Chương 159: Chapter 156

Five days at the Sect of the Celestial Sun and I already have a routine. My turn in the cave, breakfast, a spell of Fǎnzhuǎn with Xia, the self-defense lesson Lianhua gives her in the courtyard, lunch, another turn in the cave and an afternoon that is in no way distinguishable from the morning.

I take a sip of tea, which today is hot and without a single piece of ice, because I did the calculations with the freezing talismans I have left and arrived at the conclusion that drinking cold tea on a mountain where it isn't even hot is precisely the first luxury I ought to cut back, above all if in the end I have to sell them.

From inside the house there reaches me the bustle of Xia with the lunch preparations, a tapping of knife on the board that has been keeping up for a good while, and that sound, together with the wind among the trees, is absolutely everything that can be heard in the courtyard. So, when I finally see movement at the bend, I look quickly to see that it is Lianhua, climbing the path with the backpack on her back.

But to my surprise, Lianhua does not enter the house with the provisions and upon reaching the courtyard she comes straight toward me.

"Has something happened?" I ask her the moment I have her in front of me and with a certain worry.

"Nothing that has to be worried about right now", she answers me calmly.

"But I have some things to report to you." And then she takes the backpack off her shoulders, leaves it on the floor beside the table, opens it and takes a box out of it. It is a long box of dark wood, without adornments of any kind, and Lianhua deposits it on top of the table, right in front of me, with care. I look at the box and then I look at her.

"When I had finished buying the provisions and was preparing to return, a man approached me at the exit of the Pavilion", she begins.

"He identified himself as a member of the Chamber of the Scriptures, and told me that, since the disciples have been forbidden to visit or approach the residence of the Zhāohuán Sun Wen, this was the only way he had of delivering the order to me." She makes a minimal pause.

"And afterward he gave me the box", she finishes. I stay an instant with my gaze fixed on the lid, chewing on the sentence, because of everything she has just told me there is a part that doesn't quite fit for me.

"Wait a moment", I say lifting my gaze.

"What do you mean, it has been forbidden for anyone to visit me?"

"I asked myself that very thing", she replies.

"It struck me as strange enough to want to clarify it, so I tried to ask him about it, but he left before I could do so. He handed over the box, turned around and went." She lets a second pass before continuing.

"Although, fortunately, on my way back I crossed paths with Song Yan on the path", she adds.

"So I approached her and asked her directly."

"And did she answer you?" I ask.

"Yes", she says.

"Although she did it in a great hurry, and without stopping looking around at any moment to check who was seeing us talk."

"By the look of it, after she showed the book with your signature, several more Outer Disciples asked permission to enter the zone of the Inner Disciples and come visit you", she explains to me.

"And it was not an extraordinary or complicated permit, but yesterday, suddenly, it was communicated that all visits to your residence were rejected." She makes a brief pause, and by her tone I know that what comes now interests her more than the previous part.

"And it is not the only thing", she continues.

"Apparently, after the duel with Jiang Lei, several disciples requested permission to challenge me to a training duel. And not only has the permission been denied to all of them, but they have also been expressly warned not to look for excuses to initiate a duel on their own account." And finally Lianhua lets loose one last detail with the same neutrality as the rest.

"After telling me that, Song Yan moved off at a brisk pace", she finishes.

"As if she were afraid that too many people would see her talking with me." After listening to Lianhua, I rest my fingers on the lid of the box and begin to drum them while I begin to think seriously about what she has told me. Because it is not one prohibition, it is two. One that prevents anyone from coming up to talk with me and another that prevents anyone from approaching Lianhua, and the two have been issued just when there had begun to be people who wanted to relate to us, even if it was through a fight.

And after a few moments I realize what is happening. Something so basic that in my previous life it was no refined subtlety of millenary sages, but rather something so common that it even appeared in afternoon television dramas.

"What a bunch of shameless old men", I say with all the cynicism I can muster. Lianhua says absolutely nothing, but she arches an eyebrow, so I explain my reasoning to her.

"It is crystal clear what they are doing", I continue.

"They are isolating me. No visits, no duels, nothing. They want me to spend my days shut in here staring at nothing until my nerves begin to wear me down." And I stop a moment, because what comes now is the part that truly bothers me.

"And I am going to tell you another thing", I add.

"I am sure that, if I could manage on my own, if I didn't need someone for day-to-day life, neither you nor Xia would be up here. They would have found some excuse or other, they would have taken you out of this house and they would have left me completely alone." Lianhua stays quiet an instant, and I see perfectly the exact moment in which she comes to understand what I mean.

