Chapter 729 — In Writing

CHAPTER 729

In Writing

The appraisal room of the Phoenix Tail Pavilion was on the second floor, behind a screen of carved sandalwood. It had one window, one long table, and one appraiser.

Appraiser Gan Shuyi was a woman of about sixty with silver hair pinned up tight and a jade lens on a cord around her neck. She rose when Shi Feng came in and bowed exactly as low as courtesy required.

“Master Shi,” Gan Shuyi said. “Candidates seldom come up here. Usually it’s their pills that come, carried by a servant.”

“I came with the servant,” Shi Feng said. Ji Yuanhe bowed behind him. “And with three pills.”

He set them on the table one by one.

The first was the bitten Tang pill, in its gold box. The second was a Spirit Tempering Pill from the household’s stock at stall forty-one, still in its pavilion wrapper. The third was one of his own, from that morning’s batch.

“What do you need, Master Shi?” Gan Shuyi asked.

“The number of clouds each was made under,” Shi Feng said. “In writing. With your seal.”

Gan Shuyi looked at the gold box for a long time. Then she looked up at him.

“You know what this is,” Gan Shuyi said. It wasn’t a question.

“I know what it tastes like,” Shi Feng said. “That won’t persuade anyone who doesn’t know me. I need your appraisal.”

The appraiser said nothing more. She sat down, lifted the jade lens and picked up the Tang pill with ivory tweezers.

Every pill kept a faint ring in its coat for each cloud it had raised in the furnace. Polishing could hide them from the eye, but not from a lens and a patient appraiser. Gan Shuyi turned the pill slowly under the light from the window, counting under her breath.

“Three,” Gan Shuyi said, and set it down. “And the third ring is thin. Common.”

Ji Yuanhe nodded once, as if he’d counted along with her.

She picked up the pavilion’s pill next.

“Five,” Gan Shuyi said. “Minor Success. As labelled.”

Then she picked up his.

Gan Shuyi took longer over his pill than the other two together. She checked the edge, turned it toward the window and checked again. When her eye watered, she lowered the lens and rubbed it before continuing. Neither visitor interrupted her.

“Six,” Gan Shuyi said. “The sixth ring is full. Major Success.” She set it down very gently. “Master Shi, I was told you made these in the street. Over a fire-ring. In the wind.”

“The wind was helpful,” Shi Feng said.

Gan Shuyi looked at him as if he’d said something mad. Then she took out three slips of appraisal paper, wet her brush and wrote.

Spirit Tempering Pill. Golden Abacus Hall. Three clouds. Common.

Spirit Tempering Pill. Phoenix Tail Pavilion stock. Five clouds. Minor Success.

Spirit Tempering Pill. Stall forty-one. Six clouds. Major Success.

She stamped each one with the pavilion’s red appraisal seal and slid them across the table.

“The fee is one hundred stones a slip,” Gan Shuyi said.

Shi Feng paid three hundred without arguing. Ji Yuanhe looked surprised.

“Why three?” Ji Yuanhe asked on the stairs. “You only need the Tang one.”

“Because it’s the princess’s appraiser,” Shi Feng explained. “The Tang are at war with the princess. If I put up one slip from her appraiser that says the Tang pill is Common, the Tang will say she lied for her own side.”

“And three?” Ji Yuanhe said.

“The other slips let people judge her work,” Shi Feng said. “She’s recorded that my pills are better than her own pavilion’s. If she were changing the results to please the princess, why put that in writing? The Tang will have to answer all three.”

Ji Yuanhe thought about it all the way down the stairs.

“Three,” Ji Yuanhe said at the bottom, satisfied.

At the foot of the stairs, Chief Steward Ke Lianshu was waiting. He bowed, as he always did, but his eyes went to the slips in Shi Feng’s hand.

“Master Shi,” Ke Lianshu said carefully. “Please remember that an accusation of fraud could bring the Tang to court. Her Highness is fighting them over prices. She hasn’t asked this humble steward to begin a lawsuit.”

“I won’t accuse anyone,” Shi Feng said. “I don’t like shouting.”

“Then what will you do with them?” Ke Lianshu said.

“Pin them up,” Shi Feng said. “People can read.”

Ke Lianshu started to speak again, then considered what pinning them up would mean. No charge brought by the household. No shouting match for his watchmen to break up. He bowed once more, almost smiling now.

Shi Feng went back down the hill toward Lantern Row with three slips of paper in his sleeve.

“Three little slips,” Ji Yuanhe said, walking beside him. “For a shop with two floors.”

“Their customers bought what the label promised,” Shi Feng said. “Let them compare it with the appraisal. A shop that big won’t be able to keep the question out once people start asking.”

Ji Yuanhe looked at the slips, then at the long gold abacus far below them over the Tang shop door, and said nothing more.

On the way, Shi Feng stopped at the candle stall and bought a pot of paste.