Chapter 766 — The Tang Settlement

CHAPTER 766

The Tang Settlement

“Master Shi.” Tang Wenbo bowed, lacquered box and all. “Thank you for seeing me. I’m aware I didn’t send a card.”

“You sent a carriage,” Shi Feng said. “It’s blocking Auntie Niu’s customers.”

Tang Wenbo glanced at the lane. Auntie Niu was standing behind her steamer with both hands on her hips, glaring at the horses blocking her stall. Two customers stood behind them, unable to get through.

“Move it to the canal,” Tang Wenbo told his driver at once. The carriage rolled away. “My apologies, madam.”

“Hmph,” said Auntie Niu.

Tang Wenbo was the same as ever. He was a neat man in a dark brown robe, with a calm face and a voice that never rose. In Wanhe he’d tried to buy Shi Feng’s shop for eighty thousand and walked out paying a retainer instead. In the West Market he’d offered double for a whole stall’s stock and gone home with nothing. Neither time had he raised his voice. He didn’t raise it now.

“May we speak inside?” Tang Wenbo asked.

“The courtyard has one stool, and Ji Yuanhe’s sitting on it,” Shi Feng said. “We’ll speak here.”

Tang Wenbo hesitated for exactly one breath. Then he nodded, as if he’d expected it.

“Then I’ll be brief,” Tang Wenbo said. “The Tang family would like to end the trouble in the markets.”

“The trouble,” Shi Feng repeated.

“The price difference between Tang shops and the princess’s pavilions,” Tang Wenbo said, choosing each word carefully. “It’s gone on for two months now. It has cost everyone. The elders feel that enmities are better untied than tied.”

Shi Feng waited. A few of the neighbours had drifted closer to listen, pretending to buy buns.

“Cost everyone how much?” Shi Feng asked.

Tang Wenbo’s face stayed calm. A drop of sweat appeared at his temple anyway.

“The figure isn’t public,” Tang Wenbo said.

“Then guess,” Shi Feng said. “Out loud. I’ll guess with you. The Tang sold Deity Transformation pills at a third of the price for seven days in the West Market, and kept doing it in four other markets ever since. Every pill sold at a loss. Then the cloud slips went up on stall posts all over the city, and the customers stopped believing your labels. Then you bought every Red Flame Lotus in Tianjing to choke the princess’s pills for the Gu army.” He paused. “And the next morning her pavilions were using a northern root that costs two coppers a bundle.”

“Two million,” Tang Wenbo said quietly. “Somewhat over. Most of it on the price cuts.”

Someone behind the steamer whistled.

“That isn’t enough to bring you here,” Shi Feng said. “The Tang can bear that loss. You’ve come to stop something else. Say what it is, Steward Tang. I’m not going to guess all afternoon.”

Tang Wenbo looked at him for a long moment. Then he opened the lacquered box, took out a folded sheet of heavy paper with the red Tang seal at the bottom, and held it with both hands.

“The Tang family owns eleven lotus estates in the south,” Tang Wenbo said. “Red Flame Lotus is the main herb in every Deity Transformation pill sold to every army in the Empire. It’s been that way for four hundred years. If the method with Black Sand Root spreads to every alchemist in the capital, then within a year, those estates grow flowers.”

“Expensive flowers,” Shi Feng said.

“Very ordinary flowers,” Tang Wenbo said. “That’s the trouble.”

Shi Feng nodded slowly. So that was the real price. Not the hoard and not the price war. A family that had lived off one herb for four centuries had just watched a man replace it overnight with a root you could buy from a northern peddler.

“So the settlement,” Shi Feng said.

“The Tang end the price cuts against the princess’s pavilions, in every market, starting tomorrow,” Tang Wenbo said. “In return, Master Shi keeps the Black Sand Root method off the open market. No sale, no teaching, no publishing. And the Tang family would show its gratitude with three hundred thousand a year, paid privately, for as long as Master Shi keeps his word.”

“Three hundred thousand,” Ji Yuanhe said from the courtyard doorway. He’d been listening the whole time. “A year.”

“For as long as Master Shi keeps his word,” Tang Wenbo repeated. “Master Shi’s word is well known in the capital. That’s why I’ve come to him.”

Tang Wenbo meant to bind him with his own reputation. Shi Feng understood the offer: the Tang wanted his silence, and they expected his promise to hold when their threats hadn’t. Shi Feng held out his good hand.

Tang Wenbo gave him the paper.

“I’d ask Master Shi to read it privately,” Tang Wenbo said. “Some of its clauses are sensitive.”

“Steward Tang,” Shi Feng said pleasantly, unfolding it. “How many times have you given me a paper?”

Tang Wenbo said nothing for a moment.

“This is the third,” Tang Wenbo said.

“And what did I do with the other two?” Shi Feng asked.

“…You read them aloud,” Tang Wenbo answered, glancing toward the neighbours.

“Then you already know what I’m going to do,” Shi Feng said.

He stood up on the step, with the paper in one hand and the sling on the other arm, so the whole lane could see him. Auntie Niu put her ladle down. Niu Tiezhu climbed onto the steamer’s lid. The water-seller set down his buckets, and two old women stopped counting change.

Tang Wenbo briefly closed his eyes. He’d failed to get Shi Feng inside or keep the paper private. The neighbours leaned forward to hear.

“Clause one,” Shi Feng read, in a clear, carrying voice.