Chapter 719 — Passed

CHAPTER 719

Passed

“Hold still, Master Shi,” Ji Yuanhe said.

“I am holding still,” Shi Feng said.

“Your arm is not,” Ji Yuanhe said.

They were sitting on the attendants’ bench below the centre platform. Ji Yuanhe had a pot of burn salve open on his knee and a roll of clean linen in his hand, and he was wrapping Shi Feng’s left forearm. The skin was black and red in patches, and blistered where the sleeve had been. Every time the linen touched it, Shi Feng’s jaw tightened.

The absorbed thunder still hurt as it settled inside him. His back teeth ached. The shallow split at his side had mostly stopped bleeding.

Across the yard, a household clerk climbed a ladder in front of the great tally board. Three thousand numbers were painted on it in black. Most of them already had a grey stroke through them. Only forty-eight would be circled in red, and those forty-eight had passed.

The clerk found one thousand one hundred and seven, dipped his brush in red, and drew a circle around it.

A cheer went up from the walls, where the servants and grooms were sitting. Somebody up there had bet on him.

“Passed,” Ji Yuanhe said, and tied off the linen. “One thousand one hundred and seven.”

“Write it in the book,” Shi Feng said. “Big characters this time.”

Ji Yuanhe wrote it in big characters.

The first visitor came before the ink was dry. Zhong Yuanfu was a heavy old man in a brown silk robe, and he was dragging his son by the arm.

Zhong Tianci kept one hand pressed to his bruised chest. His face was red to the ears.

“Master Shi,” Zhong Yuanfu said, bowing. “I am Zhong Yuanfu of the Zhong house. My son insulted you yesterday before these people. He’ll apologise before them too.”

“Father…” Zhong Tianci said.

“Bow,” Zhong Yuanfu said.

Zhong Tianci bowed. He bowed all the way down, with his hands together, and stayed there.

“This one had eyes but didn’t recognise Mount Tai,” Zhong Tianci said stiffly. “I called Master Shi a pill-boy. I apologise.”

The crowd near the bench had gone quiet to listen. A few people laughed under their breath.

Shi Feng saw no need to prolong it. The boy had lost the bout, his tally and the pride that made him boast.

“Stand up, Young Master Zhong,” Shi Feng said. “You lost to your own fist, not to me. Next time, stop at three.”

Zhong Tianci straightened up. He didn’t know what to say, so he said nothing at all. His father bowed again and led him away by the arm.

A 4 Mark who had just beaten the ninety-fourth Tianxing was worth one bow from his son. It might be worth more in a year.

Nearby, Kuai Shan was counting silver into the thin friend’s hands, his face grim. The thin friend was trying very hard not to smile.

“Ten thousand,” Kuai Shan said heavily. “Three exchanges.”

“It was three exchanges, Brother Kuai,” the thin friend said. “You were right about that.”

Kuai Shan looked as if he wanted to hit him with the purse.

Then the crowd around the bench parted, and Huangfu Lie walked through it.

Huangfu Lie’s right hand rested in a sling, wrapped in white linen. He still looked pale from spending his qi. Two Valley disciples followed without meeting Shi Feng’s eyes.

Huangfu Lie stopped in front of the bench and looked down at the wrapped forearm. Then he looked at Shi Feng.

“Again,” Huangfu Lie said. “After the contest.”

“After the contest,” Shi Feng agreed. “Bring the gates.”

Huangfu Lie’s mouth moved, very slightly.

Niu Tiezhu came up the yard behind the food-bearer, with the midday tray in both hands and a folded paper under his chin. He set the tray down and read the paper aloud, slowly, the way he read everything. “Two gate leaves, burned through on the right. Three hundred coppers. The wright says he won’t hang them for nothing.”

Huangfu Lie took the paper from the boy and read it himself. Then he counted three hundred coppers out of his sleeve and laid them on the bench in front of the two Thunder Abyss disciples.

“Tell your wright the leaves will come from the Valley,” Huangfu Lie said. “Our own wright. They’ll be better than his.” He looked at Shi Feng. “The bill is mine. The gate is yours.”

He turned and walked out of the yard.

“A gentleman’s revenge isn’t late after ten years,” one of the disciples muttered as they went.

Huangfu Lie didn’t look back.

“He’ll come again,” Ji Yuanhe said.

“I hope so,” Shi Feng said. “He fights honestly. There aren’t many of those in this city.”

The last visitor didn’t come up to the bench at all.

Qu Ming walked past it on his way out of the yard, the same way he had walked past platform sixty-three. Yao Chen followed one step behind. This time Qu Ming stopped.

He looked at the burned arm in its linen. He looked at the two smoking holes in the centre platform. Then he looked at Shi Feng.

“Interesting furnace,” Qu Ming said.

Shi Feng was tucking the end of the linen into the wrapping.

“Watch the next round, Young Lord Qu,” Shi Feng said without looking up. “You won’t need to ask an attendant how I fight.”

Qu Ming smiled thinly and walked on, and the heat from his sleeves made the air shimmer behind him.

“He doesn’t like you,” Ji Yuanhe said.

“No,” Shi Feng said. “But now he’s paying attention, and that’s more useful.”

By the time the shadows reached the middle of the yard, the story was already going over the walls. A tally from the wrong queue had beaten Huangfu Lie of the Thunder Abyss Valley. He had split the ninth coil with one stroke. He had done it with one arm.

Nobody yet knew what he looked like. Everyone knew his number.

At dusk the household guards at the Talent Hall’s main gate suddenly straightened up. Every one of them was Shattering Void.

Down the avenue outside, a carriage drawn by four white horses was coming toward the gate, with a phoenix in red and gold on its door.