Chapter 780 — The First Sun

CHAPTER 780

The First Sun

“The final of the Lake Stage,” Chief Steward Ke Lianshu announced. He bowed to the shore, then to the balcony, then to the stage, as if he were apologising to each of them in turn. “Young Lord Qu Ming of the Azure Sun Sect. Candidate Shi Feng, tally one thousand one hundred and seven. Please forgive the wind.”

There wasn’t any wind. The Lake Stage was a square of black stone forty paces across, standing on pillars in the Phoenix Tail Pavilion’s lake, at the end of a narrow bridge sixty paces long. Flat water lay on every side of it. The shore gallery was packed to the railings. Above it, on the princess’s balcony, two women sat behind a low table of tea, one of them veiled in pale gauze.

Shi Feng walked the length of the bridge and stepped onto the stone.

Qu Ming was already standing in the middle of the stage. His robe was red with gold suns stitched down the sleeves, and he hadn’t bothered to tie back his hair. Beside the stage, on the small stone step where the seconds stood, his attendant Yao Chen waited with a folded red towel on a tray.

“Stamp boy,” Qu Ming said, smiling. “I told you to save it for the final. Did you?”

“Some of it,” Shi Feng said. “Cheng Mobai’s arm is still in bandages. I saved enough for that.”

Qu Ming laughed out loud.

“Listen, then. This young lord will tell you how today goes,” Qu Ming said. “You lose. You go back to your little furnace in Willow Ford. And tomorrow the whole capital hears that the Serene Jade’s chief disciple has accepted the Azure Sun’s terms, in front of everyone.” He glanced up at the balcony and back. “You’re only the warm-up for that.”

“Then you’d better win first,” Shi Feng said. “A threat won’t make me yield.”

The gallery was loud with it.

“Four to one on the young lord! Last call!”

“Sixty-fourth on the Tianxing and peak Deity Transformation. The alchemist’s never shown anything past late Deity Transformation.”

“He beat Situ Jinghong!”

“Situ writes seals. Qu Ming burns seals.”

“The alchemist doesn’t know the height of heaven and the depth of the earth!”

“Look at the old man in red. That’s Qu Hanshan himself…”

Shi Feng ignored the betting cries and found Ji Yuanhe at the shore. He remembered the promise he had made on the bridge and gave the old man a small nod.

Ji Yuanhe stood at the shore end of the bridge, on the lowest step at the water’s edge, with a folded white towel in both hands. Under Imperial ring law a second’s towel ended a bout. Shi Feng had registered no second, by his own choice. Ji Yuanhe had bought a towel anyway, with his own copper, and nobody had told him to leave.

Ke Lianshu lifted the gong hammer and bowed one last time.

“Begin, please,” Ke Lianshu announced, bringing the hammer down.

Bong.

Qu Ming didn’t move his feet. He lifted his right hand, palm up, as if he were offering Shi Feng something.

A spark sat in his palm. It became a flame, and the flame rose off his hand and climbed into the air above the middle of the stage. It swelled to the size of a cartwheel. Then it was the size of a house.

The Scorching Sun Flame was the Azure Sun Sect’s inheritance art. It didn’t need to touch a man. It hung over the ground like the sun itself and burned everything under its sky.

The heat came down all at once.

The stone under Shi Feng’s boots went from cool to warm to painful in three breaths. At the edges of the stage the lake began to hiss. Then it began to boil, and a white skirt of steam rose all the way round the pillars.

Shi Feng moved first. Riverless Step took him to the north-east corner, twenty paces from Qu Ming, as far from the centre as the stage allowed.

It wasn’t far enough.

The sun dropped a single flare, a thin spear of white fire, and it came down on the corner before he’d finished stepping. He turned his shoulder to keep it away from his face. The left sleeve of his robe went up in flame from cuff to elbow, and the skin of his forearm blistered under it. The smell of burnt hair hit his nose. His left eyebrow was gone.

He slapped the sleeve out against his thigh. The arm throbbed hard, and he moved the fingers once to check they still worked. They did.

The flame keeps following me, Shi Feng thought. He had watched it burn Rong Tianye’s shield and Cheng Mobai’s chest, but now he could feel how quickly it covered each place he stepped. Distance alone would not get him clear.

“He’s burning already!”

“First exchange and the alchemist’s on fire!”

“Qu Ming hasn’t even taken a step!”

“…”

Qu Ming hadn’t. He stood in the middle of the stage under his own sun, and the heat didn’t touch a hair on him.

“That was only a corner of it,” Qu Ming said kindly. “The Azure Sun keeps its whole suns for people who matter. Kneel now, and I’ll let your old man pull you out of the water. He’s holding a towel, isn’t he? How sweet.”

At the shore, Ji Yuanhe’s hands tightened on the towel. He didn’t move it.

“Don’t talk about him,” Shi Feng said.

His voice was quiet. The nearest spectators stopped laughing. Shi Feng had answered every insult lightly until Qu Ming brought the old man into it. His expression was cold now.

Qu Ming noticed the change, and his own smile grew wider.

“Oh? So that’s where it hurts,” Qu Ming said. “Good. Then this young lord knows where to aim.”

The sun above the stage turned slowly, from white to gold. It sank toward the stone, and the boiling water at the edges climbed higher up the pillars.

Then it fell straight at Shi Feng.