Chapter 998 — Eighth

CHAPTER 998

Eighth

“Eighth,” the teahouse storyteller read, and stopped, and read it again. “Eighth, Shi Feng. Ninth, Long Zhenlei.”

The north gate teahouse was packed. Men stood on the benches to see the sheet. The new Tianji issue had come up the post road that morning, and the storyteller had paid for the first copy in the city out of his own pocket.

“Ninth? The prince dropped to ninth?”

“He lost on the lake! What did you think would happen?”

“The guest was tenth before the fight. Tenth to eighth in one morning!”

“And the Mansion printed a prince below him. They really don’t care who anyone is, do they?”

“The Tianji Mansion’s brush doesn’t bow to anybody. That’s why people pay for it.”

Shi Feng sat at a corner table with a bowl of tea and a plate of fried dough, and kept his left arm in its sling under the table. The bruise at his wrist had gone yellow, and the hand worked, but he wasn’t going to use it for a while. Nobody in the teahouse had looked twice at the young man in the corner, which was how he liked it.

Out in the street, someone was laughing very loudly.

“Ninth!” Long Zhenlei’s voice came in through the window. “Yuejian! Yuejian, I’m ninth! Somebody finally beat me! Look, it’s printed!”

The whole teahouse turned to the window.

The Fifth Prince was standing in the middle of the street with a copy of the issue held over his head in both hands, and a crowd was forming around him. Xie Yuejian stood beside him with her arms folded. She didn’t seem to be listening.

“Come and read it!” Long Zhenlei shouted at the crowd. “Eighth, Shi Feng! Read it out loud! I want to hear it again!”

People obeyed.

Shi Feng finished his fried dough, left the copper on the table and went out by the back door before the prince saw him.

At the tower gate, a Serene Jade outer steward was waiting in the cold, with a jade lotus on his sleeve and a slim envelope in both hands.

“Honoured guest,” the steward said, bowing. “From the chief disciple, by her master’s instruction.”

There was no greeting inside. There were three lines in Shen Yaoqing’s neat, upright hand.

By my master’s instruction.

The elders’ hall has entered your conduct at Shuoyang in its book.

Elder Kong’s faction has stopped calling you the Empire’s man.

Shi Feng read it twice, folded it and put it in his sleeve.

Shi Feng was pleased. He knew why Ye Wanqiu had asked her disciple to send this. The Serene Jade elders had refused his enquiry about Xiuyi, and Elder Kong’s faction had said he’d brought the Empire’s law to the gate. Now the elders’ hall had written down that he’d answered the Empire’s law himself, outside their ground, and won. Shen Yaoqing hadn’t added a word of her own to it. She hadn’t needed to.

“Tell the chief disciple I’ve received it,” Shi Feng said to the steward. “And thank her master for me.”

“Yes, honoured guest,” the steward said, and left at once.

Linghu Que came that afternoon.

He came alone in mourning white, carrying his blade and travelling pack. The steward brought him to the back courtyard. He stood where Xie Yuejian had stood, facing Shi Feng on the step.

“I’ve left the clan,” Linghu Que said.

“Why?” Shi Feng asked.

“Because the clan took a petition from people who knew more than they told it,” Linghu Que said. His voice was rough and steady. “Someone came to Elder Zhongshu after the funeral and told him who to blame. He believed them. So did I. I drew my blade on you for them.”

“You believed you were avenging your brother,” Shi Feng said. “They used your grief. Don’t let them use it again.”

Linghu Que’s jaw tightened.

“I’m going to find out who my brother answered to,” Linghu Que said. “The clan won’t. Elder Zhongshu says the court has ruled and the matter’s closed. So I’m not in the clan anymore.”

Shi Feng looked at him for a long time. He was young, late Shattering Void, fierce and honest, with nothing behind him now but a blade. In Shuoyang, men with grey sleeves had been standing in the markets for half a month.

Shi Feng wanted to warn him without giving him a name he couldn’t safely investigate. He’d tell Linghu Que what could guide him and make the danger clear.

“One fact,” Shi Feng said. “Your brother came home from Grey Goose with his face cut, and he reported to someone the same day. Not to the Lantern Guard. Deputy Pang never saw him. Whoever he knelt to that day is the one he answered to.”

Linghu Que’s hands closed into fists.

“And one warning,” Shi Feng said. “That person drowns people. Don’t go looking with your name on your sleeve, and don’t ask questions in teahouses. If you find him, don’t let him know you’ve found him. Write to the Sky Pavilion at Shuoyang before you do anything else.”

“Why would you help me?” Linghu Que asked. “I tried to kill you.”

“You came at me in the duel yard, under the law, with witnesses,” Shi Feng said. “Your brother came at me in the dark, in a mask. That’s the difference. And I’d like to know who sent him too.”

Linghu Que didn’t answer. He bowed once, stiffly, the way a man bows who hasn’t done it often. Then he shouldered his pack and went out of the courtyard gate.

From the upper window, Shi Feng watched him walk down the road to the south gate. He went alone, and he didn’t look back.

“A calf that’s just been born isn’t afraid of the tiger,” the tower steward said quietly beside him.

Shi Feng said nothing. He watched until the white figure was gone into the crowd at the gate.