Chapter 754 — The Substitute

CHAPTER 754

The Substitute

“It needs the lotus,” the fat steward said at once. “Every recipe in the Empire says so.”

“Every recipe in the Empire was written by men who could buy lotus for seventy,” Shi Feng said. “Nobody tries anything else while the old thing’s cheap.”

Long Caili looked at him over her veil for a long moment.

“Explain,” Long Caili said.

“The lotus does one job in that pill,” Shi Feng said. “It carries fire qi into the marrow, slowly, so the other herbs can follow it in. Anything that carries fire slowly will do the same job. The question is whether there’s something cheap that does it.”

“Is there?” Long Caili asked.

“Black Sand Root,” Shi Feng said.

The thin steward laughed before he could stop himself, and then went red.

“Forgive me, Master Shi,” the thin steward said. “But that’s… the caravan drivers in the north chew that. To keep warm in the winter. It’s two coppers a bundle.”

“That’s why I like it,” Shi Feng said. “Its fire is locked up in the grit. It lets it out a little at a time, or the drivers would burn their mouths. Slow fire. That’s all the lotus is.”

Long Caili didn’t laugh. She opened her account book and wrote something.

“What do you need?” Long Caili asked.

“Your furnace hall for one night,” Shi Feng said. “A bundle of Black Sand Root. Whatever else goes in a Red Banner Pill, enough for three tries. And Master Ji.”

“The furnace hall uses three hundred silver of charcoal a night,” Long Caili said.

“Three tries will cost less than his flowers,” Shi Feng said. “Give me the night. If it works, your furnace halls can keep the order.”

Her eyes narrowed very slightly. She wrote that down too.

The Phoenix Tail Pavilion’s furnace hall was a long brick room at the back of the Buying Hall, with eight furnaces in a row and a roof that opened to the sky. By the second watch it was empty except for Shi Feng, Ji Yuanhe and the pavilion’s old furnace master, who stood by the door with his hands folded and didn’t say a word.

Shi Feng laid out the herbs on a clean cloth. Nine for the Red Banner Pill, and the bundle of Black Sand Root where the lotus should have been. The root was dark and knotted and covered in grey grit.

“It looks like something you’d find in a boot,” Ji Yuanhe said doubtfully.

“We’ll find out what it can do,” Shi Feng said. “Count for me. Watch when the fire catches.”

He ground the root with its grit, the way the drivers chewed it, and put it in with the rest.

The first pill reached three clouds over the open roof. Then the grit caught. It scorched before the root could release its fire evenly, and the pill cracked down the middle with a sharp snap. Black smoke came up out of the furnace.

“Three,” Ji Yuanhe said. “Then none.”

The furnace master winced politely.

Shi Feng tipped the cracked pill out onto his palm. It was a full measure of nine good herbs and one bad root, scorched beyond use by any ordinary alchemist.

He ate it.

The furnace master’s mouth opened. He shut it again and went on standing by the door, very politely.

“The grit,” Shi Feng said, chewing. “The grit doesn’t carry anything. It just burns. It has to come out.”

For the second try he washed the root three times in cold water and scraped it clean with a knife until it was bare and red. It went into the furnace smooth.

This time the fire came out of it all at once.

The root had held its heat in the grit. Without the grit, there was nothing to hold it. Its heat burst into the other herbs, and the pill burst before the first cloud had finished forming.

“None,” Ji Yuanhe said.

Shi Feng scraped the pieces out and ate those too.

The second one was worse. It burned all the way down, and a painful cramp tightened his stomach. He sat on the furnace step for a while with one hand pressed flat against his belly and breathed through his nose.

“Master Shi,” the furnace master said at last, very carefully. “This old servant has to ask. Is that… part of the method?”

“It’s part of my method,” Shi Feng said. “It tells me where I went wrong.”

The furnace master bowed, but he still looked alarmed. Shi Feng let him wonder. Explaining why he could swallow waste would reveal far more than a pill recipe.

Ji Yuanhe was looking at the root on the cloth.

“With the grit, it’s too slow,” Ji Yuanhe said. “Without the grit, it’s too fast.”

“Yes,” Shi Feng said.

“The drivers don’t wash it,” Ji Yuanhe said slowly. “But they don’t eat it raw, either. I saw them, when the caravans came into Hongye. They bury it in the hot sand under the fire overnight. In the morning they dig it up and chew it.”

Shi Feng looked at him.

Then he stood up, got a shovel from the corner, and went out into the yard where the furnace hall dumped its ash.

“Master Ji,” Shi Feng said over his shoulder. “You may have just saved a princess four hundred thousand.”

“I was only counting,” Ji Yuanhe said.

Shi Feng buried the last root in hot ash and grit beside the furnace, and built the fire up over it. Then he sat down beside it to wait.

There were three hours until dawn, and only one root left.