Chapter 723 — A Sheep’s Head

CHAPTER 723

A Sheep’s Head

By noon on the first day, Lantern Row was empty.

Not empty of people. The lane was packed from end to end. But every one of them was standing in the Golden Abacus queue, and not one was looking at the princess’s stalls.

Wei Hanlu had sold nothing. Yan Boqing had sold one salve to his own servant. At stall thirty-eight, a Situ cousin had lowered his pill price by half without asking anyone, and still nobody came.

“They lowered their prices again,” Yan Boqing said in despair, pointing his fan across the lane.

He was right. Someone at Golden Abacus Hall had come out with a brush and changed the board. Nine hundred stones.

“They’re selling below cost,” Wei Hanlu said. “They must be. Nobody can make a Minor Success Deity Transformation pill for nine hundred.”

“The Tang can afford to lose money for seven days,” the candle woman said from the top of the row. “Can you?”

Shi Feng took a stone note from his sleeve and gave it to Ji Yuanhe.

“Go and buy one,” Shi Feng said.

The young masters both turned to look at him.

“You’re buying from the Tang?” Wei Hanlu said, outraged. “While you’re selling under her banner?”

“I need to examine the actual pill,” Shi Feng said. “Not their price board. Master Ji, keep the box closed until you reach our counter.”

“No opening,” Ji Yuanhe agreed, and went.

He was gone for a long time. The queue moved slowly, because the Tang clerks wrapped every pill in gold paper, said three blessings over it and wrote the buyer’s name in a book. Ji Yuanhe came back with a small gold box and nine hundred stones fewer.

“Two hundred and eleven people,” Ji Yuanhe said, handing it over. “Ahead of me.”

“Thank you,” Shi Feng said.

He opened the box behind the counter, out of the wind.

The size and polished colour looked right. Shi Feng smelled it, then broke a rice-grain corner with his thumbnail and tasted it. He waited for the ingredients and the fire’s treatment of them to separate clearly on his tongue.

He chewed for a while.

Yan Boqing and Wei Hanlu had both leaned over the low wall between their stalls to watch. Neither of them would admit it.

“Well?” Yan Boqing asked at last.

“The herbs are right,” Shi Feng said. “The fire was too fast. The core didn’t close properly. It was made under three clouds, at most.” He put the rest of the pill back in its gold box. “It’s a Common pill wearing a Minor Success label.”

Wei Hanlu’s mouth fell open.

“That’s fraud!”

“It’s hanging up a sheep’s head and selling dog meat,” the candle woman said comfortably, and went back to her candles.

“Then we tell the market!” Wei Hanlu said. “We go out there and shout that the Tang are selling fakes!”

“They know you sell for the princess,” Shi Feng said. “They know the Tang oppose her. Shouting from this side will sound like jealousy, and I can’t hand them my tongue as proof. We need to show them something they can judge themselves.”

Wei Hanlu opened his mouth and shut it again.

“A customer wants a useful pill he can afford,” Shi Feng added. “If all we do is frighten him away from the cheap one, he still won’t pay three thousand here. He’ll leave the market without either.”

“Then what’s the point of knowing?” Yan Boqing said.

“The point is that a Common pill sells for about nine hundred anyway,” Shi Feng said. “They aren’t losing nearly as much as they want everyone to think. And a real Minor Success pill would be worth more than nine hundred to anyone with eyes.”

He crouched behind the counter and started taking things out of his ring.

A sack of charcoal. Two crates of herbs. A bundle of fire-bricks. Last came the black cauldron bought in Wanhe, brought here on Ji Yuanhe’s handcart.

“What are you doing?” Wei Hanlu asked.

“Making pills,” Shi Feng said.

Shi Feng stepped over the drain and built the fire-ring where the Tang queue could watch. Hiding in the damp stall would make his claim no more convincing than an argument across the lane. The next pill would have to prove its own grade.

The two young masters stared at him. Then they started to laugh.

“He’s going to refine in the street!”

“A 4 Mark, cooking pills next to a drain like a dumpling seller!”

“Brother Shi,” Yan Boqing called, wiping his eyes with his fan. “If you want customers, at least burn some incense. Your stall smells of canal.”

“It’ll smell of pills soon,” Shi Feng said.

He set the cauldron on the bricks. Ji Yuanhe was already kneeling beside the charcoal sack, lining up the herbs on a cloth in the order Shi Feng would need them.

Across the lane, a few heads in the queue turned to look. A Deity Transformation pill could only be made by a 4 Mark alchemist. Nobody in Tianjing had ever seen one made outdoors.

Shi Feng struck the flint.