Chapter 747 — The Wrong Way

CHAPTER 747

The Wrong Way

For a dozen breaths, nothing happened.

The guests set their cups down. The officials looked at each other. One of the merchants laughed nervously and dabbed his lips with a cloth. The incense smoke went straight up.

Then the younger of the two silk-house women put a hand to her chest.

“It’s cold,” the woman said, surprised. “Why is it so cold in—”

She slid sideways off her cushion.

“Now!” Ke Lianshu called.

The rail emptied. Eight candidates went over it at once, around the pool and across the hall to the silk-house table. Qu Ming went first, shoving the physician’s son out of his way. The Thunder Abyss disciple tripped over a cushion. Rong Tianye reached the woman third and knelt with two fingers on her wrist.

Gu Yanxing didn’t move from the rail.

“Not my skill,” Gu Yanxing said shortly, and stayed where he was.

Cui Zhaoyu didn’t run either.

“Haste brings no success,” Cui Zhaoyu said, and walked, fanning himself, and by the time he reached the table the others had made a crowd around the fallen woman and were arguing.

“Her pulse is slowing!”

“It’s a cold-poison. Give her fire qi!”

“Fire qi will burst her heart, you idiot!”

Cui Zhaoyu bent over the woman, closed his fan and sniffed at her lips. Then he picked up her cup, tipped it, and looked at the wet ring it left on the table.

“Frost-Dream Dew,” Cui Zhaoyu said clearly. “It leaves a white ring when it dries. Warm her with a mild pill, not with qi. Snow Lotus Warming Pill, half a dose.”

He took one from his own sleeve, broke it, and put half on her tongue.

Ke Lianshu wrote something in the appraisers’ book. Up on the dais, Long Caili didn’t move at all. Even her veil hung still.

“Named first,” someone at the rail said.

“A 3 Mark of the Azure Sun! Of course he named it first!”

“The Pill Court doesn’t lose at poisons.”

“Look at Qu Ming. He’s smiling like he named it himself.”

Qu Ming was smiling. He straightened up from the crowd, turned, and looked back across the pool at the rail.

Shi Feng was still standing at it.

“Look at that!” Qu Ming said loudly. “The Pavilion’s 4 Mark is still behind the rail! A guest falls in front of him, and he can’t even find the right table!”

Laughter ran round the guests’ side of the pool.

“Didn’t he refine in front of the whole West Market?”

“Maybe he only knows pills he’s selling.”

“Four Marks, and he’s the last one to the poison?”

Situ Jinghong hadn’t gone over the rail either. He stood a few paces along it with his hands behind his back, still smiling at nothing.

“Brother Shi isn’t going to help?” Situ Jinghong asked pleasantly. “The appraisers are watching.”

“They should watch the whole hall,” Shi Feng said. “That table has nine helpers already. Cui Zhaoyu’s treatment is right. There’s nothing for me to add.”

Situ Jinghong’s smile didn’t change, but he turned his head and looked where Shi Feng was looking.

Shi Feng didn’t look at the silk-house table at all.

He was looking at the east pillar.

The guard there was still on his feet. He was a big man in the pavilion’s grey armour, Soul Formation by the feel of his qi, with a halberd held upright beside him. His empty cup sat on the pillar ledge. He hadn’t fallen, and until a moment ago nobody in the hall had looked at him once.

But the hall was cool, and the guard was sweating. A bead of it ran down from under his helmet. His hand clenched the halberd’s shaft until the knuckles turned white. He kept swallowing and forcing his shoulders straight. He was in pain and trying to stay at his post.

Frost-Dream Dew made a man cold. This man was sweating.

Shi Feng stepped over the rail.

He didn’t go round the pool toward the crowd. He went the other way, along the wall, toward the east pillar.

“Wrong way!” Qu Ming called after him, laughing. “The poison’s over here, stamp boy!”

“He’s lost his nerve.”

“A 4 Mark who runs from a fallen guest!”

“Wait. Where’s he going?”

Shi Feng didn’t answer any of them. He was walking fast now, and his left side ached every time he lengthened his stride. He ignored it.

Cheng Mobai looked up from the silk-house table and followed Shi Feng’s gaze. Alarm wiped the grin from his face. The guard had drunk too, and nobody had gone to him.

On the dais, Shen Yaoqing turned her head toward the east pillar too.

Shi Feng was ten paces away when the guard’s grip on the halberd slipped.

The shaft tipped. The guard tried to catch it, and his knees suddenly gave way. Panic crossed his face as he tried to brace himself against the pillar. He went down onto one knee, then onto both, with the halberd falling past him toward the floor.

Five paces.

Shi Feng caught the halberd with one hand before it hit the tiles, and the guard with the other.