Chapter 755 — Six Clouds over the Buying Hall

CHAPTER 755

Six Clouds over the Buying Hall

At the fourth watch, Shi Feng dug the root out of the ash.

It came up dark and dry and warm all the way through. The grit had baked onto the outside in a hard grey crust, and when he knocked it on the furnace step the crust fell off in one piece. The red flesh underneath was hot to the touch, but the heat stayed put. It didn’t flare.

He broke it open and smelled it. Slow fire, all the way to the centre.

“It’s like the lotus now,” Ji Yuanhe said, leaning in.

“The heat’s staying steady now,” Shi Feng said. “That’s what we needed. Let’s see whether it holds through refining.”

He put it in with the other nine herbs and lit the furnace.

The fire took it slowly. Shi Feng fed the furnace in long, even beats, and Ji Yuanhe counted beside him in the old rhythm. The furnace master left the doorway and came close enough to watch the vent. He was excited now. If the root worked, the pavilion wouldn’t have to buy a single hoarded flower.

The first cloud formed over the open roof as the sky turned grey.

“One,” Ji Yuanhe said.

Then a second. Then a third, where the first pill had died.

“Four,” Ji Yuanhe said. “Five.”

Out in the West Market, the early stall-keepers had stopped setting out their goods. They were standing in the lanes looking up at the Phoenix Tail Pavilion’s roof.

“Six,” Ji Yuanhe said.

The sixth cloud settled over the Buying Hall and stayed there. No seventh came. Shi Feng let the fire die down, opened the furnace and tipped out one red pill, round and whole, the size of a lychee stone. Six clouds. Major Success.

He put it in the furnace master’s hands.

“Can your pavilion’s alchemists do that?” Shi Feng asked.

“Six clouds, this old servant can’t promise,” the furnace master said hoarsely. “But four, five… every alchemist in the pavilion could do that. Easily. With a root that costs two coppers!”

“Four or five is what the Gu are paying for,” Shi Feng said.

[Pill: Red Banner Pill on Black Sand Root, Deity Transformation grade, six clouds | Note: recipe given to the Phoenix Tail Pavilion.]

Long Caili was on the balcony above the Buying Hall when he came up, the wind pressing her veil flat against her brow. She’d been there for some time. Shen Yaoqing stood beside her with her arms folded in her white sleeves, looking at the last of the six clouds as it broke up over the roof.

Shi Feng laid a single sheet of paper on the balcony rail.

“Ten herbs,” Shi Feng said. “Black Sand Root in place of the lotus, baked overnight in hot ash with its grit on. The grit holds the fire in. Knock the crust off just before it goes into the furnace. Any pavilion alchemist who can make the old pill can make this one.”

Long Caili picked up the sheet and read it twice.

“You worked it out in one night,” Long Caili said.

“Master Ji worked out the last part,” Shi Feng said. “I worked out the parts that didn’t work.”

Shen Yaoqing looked at him.

“You ate two failed pills,” Shen Yaoqing said. “The furnace master told the guards. The guards told everyone.”

“I learned from both,” Shi Feng said. “But don’t ask your alchemists to copy that part.”

Shen Yaoqing went on looking at him for a breath longer than she needed to. Then she turned back to the market.

“Ke Lianshu,” Long Caili said.

The chief steward had been waiting at the top of the stairs. He took the sheet with both hands, bowed and hurried away. Within the hour, runners in Long-family red were leaving the pavilion for every one of her furnace halls in Tianjing.

By noon the West Market knew.

“A root! A two-copper root, and it does the lotus’s job!”

“The princess’s pavilions are buying Black Sand Root by the cartload!”

“What’s the Tang going to do with three thousand flowers?”

“Put them in a vase, I suppose.”

“The princess pulled the firewood from under the cauldron!”

“…”

By the afternoon, the Tang buyers were quietly offering Red Flame Lotus back to the herb houses at seventy a flower. The herb houses didn’t want them at seventy. By evening it was forty, and nobody was buying. The Tang could no longer demand a high price from the pavilion. Herb houses knew the Tang needed to sell, and they could afford to wait.

Long Caili stood on the balcony and watched it happen. Her eyes didn’t move from the street.

“What do you want for it?” Long Caili asked.

“Nothing,” Shi Feng said. “The Tang closed the herb houses on me in the Stall round, and the Azure Sun closed the rest. Every price they push up, I pay too. And the Gu officers need pills, not flowers.”

“Nothing,” Long Caili said. She opened her account book and wrote a line in it. “I’ll write it down as a debt. I don’t like debts, Master Shi. I pay them quickly.”

“Then keep the Gu order on time,” Shi Feng said. “You can settle the rest after that.”

Behind her, Ke Lianshu was coming back up the stairs with the appraisers’ book under his arm.

“Your Highness,” Ke Lianshu said, bowing. “The servant matter is closed. The scores for Round Four are ready to be read.”