Chapter 785 — The Servant’s Oath

CHAPTER 785

The Servant’s Oath

“Thirty silver,” Madam Liu Su said, and counted the coins onto the Willow Ford doorstep one at a time. “Ten at three to one. I lost a fortune on that lake yesterday, you know.”

“Three to one, and my ten back,” Shi Feng said. He was sitting on the step with a bowl of ginger broth in both hands. “That’s forty, Madam Liu. You set the odds yourself.”

Liu Su looked at him. Then she looked at the bowl, and at the bandages on his left arm, and put down the last ten.

“Burned to the shoulder, and he still counts every coin,” Liu Su said, and laughed. “An iron rooster. Not one feather comes off you.”

She swept off down the lane. Shi Feng drank the broth and felt it hit his stomach and fight with the cinnabar. The pain worsened, and he set the bowl down before he spilled it. Winning had not made the cinnabar any easier to digest.

“Six more days of that,” Ji Yuanhe said from the doorway. He had a fresh roll of bandages ready. “The hour of the snake is close. You’ll be late.”

“I’ll walk slowly and blame my stomach,” Shi Feng said.

The Talent Hall had been cleared of tally desks. Now there was one long table of dark wood down the middle, with a brush and an inkstone set at each place, and a raised dais at the far end behind a gauze screen.

A shadow sat behind the screen, very straight. A second shadow sat beside it.

The recruits stood along the table. There were not many of them. Gu Yanxing stood at one end with his hands behind his back, as still as a spear in a rack. Cheng Mobai stood beside him, his left arm bound to the shoulder in white cloth. When he saw Shi Feng come in wearing new sandals, he grinned.

“Look who’s not dead,” Cheng Mobai said.

“Look who’s not in a cell,” Shi Feng said.

At the side of the dais, in his grey official’s robe, sat Inspector Nie Liyan of the Imperial Clan Court. He had a teacup and a copy of the contest register. He didn’t look up.

Chief Steward Ke Lianshu bowed to the screen, bowed to the inspector, and bowed to the table. Then he unrolled a long sheet of red paper.

“Please forgive the length,” Ke Lianshu said. “The recruits’ contract of Her Highness’s household. I’ll read it once, and then the recruits will sign in blood. It’s tradition. I apologise for the needles.”

A servant set a tray of silver needles beside each inkstone. A second servant carried a lacquered box to the head of the table and opened it. Inside lay a thin manual bound in dark blue silk.

“The Falling Star Sword,” Ke Lianshu said. “A Deity Transformation-grade sword art from Her Highness’s vault, the champion’s gift. It’s handed over when the champion has signed.”

Shi Feng looked at the manual. Then he looked at the red paper.

Ke Lianshu began to read.

It was the servant’s oath of the Long house. The recruit gave his life and his service to the princess. Her enemies were his enemies. Her orders were his orders. He would hold no other master, sect or family above her. He could not leave her service unless she released him. The oath was sworn on blood, and the blood was kept in the household’s vault.

When Ke Lianshu finished, Cheng Mobai was already picking up a needle. Gu Yanxing’s face hadn’t changed at all.

Shi Feng picked up the contract and read it again himself, slowly, from the top.

“Steward Ke,” Shi Feng said. “Until when?”

“Until Her Highness releases you, Master Shi,” Ke Lianshu said.

“And if she doesn’t?” Shi Feng asked, keeping his finger beside the release clause.

Ke Lianshu bowed a little lower.

“Then until death, Master Shi,” Ke Lianshu said. “My apologies.”

“And the people under me?” Shi Feng asked. “An old alchemist, say. If Her Highness’s enemies want him, and her orders send me somewhere else?”

“Then her orders come first,” Ke Lianshu said. He looked unhappy about it. “That’s what an oath is, Master Shi. Please forgive me.”

“And the bond?” Shi Feng asked. “What happens to the money we paid to enter?”

“Refunded to each recruit on signing, with the household’s thanks,” Ke Lianshu said. “Five hundred thousand. Those who don’t sign…” He coughed. “Well. They aren’t recruits.”

Down the table, Cheng Mobai pricked his thumb and pressed it to the red paper. A bead of blood sank into the fibres and glowed faintly gold for a moment before it faded. The household’s array had taken it.

“There. Done,” Cheng Mobai said, shaking his stinging thumb. “After that lake, I can manage a needle. My mother can stop worrying about the entry money now.”

Gu Yanxing picked up his needle next. He held it above his thumb and paused, and his eyes went to Shi Feng.

Behind the gauze screen, neither shadow moved.

Shi Feng set the contract down. He understood why Cheng Mobai had signed, but his own answer was already clear. He wet his brush out of habit, then laid it across the inkstone. No change in wording could give the princess control of his life or make him abandon Ji Yuanhe.

He didn’t pick up the needle.

“Steward Ke,” Shi Feng said politely. “I’m sorry for wasting your red paper. I won’t swear this.”