Chapter 933 — The Gate Sends

CHAPTER 933

The Gate Sends

On the third morning after the eight clouds, a man in a brown coat bought a bowl of noodles across the street from the Caili pavilion and didn’t eat it.

The man sat at the end of the stall’s bench with his back to the wall. His coat was plain, but the cuffs at his wrists were grey. He held his chopsticks over the bowl and never lowered them.

Shi Feng watched him from the counting-room window.

He’d seen a man sit like that once before, on Thunder-Gazing Ridge, with a bowl in front of him and his eyes on the princess’s people. That man hadn’t eaten either.

“He’s been there since the first bell,” Kang Yi said anxiously, coming up beside him with the ledger pressed to his chest. “Old Tan at the stall says he paid in advance and hasn’t touched a single noodle. Elder Shi, should I send for the town watch?”

“We haven’t seen him do anything the watch can act on,” Shi Feng said, watching the window. “Leave him there. I want to see what he does next.”

Kang Yi opened his mouth, closed it again, and hugged the ledger tighter.

Shi Feng let his Spirit Sense brush across the street. It touched the man and slid off a smooth, held-down aura that read as Deity Transformation. Gou Ran’s aura had read the same way, right up until Gou Ran showed mid Shattering Void on the saddle of Snow Wolf Pass. Since the slip in Gou Ran’s ring, Shi Feng knew what grey sleeves wanted from him. They wanted his hands, alive, chained to a furnace.

Qin Wuyan sat on the bench by the door with his hands in his sleeves. He’d sat there since dawn, and he hadn’t once looked at the window.

“Senior Qin,” Shi Feng said, without turning around. “Is he above my realm?”

“No,” Qin Wuyan said, his eyes half closed.

“Is he alone?” Shi Feng asked.

“In this street, yes,” Qin Wuyan said. “This one is watching the bowl.”

So the two of them watched the bowl. Steam rose from it, then less steam, then none. A thin skin of ice formed on the broth at the rim. The man in the brown coat didn’t move once.

“It’s cold,” Qin Wuyan said at last.

Shi Feng took a string of copper coins from his sleeve and held it out to the errand boy who swept the pavilion’s step.

“Take this to Old Tan,” Shi Feng said. “Tell him the pavilion is paying for that gentleman’s noodles. Then have him send a fresh bowl across, hot, with extra pork, with the pavilion’s compliments.”

The boy’s mouth fell open. Then he grinned and ran.

Kang Yi stared at Shi Feng in horror.

“Elder Shi, you’re feeding him?” Kang Yi asked in a strangled voice. “If he’s what you think he is, you’re buying lunch for a killer!”

“I’m buying lunch for a messenger,” Shi Feng said. “Watch.”

Old Tan carried the fresh bowl across himself and set it down with both hands. The man in the brown coat looked at the steaming bowl for a long moment. Then he lifted his head and looked straight at the counting room.

Shi Feng raised his teacup to him.

The man put down his chopsticks. He laid one coin beside the two bowls and walked away down the south road without hurrying.

“He’s gone,” Kang Yi breathed. “Just like that?”

“He came to learn two things,” Shi Feng said, and set his cup down. “Whether I’d seen him, and whether I’d come out after him into a street he’d chosen. Now he knows I saw him from the first bell, and that I’d rather pay for his lunch than walk into his street. Whoever sent him will hear both things by tonight.”

“And the second bowl?” Kang Yi asked weakly.

“He couldn’t draw me out,” Shi Feng said. “The bowl makes sure his master knows I refused on purpose.”

Qin Wuyan opened his eyes properly for the first time that morning, looked at the empty bench across the street, and closed them again.

Before noon the street went quiet a second time.

A steward in white came down the road from the mountain on foot. He was a man of middle years with a jade lotus pinned at his collar, and the falling snow didn’t settle on his sleeves. People stepped off the road in front of him and bowed without being told to.

“That’s the gate’s steward!”

“The iron tree has flowered! The gate sends a steward down once in ten years!”

“Who’s he come for? The Zhongli?”

“Are you blind? He’s walking to the princess’s pavilion!”

“…”

The steward stopped at the pavilion’s step and bowed first to Qin Wuyan, the bow of a sect officer to a Pavilion guardian. Then he turned to Shi Feng and bowed lower, holding out a card with both hands.

It was a thin plate of white jade as long as a palm, carved with a single lotus.

“The Lotus Gate of the Serene Jade Sect sends its greeting to the 6 Mark of the Sky Pavilion,” the steward said formally. “By old courtesy, a 6 Mark of the Pavilion is received in the outer hall of the Lotus Gate as an honoured guest. The honoured guest will be lodged in Snowpine Court and hosted by the chief disciple. The gate stands open to you from tomorrow. Courtesy demands courtesy in return, and the Serene Jade has never once failed in it.”

Shi Feng took the card with both hands. It was cold, and heavier than it looked.

Hosted by the chief disciple. That meant Shen Yaoqing, who had left Tianjing ahead of him without a word.

“Please thank the Gate for me,” Shi Feng said, and bowed. “I’ll come up tomorrow.” He paused. “May I ask one thing now, Steward?”

“The honoured guest may ask,” the steward said, his hands folded.

“I came north with an enquiry for your sect,” Shi Feng said. “Will it be heard?”

The steward didn’t answer at once. He looked at Shi Feng with a calm, smooth face, and Shi Feng understood that the man had been told exactly what to say if this question came.

The steward bowed again, precisely as low as before.

“The honoured guest may ask,” the steward said. “Once.”

Then he turned and walked back up the white road toward the mountain, and the snow filled his footprints behind him.