Chapter 786 — Terms

CHAPTER 786

Terms

The Talent Hall went so quiet that the drip of ink from Shi Feng’s brush onto the inkstone could be heard at the far end.

Cheng Mobai stopped shaking his thumb. Gu Yanxing’s needle stayed where it was, a hair above his skin. The two servants by the wall had stopped breathing.

Chief Steward Ke Lianshu went white, then red, then white again.

“Master Shi,” Ke Lianshu said faintly. “Master Shi, please. Perhaps the wording is unclear. I can read it again, more slowly. I apologise for reading too fast…”

“You read it very well, Steward Ke,” Shi Feng said. “That’s the trouble. I understood all of it.”

At the side of the dais, Inspector Nie Liyan put down his teacup. For the first time that morning, he looked up.

“A commoner,” Nie Liyan said smoothly, “entered by a clerk’s mistake, refuses the oath of the Long house in the Long house’s own hall.” He smiled a little. “Such arrogance. Do you know what you’re refusing, candidate?”

“Yes,” Shi Feng said, leaving the unsigned contract on the table. “A lifetime oath. I heard every condition.”

He turned to the gauze screen at the end of the hall and bowed to it properly, hands folded. The shadow behind the screen didn’t move.

“Your Highness,” Shi Feng said, straightening. “I’ll explain. I’m refusing the oath, not the agreement I made to fight for your contest.”

Silence from the screen. He took it as permission.

“First,” Shi Feng said. “I don’t swear servant’s oaths. Not to you, and not to anyone. When I give my word, I keep it. My word doesn’t need my blood in a box to hold it.”

Cheng Mobai looked down at his own thumb.

“Second,” Shi Feng went on. “That contract says your orders come first. I have an old alchemist at home who counts out loud. People have tried to take him twice this year. If your orders and his life ever pull different ways, I’ll choose him, every time. I’d rather tell you that now than break an oath later.”

Inspector Nie Liyan’s smile thinned.

“Third,” Shi Feng said. “I came to your pavilion to buy a lotus. Your clerk wrote me down as a candidate instead. I stayed because the prize was worth it, and I won it on your lake in front of the whole capital. The notice at your gate said the champion wins the Falling Star Sword. It didn’t say the champion becomes a servant to collect it.”

He looked at the blue silk manual in its open box.

“So if refusing costs me the bond, I’ll pay it,” Shi Feng said. “Five hundred thousand for the lesson. I’ll take the sword art as my winnings, thank Your Highness for the contest, and walk home.”

The hall was silent.

“He’s giving up five hundred thousand…” one of the servants whispered, and then clapped a hand over his own mouth.

Gu Yanxing slowly lowered his needle to the table.

“You can’t do that,” Nie Liyan said. He wasn’t smiling now. “The gift is given on signing. The household’s rules—”

“The household’s rules were posted on the gate,” Shi Feng said. “I read those too. Twice.”

“Master Shi,” Ke Lianshu said desperately. He bowed so low his forehead almost touched the table. “Master Shi, nobody has ever… In forty years in Her Highness’s household, I have never once seen… Please forgive me, I don’t know what to do.”

“It’s not your fault, Steward Ke,” Shi Feng told him. “You read it well.”

Inspector Nie Liyan rose from his seat at the side of the dais. He straightened his grey sleeves.

“Your Highness,” Nie Liyan said, turning toward the screen. “The Clan Court must note this. A candidate has insulted the Long house’s oath before a witness of the court. He should be struck from the contest, and the prize returned to the vault, and—”

“Inspector,” Long Caili interrupted from behind the screen.

It wasn’t loud. It was cool and very clear, and it cut the inspector off between one word and the next. Nie Liyan closed his mouth.

The gauze screen slid aside.

Long Caili sat on the dais in a plain dark robe, veiled from brow to chin in pale gauze, her hands resting on the arms of her chair. Shen Yaoqing sat beside her with a cup of tea and her eyes on Shi Feng. Neither of them seemed surprised.

Long Caili studied Shi Feng in silence. He had refused her household’s oath in front of the Clan Court. Now she had to decide whether his service was worth accepting different terms.

“You refuse my oath,” Long Caili said. “And you refuse to leave without my sword.”

“Yes, Your Highness,” Shi Feng said.

“In my own hall,” Long Caili said. Her tone made Ke Lianshu lower his head again.

“I’d give you the same answer anywhere,” Shi Feng said. “I won the sword art under the posted rules. I haven’t agreed to sell you the rest of my life.”

Shen Yaoqing’s cup stopped halfway to her mouth.

Long Caili’s eyes didn’t change at all. She lifted one finger, and a servant ran forward with a fresh sheet of paper, plain white, and laid it on the table in front of Shi Feng’s place, beside the red contract.

“Then write me your terms,” Long Caili said.