Chapter 883 — Clear Sky

CHAPTER 883

Clear Sky

The grey crept in from the edges of the ninth cloud, and Shi Feng opened the folds.

He didn’t open them wide. He opened each pocket a crack, at the top, on the side facing the roof. Nine small mouths in the dark of the bowl, one under each cloud.

Then he pulled.

The clouds had been pulling down at the pockets for an hour. All Shi Feng did was stop holding them apart. Each cloud had risen out of its own essence, and now each one went back to where it came from.

“Come down,” Shi Feng said under his breath.

The grey stopped spreading.

High under the glass roof, the ninth cloud shivered. Then it began to shrink. It didn’t drift away or break apart. It drew in on itself, smaller and smaller, and the hall watched it go.

The eighth cloud went next, and then the seventh.

The weight came down on Shi Feng all at once.

Nine clouds were nine pieces of a sky, and each one carried its share of a tribulation that hadn’t fallen yet. As they came down through the bronze, he had to keep every pocket’s mouth open just wide enough to take its cloud and no wider. If a mouth opened too far, the fold would burst. If it closed too soon, the cloud would turn black above it.

His knees bent. The stand cracked under his boots. Blood ran from his nose again, and this time from the corners of his eyes.

“Master Shi!” Ji Yuanhe cried, on his feet with his hands clenched. He didn’t touch the fire.

“Count, Master Ji,” Shi Feng said hoarsely. “Count them down.”

“Six,” Ji Yuanhe said, and his voice shook. “Five. Four.”

The gallery didn’t understand what it was seeing. Under the glass roof, the clouds were vanishing one after another, quietly, without any thunder at all. In the first ring, the old alchemist had risen halfway out of his seat. He sat down again without taking his eyes off the roof.

“The clouds! They’re going!”

“They’re breaking up!”

“No black? No thunder? What’s happening?”

“Three,” Ji Yuanhe said. “Two.”

The last cloud, the first one to rise, sank down through the lid of Mo’s cauldron and was gone. Shi Feng felt it settle into its pocket.

He closed all nine folds at once.

“One,” Ji Yuanhe whispered.

Then the sky over the Glass Hall was clear.

Not a single cloud was left under the roof. The morning sun came straight down through the glass, bright and ordinary, and lit up the stand, the cauldron, and the young man on one knee beside it with blood on his face.

Silence filled the hall.

“It’s gone.”

“No tribulation. Nothing.”

“It failed. The clouds just faded. The pill failed.”

“All that, and it failed at the last step!”

“…”

The sighs went round the rings. Some people sat down heavily. A few of the gamblers in the top ring began, very quietly, to check their tickets.

In the Azure Sun box, Qu Ming laughed out loud.

“It died!” Qu Ming shouted. He pointed down at the stand, laughing so hard he had to grab the rail. “It died exactly like Grandfather’s! Nine clouds, then nothing! Grandfather, that’s exactly how your 6 Mark pills die, it’s the same…”

He stopped.

The hall was looking at him. Every alchemist in Tianjing knew Qu Hanshan had tried the 6 Mark and never passed it. Nobody had ever said so to his face. Now his own grandson had shouted it in front of the whole capital.

“A blade turned in the wound,” someone in the second ring said.

Qu Ming’s laugh died in his throat. He looked at his grandfather, and the colour went out of his face.

Qu Hanshan didn’t laugh. He didn’t look at his grandson. He stood at the rail, very still, staring down at the cauldron, and his old face had gone white.

He’d seen his own clouds fade. He knew what that looked like. This hadn’t looked like that.

Behind the glass, Old Tower Master Dai rose from his seat.

He did it slowly, setting his tea tray aside on the chair. He was a small old man, and he’d sat through three days without raising his voice once. When he stood, the hall went quiet again at once.

“They didn’t fade,” Old Tower Master Dai said. “The clouds went into the furnace.”

Nobody moved.

“A pill’s clouds rise out of its essences,” Old Tower Master Dai said, still looking at the cauldron. “If they blacken, heaven tests the pill from outside. If the essences take their own clouds back in, there’s nothing left to test. The pill already holds the sky.”

He was silent for a moment.

“I’ve read of it,” Old Tower Master Dai said quietly. “Twice, in all the Pavilion’s registers. I’ve never seen it.”

Si Jiahe’s brush had stopped above the page.

The silence broke.

“Into the furnace? The sky went into the furnace?”

“He swallowed his own tribulation!”

“Is that even possible?”

“The Tower Master just said it is!”

On the stand, Shi Feng put one burnt hand on the edge of the furnace bed and pushed himself up to his feet. He wiped his face with what was left of his sleeve, and it came away red.

Ji Yuanhe was staring at him.

“Did it work?” Ji Yuanhe asked.

“I don’t know yet, Master Ji,” Shi Feng said. “Let’s look.”

He laid his hand on the lid of Mo’s cauldron.