Chapter 11

Chapter 11: Wind-Quick, Lightning-Fast, Great Luck Moto

Turning stone to gold and hiding a beauty in a golden house were off the table.

Shen Tang was disappointed, but she wasn’t reckless enough to gamble her life.

Time bled on. Ink-blue clouds gained a thin rim of red-orange, until night finally broke.

A playful beam of sunlight brushed Qi Shan’s eyelids, and he woke.

He glanced at the sky, rubbed his right eye with a sleepy knuckle, and muttered, “Why is it only just after dawn?”

“This isn’t early,” Shen Tang said.

Qi Shan looked over.

Young Master Shen was sitting by the fire, roasting something.

“You didn’t sleep at all last night?”

The coarse prison clothes clinging to her were damp with dew, hanging limp against her skin. There were no creases from deep sleep.

“Couldn’t,” Shen Tang said without looking up. “Too much happened yesterday.

“Sir Qi, want to try my cooking?”

She held out the branch in her hand.

Only then did he see it clearly.

Three cakes, skewered on the branch, each the size of an adult palm. They were roasted golden-brown on both sides, giving off a quiet, tempting smell of toasted grain.

Out here in the wilderness, where did cakes come from?

“No need to guess,” Qi Shan said, already suspecting the answer.

He cleaned up first, then accepted the cake. “Thank you.”

He took a bite, and his brow lifted. “Sweet?”

The sweetness wasn’t heavy, mostly buried under the crisp char, but it was there.

Shen Tang said, pleased with herself, “Cauldrons sweet as taffy, yet unattainable.”

Qi Shan’s expression turned awkward in an instant, like he’d just swallowed a joke he didn’t want to laugh at.

“That line comes from the Song of Righteous Qi,” he said, exasperated. “It’s a word-spirit meant to stir morale. The literary heart requirement is extremely high…”

She was seriously picking fights with word-spirit now.

No matter what a line was supposed to do, in Young Master Shen’s hands it became food.

How was he supposed to look at that phrase the same way again?

“Who cares what it was meant for?” Shen Tang blew on the hot cake and took another careful bite. Warm, rich aroma spread across her tongue, and her eyes softened with sheer satisfaction. “If it fills my stomach, it’s useful.

“Besides, the taffy isn’t only from that line. I realized it drained too much literary heart, so I dropped it.”

Qi Shan stared. So she’d wrecked a word-spirit just to get a little taffy?

“Then what did you use?”

Shen Tang held out her right hand, calm as ever. “Lush Zhou plains are rich; even bitter herbs taste like taffy.”

A piece of taffy, no bigger than her thumb, appeared in her palm.

Qi Shan frowned. “That word-spirit…”

“What about it?” Shen Tang tossed the taffy into her mouth, chewing happily.

“No one has ever used it.”

Shen Tang blinked. “…Huh?”

“All the word-spirit we use come from the state seal—or rather, from the Thief Star,” Qi Shan said. “The word-spirit recorded there are vast as smoke and countless beyond measure.

“It’s been over two hundred years since the Thief Star appeared. More and more word-spirit have been put to use, but compared to the ones people can’t use, it’s still only the tip of the iceberg.

“That line…” He paused. “I copied it down once by chance. I thought it was interesting.”

Shen Tang looked at him, then at the taffy. “So what? You can see the effect.”

Qi Shan studied her. Her gaze was too open, too clear—like a spring you could see straight through. He couldn’t tell what she was hiding, only that she wasn’t as simple as she acted.

He didn’t push.

They ate in silence, finished every cake, cleaned up the fire, and packed to leave.

Shen Tang’s prison clothes were too conspicuous, so Qi Shan gave her a clean old set of clothes.

While she changed, he stepped on a patch of earth that felt oddly soft.

“Hm?”

He crouched, brushed aside weeds, and pinched a bit of damp soil. It was nothing like the dry, dusty sand three steps away.

A thought struck him.

He drew his sword and stabbed it into the ground.

The blade sank smoothly at first. Then, about six inches in, it met resistance. Something sticky clung to the steel.

He yanked the sword back out. The mud on the blade told him everything.

Rubbing it between his fingers, he murmured, “Lush Zhou plains are rich; even bitter herbs taste like taffy…”

Was the key part “taffy”?

Or was it the “lush Zhou plains”?

He wiped the blade clean, sheathed it, and scuffed the patch with his wooden clogs until the sword mark vanished.

Not long after, Shen Tang emerged from the forest.

A grown man’s clothes hung loose on an eleven- or twelve-year-old. She bound the sleeves tight at the wrists, hiked the hem up to her ankles, and cinched the waist with a cord so it wouldn’t trip her.

Paired with her pretty face—feminine at first glance, yet edged with a wildness—she looked like a charming young rogue.

Qi Shan called, “Young Master Shen. We’re leaving. Keep up.”

“Sir, coming,” Shen Tang said, jogging forward.

As the sun climbed, the heat turned harsh. Shen Tang wiped sweat with her sleeve and complained, “Sir Qi, don’t you have a word-spirit that can conjure a tall horse?

“That third-rank Zan Niao last night had weapons and a horse. Traveling would be so easy.”

Qi Shan asked her, flat and simple, “Does Young Master Shen have martial gall?”

Shen Tang hesitated, then shook her head. “No…”

“Then there is no horse.”

Just like that, her hopes were executed.

Shen Tang nearly choked on her own soul. “Why?

“Aren’t literary heart and martial gall supposed to be equal? Can’t they share word-spirit like that?”

She lowered her gaze to her thin legs—bamboo sticks under too much sky—and felt a fresh wave of despair.

Her foot wounds had been cleaned and wrapped, and she’d put on the soft straw shoes Qi Shan lent her, but the road was rough. Walking to the nearest town on two legs—who knew when they’d arrive?

Qi Shan glanced back at the little young lord dragging along behind him, looking like her spirit had left her body, and he couldn’t help laughing.

“There’s no need to share that kind of word-spirit.”

“How is there no need?” Shen Tang shot back. “In ancient times, a tall horse is basically a luxury sports car!”

“A scholar with literary heart travels with carriages and attendants,” Qi Shan said. “Why would he struggle like a brute?”

Shen Tang went quiet.

They walked a little farther. Qi Shan heard her muttering behind him, weak and half-dead.

“Wind-quick, lightning-fast—”

His eyes widened for a heartbeat. That was the kind of high-level word-spirit used to speed an army’s march.

Then she finished it, bright as a bell.

“Great Luck Moto!”

Qi Shan stopped in his tracks.

“What…?”