Chapter 758 — The View from the Balcony

CHAPTER 758

The View from the Balcony

“My appraisers finished your master’s pulse record,” Long Caili said, and turned a page of her ledger. “Do you want the full findings?”

“Tell me,” Shen Yaoqing said. “All of it.”

The top balcony of the Phoenix Tail Pavilion looked over the whole West Market, the grey tiles and the red Tang awnings and, past them, the flat bright water of the lake. Long Caili sat with the ledger open on her knee, her veil stirring in the lake wind, and a cup of tea she hadn’t touched. Shen Yaoqing sat across from her in white, with a jade lotus pinned at her collar and her sword lying across her knees.

“Void-rot,” Long Caili said.

Shen Yaoqing was afraid. Her fingers closed on the scabbard, but she kept her voice steady. She’d come for the truth and wouldn’t turn away from it.

“How far?” Shen Yaoqing asked.

“Into the marrow on the left side. The space inside her bones has started folding on itself,” Long Caili said quietly. “A year, if she rests. Less if she keeps teaching.”

“She’ll keep teaching,” Shen Yaoqing said.

“Then less,” Long Caili replied.

The wind came up off the lake and moved the pages of the ledger. Neither woman reached to stop them.

“The pill that halts it,” Long Caili went on, “sits right on the edge of the 6 Mark grade. No 5 Mark alive can make it. A 6 Mark can, if he wants to.”

“There are four 6 Marks living,” Shen Yaoqing said.

“Count them with me,” Long Caili said, raising one finger. “Old Tower Master Dai has been in a closed sitting for two years, and the Sky Pavilion won’t say when he comes out.” A second finger. “Jiang Xu answers to the Jiang first. The Jiang have never done anything for the Serene Jade without asking what the Serene Jade will do for them.” A third. “The Imperial one is my father’s sworn brother. He refines for my father and nobody else. I’ve asked him for a cough syrup and been refused.”

“And ours sees no one,” Shen Yaoqing said quietly.

“And yours sees no one,” Long Caili said, lowering her hand. “So the only man in Tianjing who has offered to try the pill is Qu Hanshan.”

“A half-step,” Shen Yaoqing said. “He isn’t a 6 Mark.”

“A half-step with eight clouds in the register and nothing better on the market,” Long Caili said, finally picking up her tea. “He might fail. He’s still the only one offering.” “And he’s named his price.”

Shen Yaoqing looked at the lake. Her face was as calm as still water, and colder.

“I haven’t refused yet,” Shen Yaoqing said.

“I noticed,” Long Caili said.

“It isn’t decided,” Shen Yaoqing said firmly.

“I noticed that too,” Long Caili said, taking a sip. “His grandson burned a man off my practice ground with half the city watching. He sends you a gift box every third day. You’ve opened none of them. Your maid stacks them in the corridor, and my servants have started using them as a step stool.”

“…”

“I’m not telling you what to do, Yaoqing,” Long Caili said. “I had the pulse record checked because I wanted you to know how much time you have. I wish I could give you a better answer.”

Shen Yaoqing was silent for a long time. Down in the market, someone was shouting prices in front of the Tang shop, and someone else was shouting lower ones back.

“Who taught him the sword?” Shen Yaoqing asked suddenly.

Long Caili didn’t ask who she meant.

“Nobody knows,” Long Caili said. “He sat his 4 Mark under his own name, with no sect and no teacher in the register. He fights with a grey sword nobody can name. He beat the 91st on the Tianxing and walked home with two cracked ribs, and later he refined the substitute pill for my pavilions.” She turned another page of the ledger. “He cost me a bond of five hundred thousand, which I’ll have to return if he wins. He’s saved me four hundred thousand on the lotus. As clerks’ mistakes go, he’s the most profitable I’ve ever made.”

“You keep his page open,” Shen Yaoqing said.

“I keep track of every candidate,” Long Caili said. “His page just needs more entries.”

“It’s been open on that page since we sat down,” Shen Yaoqing said.

Long Caili looked down at it, then closed the ledger without any hurry and set it on the table.

“You’ve been watching the stall boy for a month,” Long Caili said.

Shen Yaoqing’s expression didn’t move at all. Her eyes stayed on the lake. A breath passed, then another.

“…The view is good,” Shen Yaoqing said.

Long Caili’s eyes warmed very slightly above the veil, for the first time that afternoon. She let the excuse pass.

They sat in silence after that, and the silence was a comfortable one. Shen Yaoqing’s hand eased on the scabbard a little at a time.

Then footsteps came hurrying up the balcony stair. Chief Steward Ke Lianshu appeared at the top, already bowing, with a sealed letter held out in both hands.

“A thousand apologies for disturbing Your Highness,” Ke Lianshu said breathlessly. “A thousand. The Imperial Clan Court has written. Inspector Nie will witness the bracket draw in person. And the Court asks that the lot box be sealed with the Court’s own seal tonight, and kept at the Court until the morning of the draw.”

“At the Court,” Long Caili repeated.

“For the sake of fairness, the letter says,” Ke Lianshu added, bowing lower. “This servant has no answer to it. It’s within their rights. I’m so sorry.”

Long Caili took the letter, read it once and handed it back.

“Let them seal it,” Long Caili said. “Weigh the box before it goes, Steward Ke. Weigh each lot. Write the weights in my ledger, and have two clerks sign beside them. Then weigh it all again when it comes back.”

“Weigh it, Your Highness?” Ke Lianshu asked.

“Tang Mingyu drew his lot from a box that was weighed in his hand the night before,” Long Caili said. “My brothers’ friends learn slowly. I’d like to see what they’ve learned this time.”

Ke Lianshu bowed himself backward down the stairs.

Shen Yaoqing finally looked away from the lake.

“You think they’ll move his lot,” Shen Yaoqing said.

“I think somebody will,” Long Caili said, and opened her ledger again. “I just don’t know yet whose.”