Chương 34: Chapter 33

The loaf was a vivid golden-brown, as wide as two men's hands. The sweet scent of night-strain grain and mushrooms filled the bakery, alongside that of warm butter and nuts. Jian drank in the sight with relish. Tongue peeking between his lips, he pushed a finger against it. The crust held for a moment, before giving way with a satisfying crackle. Beneath, the crumb felt moist but not wet, soft but not gummy. The air pockets had developed as they should, spreading the texture in a loose lattice. Perfect.

He hadn't lost his touch, think of that. Smiling in self-satisfaction, Jian slid the shovel under his latest work and pulled it out from the oven's mouth. His wife waited close by. As the loaf landed on the work-table, she packaged it with swift, skilled motions and then added it to the sack. It couldn't contain more: the canvas was as tight as a drumskin.

"Thinks it's enough for now?" Jun asked, throwing the filled sack on her shoulder and stumbling to the wall, where more waited in orderly lines. The stout woman was a mess of flour and sweat, but her grin couldn't have been brighter. A puff of flour went up as the sack slapped into place. Jian leaned on the long oven shovel, admiring their work. A disbelieving kind of happiness welled in his chest. He laughed.

"I think so." Jun marched to the reed door, left open so that the heat could flow out in the alley.

"Li! Peng!" She yelled.

"Stop slacking off and get to loading! We have a cargo!" At the corner between the bakery's wall and the gate closing the alley, the two muscular twins threw lifa rolls to the ground and stepped on them, smothering the flame under resoled shoes.

"On it, boss!" While Li pulled Zhao from the stable, cursing as the donkey snapped at his fingers, and Peng hammered the wheels to the cart, Jian and Jun started moving the sacks outside.

"It's heavy!" cheered Jun, hefting the bulging sack on a shoulder. Jian snorted, lifting two at the same time. Jun laughed.

"Show-off!" The sound was rough and open. She patted the sack.

"But it's heavy, eh? It's heavy, alright." Jian grinned. Once the cart was packed, Jian mounted on the driver's seat, the old wood protesting beneath him. Zhao tossed his head, but Li had tied a small bag of hay to his mouth, and the donkey ate and kept calm enough.

"Do you have everything with you?" Jun asked, already fondly exasperated.

"Do not presume, woman," Jian grumbled.

"I have been doing this work for twenty years. I am not going to start forgetting things now."

"And I lost count of the times you went out without coins, or returned home after forgetting half a shi of bread at the market." Jun waved a thick finger at him.

"You can play generosity when you're a noble, old man. I don't work for free." Jian straightened up, outraged.

"As if! It'd take the Founder to make me a noble. And then I'd burn the house down with me inside." Jun sighed, which just showed there was a need for a heavier hand in his house.

"Li. Peng," the woman said, resigned.

"Please make sure only half of the lot goes to the gather. The rest needs to be sold." Then, looking as if she was rethinking her choices, "Li, you keep the coin pouch." Jian made a choked sound. And of course, Li didn't hesitate to take it, the little traitor.

"Little ingrates, I should have thrown you down the walls when I had the chance. And what are you even grinning about, you fools?"

"We're just happy," Peng said. It was a good thing they had been convinced to wear different hairstyles, or telling them apart would have been impossible.

"Yes!" Li said, tying the pouch to his belt.

"We missed this kind of banter. We thought we'd never have the chance to hear it again, or work at the bakery again." Jian snorted, a grin pulling at his lips. Jun turned away, a hand on her cheek, her eyes misty.

"I'll be back by lunch," Jian said softly, leaning to the side. His fingers found his old lady's shoulder.

"Make sure my food is ready by then, you insufferable woman. Jun pulled up with his nose and smiled an open, happy smile.

"And you make sure not to give it all away again, you foolish old man." She held his hand for a moment, and their eyes met.

"Lunch will be ready. Just don't be late." Li went to unlatch the gates. Jian harrumphed and snapped the reins. Zhao, as per his grumpy self, refused to move before the third attempt. Because of course. The roads were crowded. Squads of the Mortal Corps jogged beside workers carrying beams or balancing baskets filled with tiles on their shoulders. Scaffolds were everywhere, workers busy ripping out rushed patch-jobs and replacing them with proper repairs.