"They are seeking to generate a state of anxiety in you", she says slowly.

"So that, when they interview you, it turns out more difficult for you to sustain any lie, since a nervous person commits more errors."

"It is the only explanation I can find for those orders", I answer her. And then I stop drumming my fingers, because while I was speaking an idea has been forming in my head.

"Although, fortunately for us, the Elders have a small problem, and it is that they have not the remotest idea that that does not matter to me", I say.

"Because what they believe is a punishment turns out to be exactly what we need, since forbidding the whole Sect to approach this house means that no one is going to come up to bother us while we are at our own affairs." Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author. I lower my voice a bit, more out of habit than out of necessity.

"And then, when the interview comes, it will be enough for me to feign a bit", I continue.

"To put on the face of an overwhelmed girl who has spent too many days shut in without seeing anyone, to let them believe that their plan has worked exactly as they had designed it, and from there dealing with them is going to be considerably simpler. Because an interrogator convinced that his plan has worked is the one who commits errors, not the one being interrogated."

"It is not a bad plan", concedes Lianhua.

"If an enemy puts a weapon in your hands to help you, I would be a fool not to use it", I reply to her, shrugging my shoulders. And having said that, I lower my gaze toward the box, which has spent a good while there awaiting its turn with all the patience in the world.

"Well", I say.

"Let's see what it is we have bought." I release the clasp, lift the lid, and the first thing I think is that whoever packed this knew perfectly well what they were doing because inside, placed on edge as if they were the books of a miniature shelf, each one in its own hollow of cloth and secured in such a way that they cannot move a finger's width however many jolts the box may take, there are seven jade tablets. And right on top of them, folded in two, there is a paper. I take it, unfold it and read it.

It is short, written with a calligraphy of firm strokes and with an economy of words I already expected from him, and when I finish I lift my gaze toward Lianhua.

"It is from Yi Ruyi", I tell her.

"He advises us not to use the tablets of the Golden Silk Net while we are at the Sect in order to spare ourselves problems and uncomfortable questions." And I don't need him to explain it to me in more detail, because I understand it the moment I read it.

"It is good advice", says Lianhua.

"It is", I reply to her. I close the lid, leave my hand on top of the wood a second and then push the box a few centimeters in her direction.

"Keep it safe", I tell her. Lianhua takes it with both hands, but does not move.

"Don't you want to check first that everything is correct?" she asks.

"What for?" I answer her.

"Supposing he has deceived me, supposing that in that box there are seven empty tablets or seven tablets with anything else inside, what can I do about it? I cannot leave this house, I cannot present myself at the Chamber of the Scriptures to file a complaint and, of course, I cannot demand anything from the Sect." I make a pause.

"So I prefer to leave the whole matter of the techniques for when we return to the Imperial Palace", I continue.

"Because there, if I verify that there is something that is not right, the situation changes completely, since unlike here, there I can indeed go complain to my father that his old friend has swindled his daughter. And let it be he who makes trouble for him over it." I contemplate the Qi that remains in the cave and sigh. It continues to be more than there was in my residence at the Imperial Palace, that I don't dispute, and there was a moment in which this same quantity struck me as an indecent luxury.

But one gets accustomed to the good with a shameful speed, and now, with the formation switched off and without a single spirit stone with which to light it, the only thing I am capable of seeing is what is missing. But I sigh because I can do nothing. The plan of selling the talismans was good, since in a Sect full of people a decent talisman would probably find a buyer. Only that in order to sell, it is necessary for someone to listen to you, and no one listens to Lianhua anymore.

The orders of the Elders do not say anywhere that it is forbidden to buy something from my handmaiden, but there is no need for them to say it. It is enough that it has become known that approaching this house is frowned upon, that visits are rejected and that whoever asks permission to fight with her earns a warning, for no disciple of this mountain to want to risk being seen near the outsider.

Lianhua goes down to the Supply Pavilion every few days, collects what corresponds to us and returns, and along the way people step aside, look the other way or fall silent the moment she passes by them, as if she wore a leper's bell hanging from her neck. And a pariah, however good her merchandise may be, sells nothing. So there is my plan for sustaining this rate of life, in the same place where all plans that depend on what a group of people you don't control does end up.

