Chapter 746 — The Banquet of Twelve

CHAPTER 746

The Banquet of Twelve

The Lotus Hall smelled of sandalwood and cold tea.

It was a long room with a pool down the middle, and white lotuses floated on the water. Twelve guests sat at low tables along one side of the pool. Twelve candidates stood along the other side behind a red lacquer rail, close enough to see every face across the water and too far to touch a single cup.

At the head of the hall, on a dais, Princess Long Caili sat in a plain grey robe, veiled in pale gauze from brow to chin, with an account book closed on her knee. Shen Yaoqing sat beside her in plain Serene Jade blue, with her hands folded in her sleeves. Neither of them had touched the tea in front of them.

Chief Steward Ke Lianshu came to the front of the dais and bowed to everyone at once.

“This humble steward apologises for keeping you standing,” Ke Lianshu said. “The rules of Round Four are simple. Twelve guests will drink. One cup holds an exam poison, Frost-Dream Dew, of the Deity Transformation grade. It slows the heart a little at a time. When the incense stick burns out, the heart stops.”

A murmur went down the rail.

“The candidates may use any skill they have,” Ke Lianshu went on. “Find the cup. Save the guest. Her Highness’s appraisers will score each of you by what you do, and four will be cut. Please don’t step over the rail until a guest drinks.”

Shi Feng looked at the rail. Then he looked at the guests.

There were four officials in court blue, three merchants, two women from the pavilion’s silk house and a grey-bearded physician. There was also a thin, pale-faced man in an inspector’s black hat, sitting very straight at the end of the row, with a seal on his belt that said Imperial Clan Court.

Inspector Nie Liyan. The same man who’d tried to strike Shi Feng off the register at the ring. Today he was a guest.

“The Clan Court drinks at the princess’s table now,” Cheng Mobai said quietly beside him. The rogue swordsman had mended his patched sleeve for the occasion, and the new patch didn’t match the old one. “Do you think he knows which cup?”

“I think he’d like us to wonder,” Shi Feng said.

“It’s a Hongmen Banquet,” Cheng Mobai muttered.

Two places down the rail, Qu Ming laughed.

The Azure Sun young lord wore red and gold as usual. A thin man in a scholar’s robe stood at his elbow with a closed fan, and the fan bore the Azure Sun’s crest.

“The stamp boy came,” Qu Ming said, loudly enough for the whole rail to hear. “I heard you barred your gate for two days. Hiding?”

“Eating,” Shi Feng said. “I had a jar of leftovers I didn’t want to waste.”

“Leftovers,” Qu Ming said. “That’s what a 4 Mark from beside a drain eats.” He tipped his head at the thin man. “Cui Zhaoyu. A 3 Mark of my sect’s Pill Court. He’ll show you how this round is done.”

Cui Zhaoyu opened his fan halfway and bowed, very correctly.

“Master Shi,” Cui Zhaoyu said smoothly. “I’ve heard that you refine in the street. It must be a very unusual school.”

“The customers could watch me refine,” Shi Feng said. “You were there for the stall round. You could’ve watched too.”

Cui Zhaoyu smiled and closed his fan.

Further down the rail the other candidates stood in silence. Situ Jinghong, the Prime Minister’s grandson, wore his usual pleasant smile and studied the guests across the pool. Gu Yanxing stood with his arms folded and his eyes shut. Peng Zhenyue, Qiao Wending and Rong Tianye had spread out along the rail so that each of them had a clear line across the pool. Three others stood at the far end, a Thunder Abyss Valley disciple, a physician’s son from the south quarter and a Cangming Sword Palace outer disciple, all of them very still.

On the dais, Shen Yaoqing spoke for the first time.

“Did you choose the cup yourself?” Shen Yaoqing asked.

“I chose the poison,” Long Caili said, without opening her book. “Ke Lianshu chose the cup. Neither of us knows the other’s choice. If I knew the answer, it would be my exam, not theirs.”

Shen Yaoqing looked down the rail at the candidates. Her eyes passed over Qu Ming without stopping, and stopped on Shi Feng for one breath.

“Hm,” Shen Yaoqing said.

Servants came out of the side door in a line, each with one pot. They poured for the twelve guests, one cup each, and went back the way they’d come. Shi Feng watched their hands. Not one of them hesitated over any cup. None of their movements gave away the poisoned cup. Shi Feng would have to judge the tea or its effect, rather than simply follow a nervous servant.

Then one more servant came out of the side door, alone.

He was a thin man with his sleeves pulled down over his wrists and his head bowed low. He carried a single cup on a tray, walked along the wall, and set it on the ledge of the east pillar, beside the pavilion guard who stood duty there. The guard bowed his head in thanks. It was the custom in Long Caili’s halls that guards on duty drank from the same pots as the guests.

The thin servant went back out through the side door without looking up.

Shi Feng watched the door close.

Ke Lianshu lit the incense stick on the dais. A thread of smoke went straight up.

“The incense is lit,” Ke Lianshu said. “Honoured guests, please drink.”

Twelve cups went up across the pool. At the east pillar, the guard lifted his cup too.

Twelve cups went down. So did a thirteenth. Shi Feng kept watching the guard for a moment after the others turned back to the guests.