Chapter 745 — Late Deity Transformation

CHAPTER 745

Late Deity Transformation

“Thirty-six,” Ji Yuanhe said.

The lamp in the Willow Ford courtyard had burned down to a stub. Grey light was coming over the east wall, and the gate had been barred for two days. Shi Feng sat cross-legged on his floor bedding with a lacquer tray in front of him. Two cracked brown pills were left on it.

They were the waste from the stall round. Thirty-eight Deity Transformation-grade pills had failed in seven days of refining in the market street, and he’d kept every one of them in a jar. Anyone else who swallowed one would be sick for a month. To the All-Devouring Physique, each one was a full measure of herbs.

He put the thirty-seventh in his mouth and chewed.

“Thirty-seven,” Ji Yuanhe said.

The old man sat on an upturned bucket by the kitchen door with a blanket round his shoulders. He hadn’t slept either. Every time Shi Feng swallowed, Ji Yuanhe counted, in the slow, even beat he’d used for three years beside the black furnace in the Pill Pit. Back then the count had held his broken soul together. Tonight he was using it to keep Shi Feng’s breathing steady, and it worked.

“You can go to bed,” Shi Feng said. “There’s only one left.”

“Then I’ll go to bed after one,” Ji Yuanhe said. “Swallow.”

Shi Feng swallowed the thirty-seventh, then picked up the final pill. He chewed it slowly and swallowed that too. Ji Yuanhe watched his breathing, waiting to finish the count.

The qi burned as it went down. Inside him, the nine layers of the pagoda took it, from the bottom layer up. For two days the top three layers had been too heavy for the ones beneath them, and they’d swayed every time he breathed. Now the last measure of herbs settled into them, and they stopped swaying.

The deity seated in the pagoda opened its eyes.

Qi burst out of every pore in his body. The lamp went out. Dust jumped off the roof tiles, and Ji Yuanhe’s blanket blew back off his shoulders.

Shi Feng closed his sleeves at once. The Quiet Sleeve Art drew the escaping aura back inside him, and the courtyard went still. Over the wall, Auntie Niu’s rooster had stopped halfway through crowing. After a moment it started again from the beginning.

“Thirty-eight,” Ji Yuanhe said, a little late.

“Late Deity Transformation,” Shi Feng said.

He opened his hand and looked at it. The fingers felt the same. The qi behind them didn’t. His qi moved with far more force than it had at midnight. He flexed his fingers once and held it steady. The breakthrough hadn’t disturbed his control.

“The deeper the water, the quieter it runs,” Ji Yuanhe said, looking round the still courtyard.

Outside this courtyard, he’d still show mid Deity Transformation and nothing more. Half the candidates in the contest had already decided he was the weakest man left. Shi Feng thought: let them prepare for the man they’d seen in the ring. They wouldn’t discover the breakthrough until he chose to show it.

Ji Yuanhe picked his blanket up off the ground and folded it.

“And the ribs?” Ji Yuanhe asked.

“Healed too,” Shi Feng said.

It was a lie by about a day. The breakthrough had washed through the two cracked ribs from the Tang Mingyu bout and knit them, but they’d knit thin. They would ache every time he twisted to the left until about tomorrow evening.

Ji Yuanhe looked at him for a long time.

“You’re holding your left elbow in,” Ji Yuanhe said.

“It’s a habit from the bout,” Shi Feng said. “I’ll have it gone by the banquet, so nobody else sees it either.”

Ji Yuanhe didn’t say anything. He went into the kitchen and came back out with a bowl of hot water and a strip of clean cloth, and set them both down beside the bedding without a word.

Shi Feng laughed and bound the ribs.

[Devoured: thirty-eight waste pills from the stall round | Gain: late Deity Transformation | Note: shown publicly as mid Deity Transformation.]

“Two days!” Auntie Niu shouted over the wall. “Two days with the gate barred! Are you two dead in there?”

Auntie Niu’s head came up over the top of the wall, then her shoulders, then a steaming tray.

“The whole lane thinks you’ve run off with the princess’s money!” Auntie Niu said loudly. “I told them, nobody runs off and leaves his furnace behind! Your furnace is still in the yard!”

“We were counting, Auntie,” Shi Feng said.

“Counting what? Counting doesn’t fill a stomach!” Auntie Niu said, and pushed the tray over. “Six buns. Master Ji eats four. You look like you’ve already eaten.”

“I have,” Shi Feng said. “Leftovers.”

Auntie Niu sniffed at the empty jar by the bedding, decided she didn’t want to know, and went back down to her steamers.

Ji Yuanhe had finished his second bun when someone knocked at the gate.

It was a household runner in Long-family red, with mud on his boots from the lane. He bowed and held out a folded card with both hands.

“Candidate Shi. Chief Steward Ke sends his compliments, and his apologies for the early hour,” the runner said politely. “The orders for Round Four.”

Shi Feng unfolded it and read it aloud for Ji Yuanhe.

“Round Four. The Banquet of Twelve Cups,” Shi Feng read. “Two days from today, in the Lotus Hall of the Phoenix Tail Pavilion. Twelve candidates, twelve guests, twelve cups.” Shi Feng turned the card over. “Candidates come alone.”

“Alone?” Ji Yuanhe asked.

“No attendants inside the hall,” the runner said. “The steward is very sorry.”

“Then I’ll stay with Auntie Niu,” Ji Yuanhe said at once. “She’ll want help with the steamers.”

Shi Feng nodded. He didn’t like it, but the stall was in plain sight of half the lane, and Auntie Niu had a louder voice than any watch gong in Tianjing.

The runner bowed again, then hesitated in the gateway.

“The steward asked me to add one more thing, Candidate Shi,” the runner said. “Please don’t drink anything at the banquet.”

“Why not?” Shi Feng asked.

“Because one of the twelve cups will be poisoned,” the runner said politely. “Her Highness wants to see who notices.”