Women picked through the ruins of houses, filling baskets with debris they then carried away, balancing them on their heads. Bare-chested men pulled down leaning walls with picks and hammers. Masons chipped at recovered stone blocks or leveraged them into new foundations. A Stonemancer faced a scaffolding, hands on his hips as he directed his laborers to repair a factory's front. The ringing of metal came from an open-sided shed that leaned against a repurposed workshop.

A messenger bearing the Corps insignia ran by, the crowd parting smoothly before the crackling sound of his rattler as he made way for the large supply carts coming after him. Geji, understated yet graceful in their long robes, walked among the work teams, giving out cups of wine spiced with honey. A few teahouses and bars had reopened, and elders sat at the few tables, sipping weak tea and talking about the Siege.

Children laughed, darting between stacks of bricks and ghost lumber, while meat skewers roasted over open fires and noodles bubbled in hot soup. This book is hosted on another platform. Read the official version and support the author's work. The air sang with the sounds of saws and hammers, chisels and people laughing at the end of a long nightmare.

From time to time, someone pulled out an instrument, and then there was a small crowd of people singing and dancing and blocking the road until a smiling Cultivator came to disperse it.

"Oh, leave them be," Jian said Li when they were forced to stop the cart for the third time. The young man had hopped off the cart to make the people move.

""It's worth a listen anyway." When Zhao pulled into Zanmen Plaza, a familiar face walked to the cart.

"Jian! You old fart! About time you arrived!" Jian pulled the reins, smirking at the big soldier. Zhao, the inferior one of the couple, had never looked better.

"You're one to talk!" Jian shot back.

"As if you didn't call me here only because you want to rob me!" The soldier turned to signal to a group of cultivators in the half-armor of the Hand of Night. The men started shouting for people to clear the path.

"Why would I ever want to see your ugly face otherwise?" The big soldier had a wide grin as he reached to clasp arms with him.

"And don't think I forgot you named your damn donkey after me. The thought of putting you and him on a skewer was the only thing that kept me alive on the frontlines." Jian snorted archly.

"After you? Quit dreaming. It was your mother who named you after my donkey, you old fart."

"Oh, shut it. Come on. Pull up this way. And what do those two have to grin about anyway?"

"I know, right? Give them a bite and see if you manage to make them stop, you donkey."

"I'll bite your ass instead, you useless baker." Two large pavillions had been erected on the square, connected to one of the many empty barracks dotting the city's inner ring. Chased by obsidian constructs and assistants, Permanents of the Healer Brigade, recognizable in their amble robes in turquoise and purple, made the rounds between wounded and sick.

Differently from the Disciples who remained in the Brigades only for short terms, these were professionals, taking in suppurating wounds with a look and administering treatment in short, efficient phrases.

"Isn't the honorable Master Huo!" Jian waved at a white-bearded elder bowed over a wounded man. The master healer grunted, attention focused on the pendant he was dangling over his patient's chest wound.

"Stop distracting the guy keeping me from dying, Jian," said the wounded through gritted teeth, but without heat. There was an almost disbelieving cheerfulness in his pained eyes.

"Oh, can it, Zhou! As if that little scratch could kill a big lad like you." Zhao barked a laugh.

"You got that right at least." At the plaza's side, a row of carts were being unloaded by a swarm of mortals and cultivators.

"This way, please." Eyebrows knit as she poured over a scroll, a woman in Mortal Corps colors gestured for an empty spot.

"Loaders! Get moving!" She barked, and a squad of Hand soldiers jogged forward.

"Well, I'll be damned." Jian hopped from the cart, while the twins took care that the superior Zhao didn't get spooked by the crowd.

"The soldiers taking order from the Corps? Never thought I'd see the day."

"Ah, a miracle alright." Zhao gestured. He led him to a lean-to. On a table, a small bottle waited, sorrounded by a few cups.

"It took the Ancestor to make it happen. And that's not all. Changes are coming. The old dragon wants stronger eyes on the inside." He poured two cups, and handed Jian one. Speaking of the Ancestor felt strange. Like speaking of the night sky above them. She was everywhere and nowhere, a presence unseen but always present. Jian thought it would have made for a taboo, but instead, it was surprisingly easy to speak about the "old dragon", like people had taken calling her.

