Chapter 749 — Who Poured It

CHAPTER 749

Who Poured It

The servants stood in a line in front of the dais, twenty-three of them, with their heads bowed.

Long Caili walked down the line once, slowly, her veil drawn from brow to chin. She didn’t look at their faces. She looked at their hands.

“Who poured the cup at the east pillar?” Long Caili asked.

Nobody answered.

“Ke Lianshu,” Long Caili said.

“Your Highness.” Ke Lianshu bowed so low his hat nearly fell off. “This humble steward hired twenty-four servants for the banquet. There are twenty-three here. The one who is missing came from the pavilion’s own hiring roll, a month ago. His name on the roll is Wu Er.”

“Wu Er,” Long Caili said. “Second son of the Wu family. Every hiring roll in Tianjing has one.”

“Yes, Your Highness,” Ke Lianshu said miserably.

Shi Feng stood by the east pillar with his sleeves rolled up. The guard was asleep behind him on a borrowed cushion, breathing slowly. He thought of the thin man with his sleeves pulled down and his head bowed. The man had hidden both his face and his hands while every other servant poured openly. Shi Feng should have kept watching the door after he left.

At the end of the row of guests’ tables, Inspector Nie Liyan cleared his throat and rose.

“If this official may speak, Your Highness,” Nie Liyan said gently. “The tea was brewed in the pavilion’s kitchen. The servant was on the pavilion’s roll. The cup was carried by the pavilion’s own hand.” He spread his hands. “Flies don’t land on an egg without a crack. It would seem the fault lies with the pavilion’s kitchen. The Clan Court could take the kitchen staff into its keeping for questioning. For Your Highness’s own safety, of course.”

The hall went very quiet.

Shi Feng understood him at once. The Clan Court wanted the princess’s cooks in its cells. A princess whose own kitchen had poisoned a guard was a princess who couldn’t keep her own house in order. Taking away her cooks would let the Clan Court choose their replacements. Nie Liyan was using the poisoning to reach into her household. His concern for her safety was an excuse.

Shi Feng picked the cup up from the floor and walked across to the dais.

“May I, Your Highness?” Shi Feng asked.

Long Caili looked at him and nodded once.

“First,” Shi Feng said, and tipped the cup so the last damp grains showed at the bottom. “This was ground on a mill. A water mill, with a stone wheel. Every grain is the same size, and there’s stone grit in it. A pestle in a kitchen mortar leaves the grains uneven, some coarse and some fine.”

He turned the cup so the inspector could see.

“Second. The pavilion’s kitchen has mortars. It doesn’t have a mill. I walked past it on the way in, and I counted. Third,” Shi Feng said. “Nobody grinds a Shattering Void-grade bone-rot in the kitchen where the princess eats her lunch. One slip of the pestle, and the cook rots his own fingers off. This was ground somewhere in the capital, by someone with a mill and a lot of time, and carried in through that door.”

He set the cup down on the dais in front of the inspector.

“The kitchen made the tea,” Shi Feng said. “Somebody else made the poison.”

Nie Liyan looked at the cup for a long moment. Then he smiled politely.

“Candidate Shi has a very fine nose,” Nie Liyan said.

“Then listen to the evidence,” Shi Feng said. “Take the cup to any alchemist you trust. The grit will still be there.”

Long Caili looked at the inspector for one breath. Her eyes hardened, but she kept her voice level. Nie Liyan’s polite smile stiffened. He’d tried to use her injured guard against her in front of the candidates, and she’d understood every word.

“The matter is closed,” Long Caili said. “The Phoenix Tail Pavilion will find its own servant. The Clan Court needn’t trouble itself with my cooks.”

Nie Liyan bowed deeply and sat back down.

“A wise ruling, Your Highness,” Nie Liyan said.

Shen Yaoqing had sat down again beside the princess. She hadn’t said anything since the bone-rot. Now she looked at the cup on the dais, then at Shi Feng.

“You saw the servant,” Shen Yaoqing said. It wasn’t a question.

“I saw his sleeves,” Shi Feng said. “He kept them down. Everyone else had theirs tied back to pour.”

Shen Yaoqing didn’t say anything more. But she didn’t look away from him either.

Ke Lianshu cleared his throat. He was still pale, but he’d found his appraisers’ book again.

“If Her Highness permits,” Ke Lianshu said. “The appraisers have the order of the first two. The full scores and the cut will be read once the matter of the servant is settled.”

“Read them,” Long Caili said.

“First, Candidate Shi Feng,” Ke Lianshu read. “Second, Candidate Cui Zhaoyu.”

A murmur ran round the hall.

“First? He didn’t even touch the exam cup!” Qu Ming said loudly. “Cui Zhaoyu named the poison! Cui Zhaoyu saved the guest!”

“Cui Zhaoyu saved the guest I invited to the exam,” Long Caili said coolly. “Candidate Shi noticed a man outside it and saved him from a worse poison. I’m judging whom I can trust in my household. A silk-house madam costs me a month’s wages to replace. A Soul Formation guard takes ten years to train. Candidate Shi did nothing wrong.”

She opened her account book, wrote one line in it, and closed it.

Qu Ming opened his mouth and shut it again.

Cui Zhaoyu said nothing at all. His fan had stopped moving.

The doors were unbarred at dusk. Shi Feng walked home alone with his sleeves still rolled up, and his ribs aching. He was thinking about a water mill, and a man with long sleeves, and the platform servant at the screening who’d handed Ji Yuanhe a ladle.

He smelled the smoke when he turned into Willow Ford.

It was coming from Auntie Niu’s stall.