Chapter 940 — The Refusal

CHAPTER 940

The Refusal

The second bell hadn’t rung yet when the doors opened again.

Gate Elder Qiu Moshan stood in the doorway and bowed to Shi Feng.

“The hall asks the honoured guest to return,” Qiu Moshan said.

Shi Feng went back in. The three elders sat exactly as before. None of them seemed to have moved. Elder Kong’s writing board was clean. Whatever he had written earlier, he’d put it away.

Grand Elder Zuo Chengjian waited until Shi Feng had stopped in front of the dais and bowed. Then he spoke.

“Master Shi,” Zuo Chengjian said. “The hall has conferred, and the hall is grateful. A debt of life is the heaviest debt there is, and you came a very long way to pay one. That does you credit, and it does credit to the Pavilion that made you.”

He paused.

“But the lady you named receives no one,” Zuo Chengjian said gently. “Not guests. Not sect elders. Not this old man. That isn’t a rule we made for you. It was made long before anyone on this mountain heard your name, and the hall has no power to set it aside.”

Shi Feng had expected refusal since Lianxia, but his heart still sank. After coming so far, he couldn’t even thank her in person.

“The debt will be entered in the sect’s book,” Zuo Chengjian continued. “In full. Your name, the day, the pill, the road. Whatever the lady is owed by you, the Serene Jade will know it is owed, and will remember it. And the sect thanks you, Master Shi, for asking as you did.”

The scribe at Qiu Moshan’s side was already writing. Shi Feng watched the brush move down the page. His name went in, and then the road in the rain, and then the pill.

“Thank you, Grand Elder,” Shi Feng said. “May I ask one more thing? It isn’t the same question.”

Elder Kong Shuhe’s eyes lifted at once.

“Ask,” Zuo Chengjian said.

“Can a request go to the Supreme Elder?” Shi Feng asked.

It was Elder Kong who answered, before the Grand Elder could.

“That door has no knocker, Master Shi,” Kong Shuhe said in his precise, thin voice. “Nobody on this mountain sends a request to the Supreme Elder. Those he sees are sent for. Those he doesn’t send for, he doesn’t see.”

“Shuhe,” Zuo Chengjian said mildly.

Elder Kong closed his mouth and bowed his head a fraction.

Grand Elder Zuo looked down at Shi Feng, and his heavy face was kind.

“Forgive an old man for saying it plainly, Master Shi,” Zuo Chengjian said. “You’re an honoured guest of the outer hall. You’re a 6 Mark, and there are perhaps five of you alive. But a guest of the outer hall, however honoured, isn’t of a standing to be received by the Supreme Elder. Not you. Not the Pavilion’s Tower Master, if he came. This isn’t a slight. It’s simply how high that seat is.”

“I understand, Grand Elder,” Shi Feng said.

He did understand. In Tianjing even princes had treated him with courtesy. Nobody here had been rude to him. Their courtesy couldn’t change the gap in standing. Even a 6 Mark couldn’t require the Supreme Elder to receive him.

Shi Feng bowed, all the way down.

“Then I accept the hall’s answer,” Shi Feng said. “Thank you for hearing me.”

He straightened up. Elder Jing Lanting was frowning at him.

“That’s all?” Elder Jing Lanting asked in disbelief. “You’ve come from Tianjing, through the Hulan and the Helian and Snow Wolf Pass. You were refused, and you bow and say thank you?”

“I promised to ask once and accept the answer, Elder Jing,” Shi Feng said. “I’ve asked once. That’s the answer.”

“And now you’ll go home?” Elder Jing Lanting asked.

“Not yet,” Shi Feng said. “The old courtesy lets a 6 Mark stay in the outer hall. If the hall permits, I’d like to stay. There are seven houses at the foot of your mountain with sick patriarchs, and I’m an alchemist.”

Elder Jing studied him, looking for the trick in it. Elder Kong’s thin face showed nothing at all.

“The outer hall is yours by courtesy for as long as you wish,” Zuo Chengjian said. “The sect doesn’t take back a courtesy once it’s given. The hall is closed.”

The three elders rose. Shi Feng bowed again and stayed bowed until they had gone out through the door behind the dais.

When he came out of the Hearing Hall, the antechamber was full.

Word had gone ahead of him. Outer disciples stood along the corridor walls and out across the court, pretending to sweep snow that had already been swept, and they all stopped sweeping at once.

“Was he refused?”

“The 6 Mark was refused! I heard it from the scribe’s junior!”

“And he’s smiling? Why is he smiling?”

“He bowed to them. He just bowed and walked out.”

“…”

Qin Wuyan fell in three steps behind him as if nothing had happened. Shen Yaoqing walked ahead as host, clearing the way with a look, and the disciples scattered out of her path.

“Done?” Qin Wuyan asked, as they crossed the court.

“Asked once,” Shi Feng said. “Answered once.”

Qin Wuyan nodded and said nothing else.

Halfway across the white court, Shi Feng stopped and looked north, over the roofs of the outer hall.

The seven peaks stood up into the grey sky, white and steep, with snow blowing off their ridges. Behind them, small and dark, was the eighth.

Snow was falling on all seven. It was falling on the court, on the roofs, on Shen Yaoqing’s shoulders as she waited for him to walk on.

There was still no snow falling on the eighth peak.