Chapter 713 — The Water Ladle

CHAPTER 713

The Water Ladle

“Water, honoured candidate?” a servant offered.

The servant wore the household’s red sash and carried a wooden bucket on a pole across his shoulders. He had a round, ordinary face and a polite smile, and he held out a full ladle with both hands.

Shi Feng had just sat down on the attendants’ bench beside platform sixty-three. Two bouts in one afternoon had left his throat dry, and the yard smelled of dust and sweat.

“Thank you,” Shi Feng said, and reached for it.

Ji Yuanhe’s hand got there first.

Ji Yuanhe took the ladle as though helping him. At the same time, he placed his own gourd in Shi Feng’s waiting hand. He kept his face calm, lifting the offered water for a closer look. Shi Feng noticed the exchange and didn’t reach again.

“The bucket is heavy,” Ji Yuanhe said to the servant. “Please rest.”

“It’s no trouble, master,” the servant said.

“Rest,” Ji Yuanhe said again.

The servant bowed without letting the smile change. He balanced the pole and entered the crowd between the platforms. Three heartbeats later, Shi Feng could no longer see his sash. The speed of that disappearance made the offered water more suspicious.

Ji Yuanhe held the ladle out at arm’s length. His hand was steady, but his voice was thinner than usual.

“Grey lotus root,” Ji Yuanhe said. “In the Pit they put it in the water when someone was too restless at his furnace. It doesn’t kill. It makes the qi heavy for half a day. The arms go slow. The man thinks he’s only tired.”

Shi Feng looked at the ladle. The water in it was perfectly clear. Even with his nose close to it, he could smell only wood and well water.

“You smelled that?” Shi Feng asked.

“I drank it in the Pit,” Ji Yuanhe said. “I know it.”

For once Shi Feng didn’t smile.

He stood up and took the ladle from Ji Yuanhe’s hand. Then he walked over to the nearest household officer, a young man with a register under his arm, and held it out.

“A servant in your sash offered this to me,” Shi Feng said evenly. “There’s grey lotus root in it. He went that way, round face, bucket and pole. I’d like to know his name.”

The officer’s face went pale. He bowed at once, three times.

“This humble one apologises, honoured candidate,” the officer said. “Please wait. I’ll have it looked into immediately.”

The officer hurried toward the steps. Shi Feng returned to Ji Yuanhe’s bench with the ladle still in his hand. He was angry, but the old man needed a quiet moment more than he needed to hear a threat aimed at an absent servant.

Around them the screening went on. On platform sixty-one, two men were trading kicks. On sixty-four, a girl with twin sabres had just thrown a sect disciple into the dust, and her friends were shrieking. Nobody on the attendants’ walk had noticed a thing.

The officer came back in the time it took to drink a cup of tea. He bowed again before he spoke.

“Honoured candidate, the household has checked its rolls,” the officer said. “A servant hired for the screening left his post without notice a short while ago. His bucket was found by the east gate. The household regrets the disturbance and will add two guards to the attendants’ walk.”

“Left without notice,” Shi Feng repeated.

“Yes, honoured candidate,” the officer said, and bowed once more.

“Thank you,” Shi Feng said. “Please thank the household too.”

The officer left, looking relieved. Shi Feng knew he wouldn’t learn any more from him. The young man didn’t know any more.

Shi Feng turned to Ji Yuanhe and bowed to him properly, with both hands, the way a junior bows to a senior.

Ji Yuanhe was startled. He half rose from the bench.

“Master Shi, there’s no need,” Ji Yuanhe said.

“There’s every need,” Shi Feng said. “I didn’t recognise it. I would have gone into the next bout without knowing what I’d been given. You knew the drug and stopped me from drinking it, Master Ji. I won’t forget that.”

Ji Yuanhe lowered himself to the bench. His lips moved as though reaching for a number, then stopped. He nodded instead. Shi Feng had bowed to him as a junior to a senior, and the old man seemed unsure what to say to that.

Shi Feng walked to the gutter at the edge of the yard and tipped the ladle out. The clear water ran away between the stones.

“Who sent him?” Ji Yuanhe asked quietly.

“I don’t know,” Shi Feng said. “Thunder Abyss wants me humbled. Azure Sun wants me gone. There are three thousand candidates here, and any of them would like an easy tally. And there are people in this city who wanted you through a window not ten nights ago.”

“That’s a lot of people,” Ji Yuanhe said.

“He came when I was thirsty after two bouts,” Shi Feng said. “Not at breakfast, when he could simply have ruined my day. He wanted the next opponent to find me slow, and the judges to think I’d reached my limit.”

“So what will you do?” Ji Yuanhe asked.

“I won’t be tired,” Shi Feng said. “And from now on, I only drink what you hand me.”

He set the empty ladle down on the bench beside the gourd.

“Paper can’t wrap fire,” Ji Yuanhe said.

Shi Feng drank from Ji Yuanhe’s gourd. The water tasted of nothing but water.

Then the sky over the centre platforms cracked.

It wasn’t real thunder. There were no clouds over the Phoenix Tail Pavilion. A bolt of violet light had leapt up from the largest stone in the yard, and the sound of it rolled across every platform at once. All over the yard, bouts stopped. Even the girl with the twin sabres froze with one blade in the air.

On the centre stone, a man in a violet robe was lowering his right palm. His opponent was lying at the far edge of the platform with smoke coming off his chest.

“That’s Huangfu Lie,” someone on the attendants’ walk said. “Thunder Abyss Valley. Ninety-fourth on the Tianxing.”

“One palm. He finished it with one palm.”

Shi Feng put the gourd down.

The burn on Willow Ford’s gate had been the size of a man’s hand. The light over the centre stone had been the size of the platform.