Chapter 934 — The White Stair

CHAPTER 934

The White Stair

By the next morning the pavilion’s front hall was full of northern stewards in furs.

Seven stewards brought unsolicited gifts, one from each house awaiting a commission. They’d spent half an hour outside arguing over rank before Kang Yi admitted them.

“Master Shi,” the Zhangsun steward said, stepping forward first. He wore sable to the knee and a wolf crest on his belt. “The Zhangsun clan greets you. Our patriarch’s meridians are freezing an inch higher every day. Our own master has tried three times. Saving a life is like putting out a fire, Master Shi. The Zhangsun will pay whatever—”

“I know,” Shi Feng said. “I’ve read all seven letters, and every one of them says it can’t wait. My answer is the one Kang Yi gave you three days ago, and it hasn’t changed. I’m going up to the Lotus Gate today. I won’t take a commission until I’ve stood at the gate and asked what I came north to ask. After that I’ll come down and read your patients myself, worst first.”

The stewards looked at each other.

“Why wait, Master Shi?” a younger steward asked, puzzled. “The sect won’t mind.”

“Your houses are the sect’s neighbours,” Shi Feng said. “If I take the neighbours’ money the day before I ask the sect for something, the sect will think I came to buy its answer with pills. I didn’t. So I’ll ask first and work after.”

The Zhangsun steward thought about it. Then he bowed deeply.

“Then the Zhangsun will wait,” the Zhangsun steward said. “But our patriarch is the worst. Master Shi will see.”

“If he’s the worst, he’ll be first,” Shi Feng said.

At once the other six stewards began explaining, all together, why their own patient was worse. Kang Yi herded them back to the door with their gift boxes, bowing the whole way.

“Haste makes waste, honoured stewards, haste makes waste,” Kang Yi kept saying. “The master’s word is good. The master’s word is very good. Mind the step.”

When the hall was empty, Shi Feng sat down at the counter, took a sheet of the pavilion’s paper and wrote a receipt in his own hand. It was for the 150,000 he had paid the house from the Zhongli fee. He signed it, pressed his thumb in the ink beside the name, and slid it across to Kang Yi.

Kang Yi stared at it and didn’t pick it up.

“Elder Shi, the house gives the receipts,” Kang Yi protested. “The guest doesn’t! I already wrote you ours.”

“You gave me yours,” Shi Feng said. “This one’s mine. When the princess reads the pavilion’s books, she’ll find both sides of it, and she won’t need to ask either of us anything.”

Kang Yi turned the paper over in his hands. Then he laughed nervously and pressed it flat inside the ledger’s front cover.

“Even brothers keep clear accounts,” Kang Yi said. “I’ll file it under the house’s name. Her Highness will see it.”

A servant in Zhongli grey was waiting on the step when Shi Feng came out. He bowed and held out a folded note.

Shi Feng read it standing in the snow. It was in Zhongli Jue’s square, careful hand.

Grandfather closed his doors at dawn. He took the pill in with him and had his coffin carried out into the yard, in case. He says if he needs it he’ll use it, and if he doesn’t, the clan can sell the wood. We’ll send word the day the doors open.

Shi Feng folded the note and put it away.

“Tell Young Master Zhongli I’ll be waiting for that word,” Shi Feng said to the servant. “His grandfather’s determined. I hope I can congratulate him soon.”

The servant grinned in spite of himself and ran off.

The White Stair began where Lianxia’s main street ended.

It was a stair of white stone, wide enough for three horses to climb side by side, and it went straight up the mountain into the cloud. There were no rails and no turns. Snow had been swept off every step.

Shu Wan stood at the bottom holding the white guest horse by its bridle. She was dressed in outer-disciple white, with frost on her eyebrows.

“The honoured guest may ride,” Shu Wan said, and held out the reins. “The horse knows every step.”

“I’ll walk,” Shi Feng said. “I’d like to know how long it is.”

“Nine thousand and ninety steps, honoured guest,” Shu Wan said seriously. “Most guests ride after the first thousand.”

“Then I’ll tell you after the first thousand,” Shi Feng said.

Shu Wan didn’t smile. She turned and led the horse up the first step, and Shi Feng followed her. Qin Wuyan came last, three steps behind, with his hands in his sleeves.

For a long time nobody talked. The stair was steep. The air grew thinner and colder, and the town below grew small.

“Senior Qin,” Shi Feng said over his shoulder, somewhere past the two thousandth step. “Have you climbed this before?”

“Once,” Qin Wuyan said. “A hundred and forty years ago.”

“Has it changed?” Shi Feng asked.

“No,” Qin Wuyan said. “It was the same length.”

Shu Wan’s shoulders shook once. She didn’t turn around.

Halfway up, the cloud that had hung over the mountain’s waist all morning came down to meet them. For a few steps they climbed through white. Then they came out above it, into hard blue sky and sunlight on snow, and Shi Feng turned to look back.

There was nothing below them. The cloud lay across the whole valley, flat and white, from one ridge to the other. Lianxia was gone, and the pavilion, and the road south.

“From here on, the honoured guest is on the mountain,” Shu Wan said quietly.

Far above them, at the top of the stair, a bell rang once.