Chapter 821 — Between Two Tolls

CHAPTER 821

Between Two Tolls

“Two,” Shi Feng said.

Monk Huikong breathed in through his nose, and the gold at the hollow of his throat came back to full brightness.

Shi Feng had his count now. One toll cost the bell one breath, and for the length of that breath the Vajra Bell had nothing to ring with.

The causeway was four paces wide and three hundred long. At its far end stood the Old Crater gate, two black pillars and an arch of closed light. Huikong stood halfway along it, barefoot, palms together, with a faint golden sheen over his skin. Shi Feng’s own blood was still drying on the stones between them.

“Benefactor Shi,” Huikong said gently. “You’re counting.”

“A friend taught me,” Shi Feng said. “It helps.”

“The sea of suffering is boundless,” Huikong said. “Turn your head, and the shore is right there.”

Shi Feng said nothing.

“Brother Shi!” Hou Tieshou bellowed from the bank. “Let me have a go! My fists are harder than your sword!”

“He bounced a sword,” Jiao Lanyin said coldly, an arrow on her string and pointed at the ground. “He’ll bounce your skull. Stay where you are.”

Shi Feng flicked the grey Sword at Huikong’s wrist. The monk didn’t even move his hand.

Bong!

The edge hit bronze, the bell tolled, and the steel came back at Shi Feng’s face. He turned it past his ear.

“One,” Shi Feng said, and cut the same wrist again before the monk could breathe in.

There was no toll. The edge bit. A thin red line opened across the monk’s wrist, and a strip of yellow sleeve fluttered down onto the stones.

“Benefactor sees clearly,” Huikong said quietly.

“You breathe after each toll,” Shi Feng said. “The bell can’t answer again until that breath is finished.”

Huikong didn’t give him another opening. He pressed forward step by step, palms close to his chest, so that any cut would toll first and land second. Shi Feng gave ground, and at the edge of the causeway he stepped off it onto the marsh. Riverless Step at Perfection held him on the black water as if it were stone.

He needed height. The Falling Star Sword came down from above the head, and at Entry it needed somewhere to fall from. Out here there was no tree and no wall. There was only the monk’s bell.

So Shi Feng used the bell.

He stepped in and drove Iron River straight at Huikong’s chest with everything in his arms.

Bong!

Shi Feng met the rebound with his feet. Riverless Step had learned in the Cangming tide to stand on moving force, and now it stood on the toll itself. The bell’s own throw lifted him straight up off the marsh, ten feet, twelve, into the grey sky over the causeway.

“One,” Shi Feng said in the air.

At the top of the rise, Shi Feng stopped holding his aura at late Deity Transformation inside the sword. He let all of peak go into the blade at once.

The Falling Star Sword came down.

It did not sweep sideways. The blade’s weight and Shi Feng’s concentrated qi fell together, into the hollow of Huikong’s collarbone while the bronze was still dim.

Crack!

The sound wasn’t a toll. It was a bell splitting.

Gold flaked off the monk’s shoulder. Huikong went down to one knee on the stones, and the causeway under him cracked from edge to edge. The last of the bell’s force came back up the sword into Shi Feng’s chest, and the strained flesh around the same two ribs on his left flared with pain. He landed in the marsh beside the monk up to his shins.

At the Tally Pavilion, the eighth Mirror showed a monk on one knee. The stand went quiet. Outside the Antler Gate, the crowd did not.

“That’s the forty-fifth on the Tianxing! A peak Deity Transformation!”

“And the cook’s late Deity Transformation. I saw his aura at the gate!”

“…”

At the end of the stand, the Tianji scribe dipped his brush and wrote one more note in the margin.

On the causeway, Huikong stood up slowly. His left arm hung at his side. He looked at Shi Feng for a while, then stepped off the causeway into the marsh, knee-deep.

He put his good palm to his chest and bowed.

“Then go and keep your word, Benefactor,” Huikong said.

“Thank you, Master,” Shi Feng said, returning the bow. “I’ll remember that you let the whole banner pass.”

At the gate end, the four monks stood up together.

The eldest walked to the black pillar, set his staff against it, and struck once. The sound rolled out over the water, and the hunters on the bank turned their heads.

“Tell the abbot the bell was struck by a man who kept his word,” the eldest monk said.

Monk Huikong put his palms together and did not answer.

Then the four stepped off the far end onto the marsh. The black water held them, and they went away across it toward the temple road, and none of them set foot on the causeway.

On the bank, a hunter said the Great Compassion had given up the Crater, and the man beside him said they had only finished their business.

Shi Feng climbed onto the causeway and sat down on the cracked stones, because his ribs wouldn’t let him stand. He laughed once, and held his side while he did it.

“Brother Shi!” Hou Tieshou thundered, running up. “You flew!”

“I used the rebound to get above him,” Shi Feng said. He kept a hand on his side as Hou Tieshou approached. “Give me a moment before you help me up.”

The sun touched the rim of the Old Crater. It was the sixth dusk.

From the reeds by the black pillars came a small, dry, wooden click, the sound of a folding chair being opened.