Chapter 70 — Twelve Pills and Four for Himself

CHAPTER 70

Twelve Pills and Four for Himself

“The last pills I bought turned to powder in the bottle,” Zhu Shan said. “I won’t pay for another batch of dust.”

“Show me the ingredients first,” Shi Feng replied.

It was the twentieth day of practice, and Gao Yuan at last brought him a client. Zhu Shan was a Bone Refinement caravan guard who worked the Shuanghe Ferry freight road—one of the western convoys that had passed through right after Shi Feng’s trip—and was now preparing for a new season out of the capital. He carried a sack of ingredients and the empty bottle that had embarrassed him in front of his caravan captain.

The talks took place in the rented room behind a locked door. Shi Feng wore his hood and face cloth. Gao Yuan charged both men a fee for the introduction, then pressed his ear to the door.

Shi Feng quietly moved the chairs farther from the wood. Zhu Shan put the bottle down too hard. Grey dust jumped from its mouth.

“A refiner should know what he can make,” Zhu Shan said impatiently.

“Common recovery pills,” Shi Feng replied. “I’ll promise a number I can finish. Nothing more.”

Zhu Shan wiped the dust off his hand. He was still angry with the previous seller, but that man wasn’t in the room.

The change in him was small, and it would have looked pitiful beside Mo Tianheng’s memories. He could now complete one modest common recovery preparation often enough to count his failures instead of just suffering them. His records mattered more than his confidence. So he named that preparation and no other.

He laid out the quantities he inspected and his terms.

“You’ll receive at least eight usable pills,” Shi Feng said. “Your materials allow six small attempts. If the final yield reaches twelve, four pills belong to me. If it falls between eight and twelve, I’ll keep only what exceeds eight.”

“Fee?” Zhu Shan asked.

“A modest cash fee for room, fuel, and labour,” Shi Feng said. “You own the promised output. Failed material is mine only because this agreement says so. If fewer than eight pills result, I’ll make up the shortfall at my own cost before I collect the final fee.”

Zhu Shan read the shortfall term twice. Then he pushed the empty bottle aside. At least he would have a clear promise to bring back to his captain.

“Poor ingredients?” Zhu Shan asked.

“They’re your ingredients,” Shi Feng said. “We’ll settle their quality before I begin.”

He opened every packet in front of the guard. One dried root had lost half its strength. A bundle of leaves carried far too much stem.

“Hmph!” Zhu Shan grunted, and pulled out the poor portions with his own hands.

Replacements arrived the next morning. Shi Feng counted again before he accepted the commission.

Across six careful firings that afternoon, Shi Feng resisted the temptation to reach for Mo Tianheng’s advanced techniques and held strictly to the slower Bone Refinement adjustments his channels could sustain. After the first batch separated, the next five runs steadied, yielding twelve sound recovery pills in total—eight for Zhu Shan’s bottle, four for Shi Feng’s own bones, and a handful of scorched residue he set aside to devour later.

Four belonged to him under the agreement. Eight belonged to Zhu Shan. The usable waste was his too, but its nourishment didn’t make it a product he could honestly put in a customer’s box.

When the guard returned, all three piles lay apart beside the contract.

Zhu Shan held a pill up to the lamp. “Hm,” Zhu Shan grunted. Then he swallowed one from his own eight and waited for the promised warmth. His shoulders loosened.

It wasn’t a miracle. It wasn’t a great medicine in disguise. It was a common recovery pill that did what the agreement said.

“Next month,” Zhu Shan said, wiping his mouth. “Again!”

“Bring the ingredients earlier,” Shi Feng said.

Zhu Shan glanced at the cash fee. Shi Feng turned the agreement toward him and set one finger beside the line.

Zhu Shan paid.

At the door Zhu Shan stopped. “Your face,” Zhu Shan said.

“The room will be the same,” Shi Feng said.

Zhu Shan’s expression turned sour at the face cloth. He weighed curiosity against cheap and honest pills, and left.

“Master Shen,” Gao Yuan said from behind a pillar once the footsteps faded, yawning. “Bigger room. More rent. Good for both of us.”

“No,” Shi Feng said.

“A slightly bigger room?” Gao Yuan asked, without much hope.

“The room isn’t my limit,” Shi Feng said. “My control is. One good commission hasn’t made my qi any finer.”

He didn’t intend to rent a grander place so that he could fail more impressively.

Back home that evening, Ling Qingzhu was out in the courtyard watering the pear tree. Shi Feng slipped into the kitchen and swallowed the first pill he’d kept. The medicinal force flowed into the golden traces in his bones, clear and useful. The next worked just as well, with no resistance and no hidden poison.

Shi Feng smiled in his heart. Twelve pills! Four of them mine! The business could now pay twice: stones for food and supplies, and medicine for the enormous work inside his body.

It had also cost many days of practice, repeated failures, and a yield sheet too honest to resemble Mo Tianheng’s effortless memories. Shi Feng recorded all of it.

“Shi Feng!” Ling Qingzhu called from the courtyard. “Last bean curd! Want it? Or the pear tree gets it.”

He put away the account and went to supper. She saw the unusual satisfaction on his face and decided he’d won a petty dispute over money.

“You look pleased,” Ling Qingzhu said suspiciously.

“I am,” Shi Feng said.

“Did you win an argument or lose a tooth?” Ling Qingzhu asked.

“Something like that,” Shi Feng said, reaching for the bean curd—though as he ate, he remembered Gao Yuan’s parting whisper at the yard gate: a woman who supplied a dozen Bone Refinement hunters was coming tomorrow, and Zhou Mingde’s clerks had just been seen visiting the district’s herb wholesalers.