Chapter 939 — Plainly, Once

CHAPTER 939

Plainly, Once

On the morning of the third day, the doors of the Hearing Hall opened at the first bell.

Qin Wuyan stopped on the threshold and folded his hands in his sleeves.

“This one waits here,” Qin Wuyan said. “An enquiry is not a fight.”

“The host waits with the guardian,” Shen Yaoqing said beside him. “The hall is for the asker.”

Shi Feng nodded and went in alone.

The Hearing Hall was long and bare, white stone with no pillars, and cold enough that his breath showed. At the far end seven high-backed seats stood on a low dais. Four of them were empty. Gate Elder Qiu Moshan sat at a small desk to one side with the roll open in front of him, and a young scribe knelt beside him with a brush ready.

The three elders in the occupied seats were all Profound Heaven. Shi Feng felt it before he reached the middle of the hall. None of them let out any pressure, and the air still felt thick.

In the centre sat Grand Elder Zuo Chengjian, a broad old man with a short white beard and a kind, heavy face, his hands resting on his knees. On his left sat Elder Jing Lanting, a tall woman with iron-grey hair cut short at the jaw and a sheathed sword laid across her lap. On his right sat Elder Kong Shuhe, thin and neat, with a writing board on his knee and a brush in his fingers.

Shi Feng stopped in front of the dais and bowed.

Qiu Moshan stood and read from the roll.

“The enquiry of Shi Feng, 6 Mark of the Sky Pavilion and guest elder of the Pavilion, received in the outer hall by old courtesy,” Qiu Moshan read in a dry, even voice. “Filed as a reader of the sixth desk. The guest asks to be heard once.”

He sat down again.

“Master Shi,” Zuo Chengjian said. His voice was deep and unhurried. “The Serene Jade has received a 6 Mark of the Pavilion three times in the last three hundred years. You’re the fourth. The hall is listening. Please state your enquiry.”

Shi Feng straightened.

Jiang Xu had told him to ask plainly, and once, and he had given his word. So he would say what was true, in order, and then stop.

“My name is Shi Feng,” Shi Feng said. “Nearly four years ago I was lying in the rain beside a road south of the Empire. My meridians were broken and my bones were cracked, and I couldn’t stand. A flying carriage with a jade lotus on its door came down out of the rain and stopped. A servant wanted to leave me there. The lady inside the carriage told her not to.”

Elder Kong’s brush moved across his board.

“The lady had her servant give me a pill,” Shi Feng said. “Within an hour my meridians had knit and my bones had closed. Everything was mended except my face. She carried me on the outer bench to a village and left me there. I never saw her. Before she left, I gave her my name, as a man in debt should, and I asked hers. She gave it.”

He paused for one breath.

“Nangong Xiuyi,” Shi Feng said.

The name went down the cold hall and nobody moved.

Elder Kong’s brush stopped in the middle of a stroke. Elder Jing’s fingers closed on the scabbard across her knees. Gate Elder Qiu looked down at his roll and kept looking at it. Only Grand Elder Zuo’s face didn’t change at all.

“I owe her my life,” Shi Feng said. “I ask once to meet her, and to repay her in person. That’s my enquiry.”

Then he stopped talking.

The hall waited.

Shi Feng understood after a few breaths what it was waiting for. Every man who came to this hall asking for something had a speech after the request. He talked about his family, or what he could offer, or why the rule shouldn’t apply to him. The elders were sitting quietly to let him get to it.

Shi Feng stayed silent, hands at his sides. He was anxious to hear the answer, but adding an offer now would change the meaning of his request.

“Is that all?” Elder Kong Shuhe asked at last, looking up from his board.

“That’s all, Elder Kong,” Shi Feng said.

“You’ve offered nothing,” Elder Jing Lanting said coldly, her hand still on her sword. “No pill. No price. A 6 Mark comes to our hall and doesn’t even mention what his hands could do for us?”

“It’s a debt, Elder Jing,” Shi Feng said. “I’m asking to pay it. If I offered the hall a price, I’d be asking to buy something instead.”

Elder Kong set his brush down carefully across the board.

“You spoke the lady’s name aloud in this hall,” Elder Kong Shuhe said. “How many people have you spoken it to, Master Shi?”

“A few people I trust,” Shi Feng said. “The sixth desk, which already had it. And this hall.”

“And you didn’t come here to learn more about her?” Elder Kong Shuhe asked.

“I came to ask what I’ve asked,” Shi Feng said.

Elder Kong looked at him for a long moment. Then he picked up his brush again and wrote one more line.

“A word once spoken can’t be caught by four horses,” Elder Kong Shuhe said to nobody in particular.

Grand Elder Zuo Chengjian lifted one hand from his knee, and the other two elders fell silent.

“The hall has heard you, Master Shi,” Zuo Chengjian said. “And you’ve argued nothing at all.”

“There’s nothing to argue, Grand Elder,” Shi Feng said. “Either the lady can be met, or she can’t. The hall knows which. I don’t.”

Zuo Chengjian looked at him for a while.

“The hall will confer,” Zuo Chengjian said. “Please wait outside. You’ll have your answer before the second bell.”

Shi Feng bowed and walked back down the hall. The doors closed behind him. In the cold antechamber Qin Wuyan and Shen Yaoqing stood exactly where he’d left them.

“Did you say it aloud?” Shen Yaoqing asked quietly, without looking at him.

“Yes,” Shi Feng said. “I gave them the name and explained what she did for me. I asked nothing else.”

“Elder Kong will remember that you did,” Shen Yaoqing said. “He remembers everything.”

Before Shi Feng could answer, a voice rose behind the closed doors.

“—in this hall, aloud, in front of a scribe!” Elder Kong Shuhe said sharply, somewhere beyond the wood.

Then the doors were silent again, and no other sound came through them.