Chapter 916 — Black Pine Fort

CHAPTER 916

Black Pine Fort

Chu Ze bowed again, lower, until the fur of his collar touched the snow.

The carriage driver stared at his bowing master in shock.

“In Wanhe, this one called himself an envoy from a northern clan,” Chu Ze said, still bent over. “That much was true. This one is Chu Ze of the Hulan. Our clan holds the pine country from here to the Iron Glacier, and we have never bowed this low to anyone who wasn’t a Hulan.”

“You’re bowing to my 6 Mark,” Shi Feng said. “I had a 3 Mark in Wanhe. You thought you could poison me then.”

Chu Ze straightened up. His smile didn’t move at all.

“The tea was a commission, Master Shi,” Chu Ze said gently. “The Hulan take commissions. This one has brought three boxes of herbs from the clan’s own stores, as an apology. And the clan has a commission for you. A real one.”

The driver opened the carriage. Three sandalwood boxes sat on the seat. Shi Feng opened them one by one. Thunder-Split Pine Core, a whole one, black and still smelling of burnt sap. Nine-Bend Lightning Grass. A root of Stone-Breaking Vine as thick as his wrist.

They were good herbs. They were also very specific herbs.

“Who’s been struck by lightning?” Shi Feng asked.

Chu Ze’s smile went a little thinner.

“Our patriarch, Hulan Yuanlie,” Chu Ze said. “Late Shattering Void. Forty years ago his tribulation left lightning in his heart, and it never came out. Now the scar is turning to stone. The meridians around his heart are hardening one by one. Our alchemists say it needs a 5 Mark-grade pill and the hands of a 6 Mark. The fee is one million eight hundred thousand.”

Shi Feng closed the last box.

Qin Wuyan stood three paces behind him and said nothing. A hundred paces back down the road, Pang Yue sat on his grey horse in the snow and watched.

“I’ll take it,” Shi Feng said.

Chu Ze bowed again, but Shi Feng kept talking.

“I’ll tell you why, so there’s no misunderstanding later,” Shi Feng said, and held up one finger. “First, one million eight hundred thousand is a fair fee, and I like fair fees.” A second finger. “Second, somebody sold the Hulan my name in Wanhe. I want to know who. Third, your pines lie on my road north. I’d rather walk through them with the Hulan owing me than with the Hulan wondering about me.”

Chu Ze laughed softly.

“Master Shi is very honest,” Chu Ze said.

“I’ve been told it’s my worst habit,” Shi Feng said, and climbed into the carriage.

Black Pine Fort stood on a hill two days into the forest. They reached it on the second morning. It was a long wall of black logs and black stone with pines growing right up to its gates. The Hulan came out to meet the carriage, three hundred of them in fur and dark wool, and every one of them bowed.

Pang Yue didn’t come up the hill. He took a room at the inn in the logging town below the fort and sent no message up.

The Hulan’s chief elder met them in the main hall. Hulan Kui was a thin, grey man of sixty with a soft voice, very clean hands and a contract already laid out on the table.

“Master Shi honours the Hulan,” Hulan Kui said, bowing with perfect courtesy. “The clan has prepared a guest contract, as is proper between a great house and an honoured alchemist. Master Shi will find the terms generous.”

Shi Feng sat down and read it.

The fee, best guest court, servants, herbs and furnace hall were all offered. Then Shi Feng reached the fourth clause:

The honoured guest shall reside at Black Pine Fort, as the clan’s guest, until the patriarch has fully recovered.

He read the clause twice. A tribulation scar didn’t fully recover in a day. Or a month. A clan that wanted could say its patriarch was still recovering for ten years.

“Chief Elder,” Shi Feng said. “Who wrote the fourth clause?”

“This old man did,” Hulan Kui said, without hesitating. “It’s a courtesy, Master Shi. The clan only wishes to keep its guest comfortable for as long as he’s needed.”

“That’s very kind,” Shi Feng said. “Can I borrow your brush?”

Hulan Kui passed it to him with both hands.

Shi Feng drew one straight line through the fourth clause, from the first character to the last, in front of the whole hall. Thirty Hulan elders and juniors sat along the walls, and the hall went quiet.

“He crossed out a clause in front of the chief elder?”

“Nobody does that to Elder Kui!”

“…”

Under the crossed-out clause, in the empty space at the bottom of the page, Shi Feng wrote three short lines.

One pill.

One fee.

One night.

Then he signed it, pressed his thumb to it and turned it around so Hulan Kui could read it.

“I’ll refine the pill today,” Shi Feng said. “I’ll sleep in your guest court tonight. In the morning, I’ll be on the road. If your patriarch needs another pill after that, write to the Pavilion. The Pavilion will send him a bill.”

Hulan Kui looked at the page for a long moment. His soft smile didn’t slip, but his clean fingers rested on the edge of the table and didn’t move.

“Master Shi is a man of clear terms,” Hulan Kui said at last, and signed under him. “The clan accepts.”

Chu Ze, standing by the door, watched the chief elder sign. For once, he wasn’t smiling.

Shi Feng walked out of the hall toward the furnace, with Qin Wuyan three paces behind him. Someone had wanted him kept in this fort. He didn’t know yet whether that someone was a Hulan.

He meant to find out before morning.