Chapter 759 — Eight Lots

CHAPTER 759

Eight Lots

“The Court’s seal is unbroken,” Inspector Nie Liyan announced. “Chief Steward Ke may open the box.”

The Talent Hall of the Phoenix Tail Pavilion had been cleared of tables. Eight candidates stood in a row before the dais, and behind a rope the hall was packed to the walls with family retainers, sect elders and gamblers. The lot box sat on a red cloth in the middle of the dais, plain sandalwood, the Clan Court’s black wax across its lid.

Ke Lianshu bowed to the box, bowed to the inspector, and bowed to the screen where the veiled princess sat. Then he cut the wax.

“With the inspector’s permission,” Ke Lianshu said, “this servant will first weigh the lots. By Her Highness’s order.”

Nie Liyan raised his eyebrows slightly. “Of course.”

Two clerks set a brass scale on the dais. Ke Lianshu weighed the eight ivory lots one by one against the ledger. Every one matched to the grain. The box matched too.

“Everything is as it was sealed,” Ke Lianshu said, sounding relieved.

“Naturally,” Nie Liyan said. “The Court is the Court.”

Shi Feng stood fourth in the row. He’d been looking at the inspector’s hands during the weighing, not at the scale. They hadn’t moved once. Whatever had been done, it hadn’t been done here.

That morning a second jar of Autumn Pear had come to Willow Ford with a red card. For a friend. No charge. He’d had Ji Yuanhe put it next to the first one, unopened.

“Candidates will draw in the order of the Round Four scores,” Ke Lianshu said. “Master Shi Feng first.”

Shi Feng stepped up, put his hand in the box and drew. “Four,” Ke Lianshu read. “Bout four, first position.”

Situ Jinghong drew second and handed over his lot with a polite smile.

“Three,” Ke Lianshu read. “Bout three, first position.”

Rong Tianye, broad-shouldered and quiet, drew bout one. Qu Ming drew next and didn’t even look at the box as he put his hand in. He wore red and gold, with suns embroidered on his sleeves.

“Bout one, second position,” Ke Lianshu read. “Young Lord Qu Ming, against Young Master Rong Tianye.”

The colour left Rong Tianye’s face before the steward had finished reading.

Cheng Mobai drew bout two, and Peng Zhenyue, a big man, drew the other half of it. Cheng Mobai grinned at him, and Peng grinned back.

Qiao Wending drew seventh.

“Bout three, second position,” Ke Lianshu read. “Young Master Qiao Wending, against Young Master Situ Jinghong.”

“Qiao? The Qiao serve the Situ. Their grandfather keeps the Situ granary books.”

Qiao Wending, eighty-eighth on the Tianxing, peak Deity Transformation, bowed deeply to Situ Jinghong in front of the whole hall. Situ Jinghong returned it with half a bow and a kind smile. Then his eyes moved along the row and rested on Shi Feng for a moment.

One lot was left in the box, and one man.

Gu Yanxing stepped up. He was a tall young man with a soldier’s cropped hair and a long iron spear on his back that he hadn’t put down since the contest began. He took the last lot and gave it to Ke Lianshu without looking at it.

“Bout four, second position,” Ke Lianshu read. “Master Shi Feng, against Young General Gu Yanxing.”

The hall broke into noise at once.

“The Gu heir! The alchemist got the Gu heir!”

“Eighty-sixth on the Tianxing! That’s peak Deity Transformation!”

“The Gu spear killed a bandit chief on the northern border when he was seventeen!”

Gu Yanxing turned his head and looked at Shi Feng for the first time in the contest. He didn’t share the crowd’s contempt for an alchemist, and Shi Feng respected that. Then he faced the dais again.

Shi Feng nodded to him. Gu Yanxing nodded back, exactly once.

Ke Lianshu chalked the bracket on the board behind the dais. Qu Ming and Rong Tianye. Cheng Mobai and Peng Zhenyue. Situ Jinghong and Qiao Wending. Shi Feng and Gu Yanxing. The winners of the first two bouts would meet in one semi-final, and the winners of the last two in the other.

Shi Feng read it twice.

If he beat Gu Yanxing, his semi-final opponent was the winner of bout three. And bout three was a Situ against a Situ servant.

“Master Shi.” Madam Liu Su had pushed through to the rope with her odds-book open and a brush behind her ear. She was beaming. “Seven to one against you, starting this minute. Will you take some?”

“Ten silver,” Shi Feng said. “Same as always.”

“Same as always,” Liu Su said happily, and wrote it down. “Young General Gu is three to one on. Young Master Situ, I’m not even taking bets.”

At the rope, a Qiao retainer in grey was reading from a folded sheet of the Tianji Mansion’s issue. “Ninetieth,” he read. “Shi Feng.” He looked along the row. “Is it the same man?”

Gu Yanxing answered without turning his head. “It’s him.” He said nothing else.

Madam Liu Su looked at the sheet, then at Shi Feng, then scored a line out of her book with the back of her brush. “Five to one,” she said, to the rope at large. “The seven was this morning’s price.”

Ji Yuanhe was waiting outside the pavilion gate. He’d heard the whole thing from the crowd before Shi Feng reached him.

“Nobody touched the box,” Ji Yuanhe said. “The weights were right. I heard them read.”

“Nobody touched my lot,” Shi Feng said. “They touched his.”

“Whose?” Ji Yuanhe asked.

“Situ Jinghong’s. Or Qiao Wending’s. One of them,” Shi Feng said, walking toward the canal. “He only needed those two lots matched. That gave him an easy bout and left me facing whoever remained. He wants me to regret refusing him.”

Ji Yuanhe walked a few steps in silence, counting them under his breath.

“Will you beat the Gu boy?” Ji Yuanhe asked.

“Yes,” Shi Feng said calmly. “His spear is good. I want to see the rest of his art before I decide how to break it.”

Behind them, the pavilion’s bell rang twice. A household runner came out of the gate with a notice for the board.

The Clan Court had one more ruling for the Lake Stage.