Chapter 886 — The Register

CHAPTER 886

The Register

The clerk wet his brush, stamped the page twice, and read.

“Entered at the Ninefold Tower, the Glass Hall sitting. The 5 Mark, for pills of the Shattering Void realm. The 6 Mark, for pills of the Profound Heaven realm. Holder: Shi Feng.”

The Glass Hall was full to the top ring. Nobody had gone home to sleep. Lamps hung under the glass roof in the noon light, and behind the glass wall the cold cauldron still stood on its stand.

“Read it again,” Song Wuya said from the examiners’ bench.

“Holder: Shi Feng,” the clerk read. “Age, twenty-three. Realm, mid Shattering Void. Sect, none.”

Behind him, Ji Yuanhe stood a little straighter.

The murmur started in the lowest ring and climbed.

“Mid Shattering Void. It’s really written down.”

“A 6 Mark who isn’t even at Profound Heaven!”

“Can they even enter it? He’s not at Profound Heaven.”

“Beyond the sky there’s another sky. I just never thought I’d see it from a bench.”

“…”

Shi Feng stood before the register desk in a borrowed robe. Fresh bandages ran from his wrists to his elbows, and he breathed carefully on his left side. Someone at the Terrace had sewn Ji Yuanhe’s torn collar in the night, with very small stitches.

Old Tower Master Dai came down from the notaries’ bench with a teacup in one hand.

“We heard about the lane,” Old Tower Master Dai said politely. “The Pavilion regrets it very much.”

“Bandits,” Shi Feng said.

“Bandits,” Old Tower Master Dai agreed, and set his cup down beside the register.

He signed first, under the line for notaries, in a round and comfortable hand.

Jiang Xu came next. He held the brush lightly and signed in three strokes, then glanced once at the bandages on Shi Feng’s arms.

“Almost,” Jiang Xu said gently.

Shi Feng felt the card in his sleeve and left it there. It was Jiang Xu’s card, from the winter. He’d never used it. Jiang Xu didn’t ask for it back. He went back to the bench.

Xuanyuan Gui signed last.

He was a broad, grey-haired man in plain black, and the Imperial seat had been carried down for him. He didn’t speak. He pressed the brush so hard that the ink soaked through to the next page, and when he straightened, every official in the Imperial rows straightened with him.

Song Wuya stood and took the register from the clerk.

“Four entries for the record,” Song Wuya said in his flat, dry voice. “First. Two Marks entered at one sitting, for the first time in this register. Second. The first Three-Tribulation Pill ever made at a 5 Mark sitting.”

He turned the page.

“Third. Nine clouds taken into a 6 Mark pill, recorded as a pass by all three notaries. Fourth.” Song Wuya paused. “The first living holder of the 6 Mark below the Profound Heaven realm.”

The hall went silent.

A 6 Mark stood above every alchemist on the continent. It stood above most Profound Heaven cultivators too. Until this morning there had been three of them in Tianjing, and every one stood at Profound Heaven.

Now there were four, and one of them had a cracked rib.

“Four entries,” Song Wuya said, and sat down. “I’ve been at this bench thirty-one years. Before today I’d written three.”

Junior Keeper Si Jiahe came forward with a lacquered tray and bowed very low.

“Honoured guest, the Pavilion’s custom,” Si Jiahe said. “A record pill is kept with the register for each Mark entered. We’d ask for the Perfect 5 Mark pill, and one 6 Mark pill of your choice. We apologise for the request.”

Shi Feng opened the jade box from his sleeve.

Five pills lay inside on white silk. The Three-Tribulation Pill was the colour of old bronze, and three thin scars of lightning ran across it. The Perfect 5 Mark pill was plain and round. The three 6 Mark pills were clear as ice, and inside each one, small clouds moved slowly, nine to a pill.

The front rows leaned forward so far that a bench creaked.

“Take any 6 Mark you like,” Shi Feng said. “They’re the same. I made sure of that.”

“Then the Pavilion would prefer the guest choose,” Si Jiahe said.

Shi Feng thought about it for a moment. Then he picked out the one nearest the edge of the box and set it on the tray beside the Perfect pill.

“This one,” Shi Feng said. “Its clouds are slowest. If people are going to look at it for a hundred years, it should be easy to count.”

Song Wuya made a small sound that might have been a laugh. He wrote something in the remarks column.

Shi Feng closed the box on the Three-Tribulation Pill and the two 6 Mark pills and put it back in his sleeve. Under the Quiet Sleeve Art, nobody in the hall could feel it there.

Ji Yuanhe let out a long breath behind him.

“That’s five pills,” Ji Yuanhe said quietly. “Two went in. Three stayed.”

“You counted,” Shi Feng said.

“I wanted to,” Ji Yuanhe said.

Shi Feng looked at him and smiled for the first time that day.

The clerk sanded the page and began to close the register. Song Wuya put out one ink-stained hand and stopped him.

“Not yet,” Song Wuya said. He turned the book back, page by page, to the first week of the season. “The register also holds a petition against this candidate. Twelve names, entered before the Tower Master. A name in this book answers to what’s written under it.”

He looked up at the third ring.

“Master Jia Lianshou,” Song Wuya said. “Your page is open.”