I sigh again and do the only thing I can do about it, which is to stop cultivating. I open my eyes and stay a moment looking at the vaulted ceiling and the sleeping runes of the floor, waiting, and I don't have to wait too long, because at this point Lianhua knows with an almost offensive precision exactly how long each of my sessions lasts, so that the slab slides open with its grave and sandy rumble right on time.

"Breakfast is ready now, Zhāohuán Wen", she tells me.

"Then let's go", I answer her. And without further ceremony she approaches, lifts me from the low chair with ease, we leave the cave and the first thing that reaches me is the smell of breakfast.

In the entrance hall, Xia is finishing cooking and on the low table there are already arranged three sets of bowls and chopsticks, with each thing in its place and a tidiness she didn't have three weeks ago, the fruit of having gradually polished her skills up here on the basis of having absolutely nothing else in which to occupy her hands. Lianhua seats me in the chair I use for having breakfast, checks that I am comfortable and sits at my side. And then Xia begins to serve.

She does it in the usual order, placing the dishes separating the two groups with the same scrupulous care as the first day, but today there is something different in her manner of leaving a bowl in front of me, a small hesitation before letting go of it.

"Wen", she tells me without lifting her gaze.

"This is the last of the spirit food that's left." And there it is, the warning I had been expecting since yesterday. I lift my gaze toward her and find exactly what I feared, which is a ten-year-old girl with the face of one who has just communicated bad news and is not entirely sure of what is going to happen afterward.

"It's all right, Xia", I tell her with all the tranquility of which I am capable.

"The normal food the Sect keeps handing over to us without charging us anything, so here we are not going to die of hunger." She nods, although not entirely convinced, so I keep reassuring her.

"We have already benefited enough", I continue.

"Between this cave and the spirit food, what Lianhua and I have gotten out of these three weeks is equivalent to more or less almost six months of cultivation anywhere else."

"Ah", she says after listening to me.

"Then it's fine." We begin to have breakfast, and for a while the only thing that can be heard in the entrance hall are the normal sounds of three people eating, until Xia, who never endures a silence for too long, leaves her bowl halfway up and looks at me.

"Wen", she says.

"When do you think they'll summon you?" I take a bite, take my time to swallow it and answer her what I have been thinking for days now.

"I don't think they will keep me here more than a month", I tell her.

"A longer stay would begin to be too suspicious, and my father would probably begin to ask the reason why they are retaining his daughter for so long." I take the bowl again and shrug my shoulders.

"And I don't think those old men have any desire to answer him that it was only to make me nervous before the interview", I finish. Xia lets out a little laugh, brief and stifled by the rim of the bowl, and keeps eating. And we have not finished having breakfast when Lianhua leaves her chopsticks resting on her bowl.

She says nothing nor changes posture, she simply stops eating, straightens her back a bit and turns her head toward the door with that absolute stillness she adopts when she is listening to something the rest of us don't yet hear. And a moment later, from the courtyard, there comes a voice.

"I come to fetch the Zhāohuán Sun Wen!" says the voice. I leave the bowl on the table and sigh.

"Well", I say.

"It seems I was mistaken in my calculations." I make a pause as I wipe my fingers.

"Or that, or my father has lost patience quite a bit sooner than I thought", I add. Then I look at Lianhua.

"Go out and show him in", I tell her. Lianhua gets up without a word, leaves the house, and Lianhua comes in after a moment accompanied by a man. And a single glance is enough for me to recognize him, because he is the same Inner Disciple who guided us to this house the day we arrived and whose name I still have not the remotest idea of. He enters, seeks me out with his gaze around the room and goes straight to the matter.

"Zhāohuán Sun Wen", he says.

"You have been summoned by the Elders and must accompany me right now." And upon hearing him I snort, since it is not tomorrow morning, or in a couple of hours, but right now, without prior notice, without a messenger the day before and without giving me even the time granted to anyone to prepare themselves before sitting down in front of whoever is going to interview them. What a shameless bunch.

Although, looking at it on the bright side, presenting myself before them fresh from breakfast, with nothing prepared and with the face of not quite knowing what is going on saves me half the work of feigning that their plan has worked for them, so I limit myself to looking at him and asking the only question that interests me.

"Do we all have to go?" I ask him.

"You may take one of your handmaidens to push your chair", he answers.

"But she will not be permitted to enter the hall where the interview is to be held." I nod slowly, because it was exactly the answer I expected.

"Xia", I say turning toward her.

"Clear away the breakfast." And then I look at Lianhua.

"And you take the chair", I tell her.

"Because it seems that at last we will be able to leave this place forsaken by the hand of the Heavens."