Chapter 720 — The Princess Reads a Name

CHAPTER 720

The Princess Reads a Name

“Her Highness, Princess Long Caili!”

The herald’s voice rolled over the Talent Hall’s yard, and the whole yard bowed.

Three thousand candidates, winners and losers alike, bent at the waist. The family elders in the gallery rose and bowed. The servants on the walls scrambled down so they could bow on the ground. Ke Lianshu went down the hall steps and bowed lowest of all.

Shi Feng stood up from the attendants’ bench and bowed with everyone else, his wrapped arm held against his side. Beside him, Ji Yuanhe bowed so low his beard nearly touched his knees.

The carriage stopped inside the gate. Twelve guards in red-gold armour came in before it and stood in two lines, and every one of them was Shattering Void. The air in the yard grew heavy just from their standing there.

A maid opened the carriage door.

Shi Feng saw Long Caili for only three steps. She wore deep crimson robes, and a gold phoenix pin held her black hair. Pale gauze covered her face. She crossed from carriage to hall without inspecting the cracked platform or acknowledging the bowed crowd.

Nobody straightened up until it had closed.

“That’s her,” a candidate near the bench breathed. “The Second Star.”

“First on the Tianxing. Number one in the whole Empire under thirty.”

“She didn’t even look at us.”

“Why would she? We’re only a list to her until tomorrow.”

Behind a painted screen in the Talent Hall, Long Caili sat at a plain desk and held out her hand.

Ke Lianshu put the register of passed tallies in it and stepped back.

“How many?” Long Caili asked.

“Forty-eight, Your Highness,” Ke Lianshu said.

“Good,” Long Caili said. She turned the pages quickly. Her finger moved down the columns without stopping. “The Gu boy. The Situ grandson. Tang Mingyu, who paid a great deal for a very ordinary bout. Qu Ming, one flame. Good.”

Her finger stopped.

At the bottom of the last page there was one line in a different hand. Someone had written a note beside it in small, careful characters.

1,107. Shi Feng. 4 Mark. Entered in error.

“Entered in error,” Long Caili read aloud.

Ke Lianshu bowed. “Your Highness, the clerk who entered him is waiting outside.”

“Bring her in,” Long Caili said.

Tong Ruyu knelt as soon as she cleared the screen. She pressed shaking hands against the floor, unable to make herself look toward the desk. The mistake she’d apologised for in the courtyard had reached the princess herself.

“This servant deserves death, Your Highness,” Tong Ruyu said. “He came to the courtyard for the Buying Hall. I gave him the wrong queue’s tally. I asked his name, his Mark, his realm and his sponsor, and I didn’t ask what he came to buy.”

“What did he come to buy?” Long Caili asked.

“The Quiet Soul Lotus, Your Highness,” Tong Ruyu said. “The one we withdrew from sale for the recruits’ vault.”

“Did he ask to withdraw?” Long Caili said.

“He asked about the fine, Your Highness. A million for wasting your time. He said he wouldn’t pay a fine for a clerk’s ink. Then he put the tally on his belt,” Tong Ruyu said.

Long Caili looked down at the line again.

“Mid Deity Transformation,” Long Caili said. “No sponsor. No sect. Three bouts. One of them against the ninety-fourth Tianxing.”

“He split the ninth coil, Your Highness,” Ke Lianshu said quietly. “I saw it from the steps. The Thunder Abyss deacon left without a word.”

Long Caili considered the record without showing surprise. The wrong tally had stayed in the contest and beaten a ranked fighter. She looked back at Tong Ruyu before deciding what to do with either of them.

“An error that beat Huangfu Lie,” Long Caili said coldly. “Keep the error.”

Tong Ruyu’s head jerked up. “Your Highness?”

“You’ll lose a month’s wages for the ink,” Long Caili said. “His fee stays where it is. Get up.”

Tong Ruyu got up, bowed three times and backed out round the screen.

Long Caili turned to the next page. Then she turned back and looked at the line one more time.

“Where do we stand him for the first round?” Ke Lianshu asked.

Long Caili closed the register.

“My side of the hall,” Long Caili said.

Tianji Mansion runners carried the new issue through the streets by the second watch. The speed of its lists was a favourite boast in Tianjing: people said its writers knew results before the judges did.

In Willow Ford, Ji Yuanhe bought one at the lane mouth with his own copper and brought it back to the courtyard. Shi Feng was sitting by the brazier with a bowl of Auntie Niu’s soup, holding it in his right hand.

Ji Yuanhe opened the issue to the Hundred Famed Tianxing and put his finger on it.

Ninety-third. Shi Feng.

Then he pointed at Shi Feng. Shi Feng laughed so hard he spilled his soup.

Auntie Niu leaned over the wall to see what the noise was.

“What is it?” Auntie Niu asked.

“The list moved me up five places, Auntie,” Shi Feng said. “Ninety-third.”

“Is that good?” Auntie Niu asked.

“It’s a number,” Shi Feng said.

“Does it pay?” Auntie Niu asked.

“No,” Shi Feng said.

“Then eat your soup before it’s cold,” Auntie Niu said, and went back to her steamers.

Nobody else in the lane even came out to look.

Ji Yuanhe folded the issue into the commission book, careful not to crease the new rank. Shi Feng was pleased to see him keep it.

There was a knock at the gate.

A household runner in Long-family red stood outside with a lantern. He bowed politely and held out a folded order sealed with a gold phoenix.

“For tally one thousand one hundred and seven,” the runner said. “The bond desk opens at the first bell, and the next round follows. By Her Highness’s order, tally one thousand one hundred and seven stands on the princess’s side of the hall.”