Chapter 888 — Her Standing

CHAPTER 888

Her Standing

Xuanyuan Gui stopped in front of the princess’s box and looked down at Shi Feng over the rail.

“Your guest, Highness?” Xuanyuan Gui asked.

Three words. The whole Glass Hall heard them.

Long Caili rose. She wore pale gold, with no jewels except one phoenix pin, and a veil of pale gauze from brow to chin. She didn’t hurry, and she didn’t look at the Imperial seat until she was standing.

“My guest, Master Xuanyuan,” Long Caili said coolly. “Under Pavilion law, not mine. He keeps his own fees.”

Shi Feng heard the line exactly. She’d called him her guest, and she’d put the Pavilion’s law in front of her own. In front of the whole hall, she’d said so.

Xuanyuan Gui looked at Shi Feng for a long moment. Shi Feng met his eyes and said nothing. Then the old man nodded once.

“Feed him,” Xuanyuan Gui said. “He’s thin.”

He walked back to the Imperial seat. Four bearers lifted it, and he left the hall without another word.

For a moment, nobody in the Imperial rows breathed.

“He spoke to her.”

“In twenty years he’s never said one word to any of the Emperor’s children in public!”

“Not even to the Third Prince?”

“Keep your voice down!”

“…”

Shi Feng looked up at the box. Long Caili had already sat down again and picked up her tea. Her eyes showed nothing at all. Only her cup stayed in the air a little longer than usual before she drank.

Shen Yaoqing noticed. She didn’t say anything.

By nightfall the court had read it.

“When the wind blows, the grass bends, Highness,” Ke Lianshu reported, reading from a long slip at the door of the Phoenix Tail Pavilion’s upper hall. “Three ministers who sent nothing last year sent gifts this afternoon. The Gu general’s household sent a horse. Two Tang houses sent apologies for the herb market, unsigned.”

“Unsigned,” Long Caili repeated.

“And the Situ official who asked at your table whether you’d staked your name on a commoner’s furnace,” Ke Lianshu said. “He sends his warmest congratulations.”

“Adding flowers to brocade is easy,” Long Caili said. “Nobody sent charcoal in the snow. Write down every name, and the date.”

“Already written, Highness,” Ke Lianshu said. He hesitated at the door. “And His Highness the First Prince is on the stairs.”

Shen Yaoqing put down her book and stood.

Long Jingtian came up alone, in plain dark grey, with no crown and no guards. The lamps didn’t flicker as he passed, but the air in the hall grew heavy, and Ke Lianshu bowed so low his slip touched the floor. Shi Feng pushed his qi out to measure the man and found no bottom to it.

“This Shi greets Your Highness,” Shi Feng said, bowing.

Long Jingtian’s eyes went once to the bandaged forearms. “The 6 Mark,” Long Jingtian said.

“Her Highness’s guest,” Shi Feng said.

“Yes. That’s why I came.” Long Jingtian turned to his sister. “If the court asks what he is, Fourth Sister, they can ask me.”

Long Caili’s eyes rested on her brother above the veil. “You didn’t need to climb the stairs yourself, Elder Brother,” Long Caili said.

“I know,” Long Jingtian said.

He nodded to Shen Yaoqing and went back down. He never sat.

Ke Lianshu let out a long breath. “Highness, three ministers will burn their congratulations tonight and write longer ones.”

“Let them,” Long Caili said. “Write those down too.”

Ke Lianshu bowed and withdrew.

The upper hall was quiet after that. Lamps burned along the counter, a long table of black wood where the princess did business herself when the business was worth it. Shen Yaoqing sat at the window with a book she wasn’t reading.

Shi Feng took a folded paper from his sleeve and laid it on the counter.

It was his own receipt. He’d written it on the day the herb market dried up, in front of both women. Received from Her Highness Long Caili, herbs for one sitting and one Starfall Heart Lotus. Payable in one 6 Mark pill.

Then he opened the jade box and set one pill beside the receipt.

The lamplight went into it and didn’t come out. Inside the clear pill, nine small clouds turned slowly, each one at its own pace.

Long Caili looked at it for a long time. She didn’t touch it.

“At Inner Treasury prices, those herbs were worth about four million,” Long Caili said at last. “No 6 Mark pill has sold in the capital in eleven years. At the last sale it went for nine.”

“Then you made five million on me,” Shi Feng said.

“I always make money on my investments,” Long Caili said. “That’s why I make them.”

She took the receipt, tore it neatly in half, and in half again. Then she picked up the pill with two fingers and put it in a small lacquer case at her belt. The case had been sitting ready on the counter the whole time.

Shi Feng saw that, and didn’t say so.

“Don’t let it make you expensive,” Long Caili said coldly.

“I already am,” Shi Feng said. “The sitting cost me six million in fees. I’ve got to earn it back somewhere, and I’ve only got two hands.”

“Both of them burnt,” Shen Yaoqing said from the window, without looking up.

“They still work,” Shi Feng said.

Shen Yaoqing turned a page she hadn’t read.

Long Caili closed the lacquer case. “The court will start asking what you are,” Long Caili said. “Not who. What. A 6 Mark who isn’t at Profound Heaven doesn’t belong to any page they know.”

“Then they can keep asking,” Shi Feng said. “I’ll keep making pills. If they want an answer, it’s on the fee sheet.”

Long Caili looked at him over the counter. Her eyes narrowed, the way they did when a price came out wrong. Then she looked down at the case at her belt, and her face was a princess’s face again.

“Ji Yuanhe is downstairs,” Long Caili said. “He’s been in my furnace room for an hour, counting my bricks again. Take him home before my guards start counting with him.”

Shi Feng bowed and went down.

Ji Yuanhe was waiting at the foot of the stairs. He wasn’t counting bricks. He held a single letter to his chest with both hands.

“Auntie Niu sent her grandson running with this,” Ji Yuanhe said, a little breathless. “It came to Willow Ford after dark. She says two more messengers are sitting on her step, waiting for morning, and she’s charging them for the step.”

“Good,” Shi Feng said. “Somebody should.”

Ji Yuanhe turned the letter over. Its seal was silver and blue, pressed with nine small locks in a ring.

The Jiang family.