Chapter 936 — The Outer Hall

CHAPTER 936

The Outer Hall

The Gate Elder’s room stood just inside the Lotus Gate, on the left side of the white court, and its door was open to the snow.

Gate Elder Qiu Moshan sat behind a long desk with a roll open in front of him. He was a lean old man in grey with ink on two fingers. He didn’t stand. He only held out his hand.

“Plate,” Qiu Moshan said.

Shi Feng took the 6 Mark plate from his sleeve and laid it in the old man’s palm. Qin Wuyan stepped up beside him and set a square seal of dark bronze on the desk, the Sky Pavilion’s guardian seal, without a word.

Qiu Moshan turned the plate to the light and counted the six marks along its edge one by one. Then he read the seal just as slowly. Nobody hurried him.

At last the old man set the plate and the seal side by side, stood up and came round the desk. He bowed from the waist.

“The Sky Pavilion’s 6 Mark is received by old courtesy,” Qiu Moshan said in his dry, even voice. “The outer hall of the Lotus Gate is open to the honoured guest. Open the doors.”

Two outer disciples ran across the court. The outer hall stood at the far end, long and white, and the disciples pulled its tall doors wide.

The petitioners on the landing could see all of it through the open gate. Several of them got up off their mats.

“Who is that? He walked straight in!”

“The Gate Elder bowed to him! I’ve sat on this step since the ninth month, and the Gate Elder hasn’t even looked at me!”

“He’s the 6 Mark of the Sky Pavilion. The steward went down to Lianxia for him.”

“Comparing people with people only makes you angry enough to die.”

“…”

The old man with the letter in his coat didn’t say anything. He sat back down on his mat and put his hand over the letter again.

Shi Feng looked at him through the gate.

“He’ll be read in his turn, honoured guest,” Qiu Moshan said, following his eyes. “Everyone is. Your plate opens the hall for you. It doesn’t move anyone else up the line, and nor would your purse.”

“I only looked at him,” Shi Feng said. “I won’t ask you to delay someone else’s petition.”

“Then you’re already better than most guests,” Qiu Moshan said, and sat back down to his roll.

Shen Yaoqing led him across the court. She walked one step ahead and spoke without turning her head.

“As your host, I’m required to give you the house rules on your first day,” Shen Yaoqing said. “There are three. First, a guest of the outer hall doesn’t go up to the inner peaks. Not by the paths, not through the air, and not by any fold of space.”

“And second?” Shi Feng asked.

“Second, no names are spoken on the paths,” Shen Yaoqing said. “Any name the sect hasn’t spoken to you first stays in your mouth until you’re inside a hall.”

“What if I get lost and need to ask the way?” Shi Feng asked.

“Then ask for a hall, not a person,” Shen Yaoqing said coldly. “Third, your Spirit Sense stays inside your own skin while you’re on this mountain. The elders take a stretched Spirit Sense the same way they’d take a hand in their sleeve.”

“Understood,” Shi Feng said.

“Without rules, nothing can be made square or round,” Shen Yaoqing said. “The Serene Jade keeps its rules. So do its guests.”

Snowpine Court lay behind the west wing of the outer hall. It was a small walled court ringed with old pines. There was a guest room, a sitting room, and on the north side a low building of grey stone. Its door was crossed with two paper seal strips, so old they’d faded to the colour of bone. A ridge of ice had grown along the threshold.

“The guest furnace room,” Shen Yaoqing said. “It was sealed when the last 6 Mark guest went down the stair. That was sixty years ago.”

“Nobody’s used it since?” Shi Feng asked.

“Nobody’s had the right to,” Shen Yaoqing said. “The rules say that while a 6 Mark guest is lodged here, his furnace room is open. So in the morning it will be opened.” She turned and looked at him directly for the first time since the gate. “Don’t take it as a kindness. It’s a rule.”

“Then open it as the rule requires,” Shi Feng said. “I’ll thank the disciples for clearing the ice.”

“Good,” Shen Yaoqing said, and left him there.

He spent the night in the cold guest room with a brazier and his book. In the morning there was knocking at the court gate before it was light.

Four outer disciples came in with ice picks and chipped the ridge off the threshold while Shen Yaoqing stood over them. When the stone was clear, she stepped up to the door herself, pressed one fingertip to each seal strip, and spoke a short phrase under her breath. The old paper turned to powder and blew away.

“By the rules, the host breaks the seal,” Shen Yaoqing said, without looking round. “Not the guest.”

The door opened inward with a groan. Inside was a single stone room. A bronze furnace stood on a stone base in the middle, green with age and white with frost. Three vents were cut low in the walls, and a flue went up through the roof.

Qin Wuyan walked in before anyone else.

He went to each vent in turn and held his palm in front of it. He looked up the flue for a long time. He crouched, touched the furnace base, and rubbed the frost between his fingers. Then he came back out and folded his hands in his sleeves.

“Adequate,” Qin Wuyan said.

“From Senior Qin, that’s high praise,” Shi Feng said.

“It is the right word for it,” Qin Wuyan said.

Shi Feng laid his hand on the cold bronze. He was satisfied. The room was neglected, but the furnace was sound enough to take a 6 Mark’s fire.

Before he could say so, Shu Wan came running in through the court gate, out of breath, with snow on her knees.

“Chief Disciple!” Shu Wan said, and bowed hastily. “Elder Ye is crossing the outer court. She walked down from the peak by herself, and she’s coming here for the guest.”

Shen Yaoqing turned at once toward the gate.