Chapter 879 — Strings

CHAPTER 879

Strings

Night fell on the second day, and Shi Feng opened the lid.

The gallery gasped. Nobody opened a cauldron in the middle of a 6 Mark pill. Heat came up out of the black bowl in a column, and the air over the stand bent and wavered.

Shi Feng put his right hand into the heat, palm up, and drew.

The patterns came up after his fingers. They rose out of the bowl in thick lines of light, gold and blue and dark red, and hung over the cauldron in a row, stretched from one side of the rim to the other. There were nine of them, one for each 6 Mark herb. They looked like the strings of a qin, if a qin could be strung with lightning.

The whole hall could see them.

“What is that?”

“The herb patterns! He’s pulled the patterns out where we can see them!”

“Out of a Profound Heaven fire? With his bare hand?”

“I read about this in the Pavilion’s old records. Only 6 Marks…”

“Shut up! Let him work!”

Shi Feng shut his eyes.

On the practice tray, the patterns had been as thin as silk. These were as thick as rope. Each one still trailed black residue from the three skies. That was the residue Jia Lianshou had called foul. It was why they’d come open. It was also why every one of them was out of tune.

Nine strings, Shi Feng thought. Nine ways to lose the pill.

He touched the first string, the Frost-Heaven Root. It hummed cold and high. He pressed it down with two fingers, slowly, and it went lower. He held it there until the soot on it burned off in a thin grey thread.

“One,” Ji Yuanhe said softly.

He moved to the second. Thunder-Bone Moss. It was too low and growling, and it jerked under his fingers. He let it pull, then tightened it one turn at a time.

“Two.”

The hall grew quieter with every string. People stopped whispering. Then they stopped shifting on the benches. The vendors in the outer corridor put down their trays and stood in the doorways.

By the fifth string, the Glass Hall was so quiet that everyone in it could hear the furnace breathe. It breathed in and out under the strings, slow and deep.

The sixth string slipped.

It was the first of the Inner Treasury herbs, and it was heavier than the rest. It slid out from under his fingers and whipped toward the seventh. If they touched out of tune, both would snap.

Shi Feng caught it with his left hand, a finger’s width from the seventh. The string burned a line across his palm. He didn’t open his eyes. He held it until it settled, then tuned it with both hands together.

In the first ring, the old alchemist breathed out slowly.

“Six,” Ji Yuanhe said, and his voice was rough. “Your hand, Master Shi.”

“Keep counting, Master Ji,” Shi Feng said. “I’ll see to it after.”

Seven. Eight. Nine.

When the ninth string matched the eighth, all nine of them hummed together in one note. It was low and warm. The glass wall rang with it, very faintly, and the note hung in the hall.

Shi Feng opened his eyes. Blood was running from his left palm down to his wrist. He didn’t look at it.

He lowered his hand, and the nine strings sank back into the bowl after it. He put the lid on.

“Now they fight,” Shi Feng said quietly to Ji Yuanhe.

In the princess’s box, nobody had spoken for an hour.

Shen Yaoqing hadn’t been watching the strings for most of that hour. She’d been watching her friend.

Long Caili sat exactly as she’d sat at the lighting, with her back straight, her veil still, and her hands folded in her lap. The tea on the little table beside her was cold and untouched. Her maid had replaced it four times since the first morning. Long Caili hadn’t touched any of the cups.

When the sixth string slipped, Long Caili’s folded hands had gone white at the knuckles. When it was caught, they had loosened again. That was all. Her eyes had never left the stand.

“You haven’t moved,” Shen Yaoqing said.

“I’m watching my investment,” Long Caili said.

“Your investment is inside the bowl,” Shen Yaoqing said. “You’ve been watching his hands.”

“…”

Shen Yaoqing looked back at the stand. Down behind the glass, the man in the burnt sleeves had wrapped a strip of cloth round his bleeding palm with his teeth, and was laughing at something Ji Yuanhe had said.

She’d known Long Caili for years. In all that time, Shen Yaoqing had never once seen her friend forget to drink her tea.

“A man’s heart is as hard to measure as the sea,” Shen Yaoqing said, half to herself.

Long Caili still didn’t move. But after a moment, she reached out, picked up the cold tea, and drank it all at once.

Shen Yaoqing looked away so her friend wouldn’t see her face.

Under Shi Feng’s palm, the lid had begun to jump.

Nine patterns that had hummed in tune over the bowl were now in the dark, in the fire, pressed together. Each one had come from an herb that had grown for centuries alone. None of them had ever shared anything. Now they were starting to tear at each other.

The lid jumped again, and a crack of light showed round the rim.

The second night of the sitting had only just begun.