man could take pride in.

The first man in line had been there since before the night watch ended. It was Guan Haojie, the Situ steward, as stiff as ever in dark blue, with his seal box held in both hands.

“Master Shi,” Guan Haojie said, bowing low. “The Situ town house congratulates you on your Mark.”

“Thank you, Steward Guan,” Shi Feng said. “You came early.”

“The Situ are always early,” Guan Haojie said seriously. “The branch house needs six Deity Transformation-grade pills. Blood-Settling Pills, for the young lord’s guards.” He opened the box. “Ingredients for twelve, as is proper. The furnace clause stands as written.”

He checked the twelve red packets inside. Each set bore a Situ seal, and none of the herbs looked cheap or poorly kept. This was a serious order.

“There’s never any surplus,” Guan Haojie added, as he always did, as if apologising for the custom.

“There is now,” Shi Feng said kindly. “You just won’t see it.”

Guan Haojie stared at the twelve packets. He knew the clause, but no alchemist had ever told him so directly what it would cost. His next polite reply failed to come.

“…” Guan Haojie said.

“Write it down, Master Ji,” Shi Feng said. “Situ house, six Blood-Settling Pills, ten days.”

“Situ house,” Ji Yuanhe said, writing. “Six. Ten days. One.”

Guan Haojie bowed again and left with the receipt. The man behind him stepped up, and the man behind him craned his neck, and the line shuffled forward one pace.

By the time the sun cleared the roofs, Ji Yuanhe had filled four pages. There were nine stewards from minor houses, a Cangming deacon who wanted a pill for his teacher, two women who wanted the same pill for their husbands’ old wounds, and a merchant who wanted to know if Shi Feng could do anything for a goose. Shi Feng said he couldn’t, and the merchant went away disappointed, holding his goose.

“Forty-four left,” Ji Yuanhe said.

Shi Feng was reaching for the next paper when the lane went quiet again.

This time nobody had asked it to.

A carriage had stopped at the lane mouth. It was painted violet, it was pulled by two horses with silver bridles, and it was too wide to come any further. On its door was a crest of a black cloud with a white thunderbolt through it.

Auntie Niu’s tray stopped halfway to a customer.

“That crest…”

“Thunder Abyss Valley!”

“One of the eight giant sects? Here, at Willow Ford?”

“Who’s inside? Can you see?”

The carriage door opened. A man in violet stepped down and looked along the whole queue. Then he looked at the gate at the end of it.

Every steward in the line moved a step closer to the wall.