As easy as speaking of the sky, or the mountains. It wasn't about a person.

"Like what?"

"Like this." Zhao gestured with his cup, including the square bursting with activity.

"We already got our budget doubled. Next in line it's more clerks, more facilities and generally more people looking over the city rather than out of it." He laughed.

"I heard they'll set Masters to keep the peace." Jian was impressed.

"Dang, that would be some change." He raised his cup.

"Ah!" The cups came together with a small clink. While drinking, Jian's old habits resurfaced, and he took in the space around him. A member of the Liu family, recognizable by the emblem embroidered on his robes, was moving between the rows of sick, offering nods and words. Two attendants waited for him to finish, holding the leash of a familiar. Jian snorted softly. There was no need to ask. If the Sect was going to take more care of its own people, the Liu would be front and center in the new administration.

That family was going to prosper, no matter what. Heck, part of Jian thought they would survive them all. Parts of the change could already be seen, in the Mortal Corps members working side by side with Hand soldiers to unload a cart, or the Stonemancer showing in the colors of the Forge primly explaining to a bunch of Outer Disciples the dangers of managing Night Obsidian improperly. A broken cup, being put together in a new shape. Jian could barely believe it.

"Not everybody happy," he pointed out. Beneath a corner of one of the pavillions, a woman in elegant robes was tearing into a healer, holding a piece of paper. The man replied with polite professionality, not seeming to notice the two bruisers standing two steps behind his aggressor. Zhao's eyes flicked that direction.

"Since Lord Di started dreaming, when wasn't that the case?" Jian snorted.

"People with pieces of paper, saying this place belongs to them, or that they need those people to run a factory. Waste of their and ours time. We got bigger pieces of paper." Jian drowned his laughter in the cup.

"You need to work on your jokes, old fart."

"Hey, I am a soldier, not a comedian."

"Uncle Zhao! Uncle Zhao!" A wave of hey!, whoa there! and careful! went up among the crowd, before a child burst out of it like a rabbit from their burrow. She was a pitiful little thing. Her tunic fell on her like sackcloth, barely hiding the stick-like limbs. One of the sleeves was tied into a knot, and as the straw-like hair moved with her running, they revealed an empty socket.

"The book!" She squeaked, handing Zhao a big ledger. She was covered in sweat, that little run enough to sap her energy. Still, her lone eye glimmered, and she clasped her hands in front of her chest, radiating with an almost desperate desire to please. Zhao kneeled before her.

"Thank you," he said, with a softness that Jian didn't think he ever heard the soldier wear.

"You go and get yourself some water now, alright? Then Master Fu is giving you more work." The girl grinned brilliantly, bowed first to Zhao then to Jian, then turned and ran off. Zhao watched her go with a thoughtful expression.

"Can't just give her something," he murmured.

"It must come after some work." Jian's gaze flicked after the little girl.

"One of them?"

"Yeah…"

"I heard some got sold during the Siege. The owners…"

"Came complaining, yeah." There was a harsh light burning in Zhao's eyes.

"They stopped after they kept getting incidents." Jian snorted, and nodded. He wasn't good with emotions. But the grim knot in his chest? That he knew, and how it could bring incidents.

"Well, come on then. You get half of my bread for your kids. I get a headache. You'd think I could get some breathing room after reopening my bakery."

"Oh, just be glad, you old fart." He felt it while they were making their way back home.

"Li. Peng. Go ahead. I got a commission to make." The twins shared a grin, but didn't argue. The master's commissions usually involved lounging by a tavern with a bottle of win. Having another after a hard day's work was nothing strange. Jian waited for the cart to be out of sight, before ducking into a side alley. As he walked, his training kicked in. The baker disappeared, replaced by a man whose steps made no sounds, whose shape blurred with the alley gloom, until he was all but undistinguishable from it.

They waited for him in the courtyard below, among cracked tiles and unkempt weeds. Three of them, faces hidden by featureless masks.

"Tenzin, sir," said Falling-Claw Jian, bowing before his superior. Tenzin's silver mask was a ghostly glow. A glaring demon's face was carved in it in stark strokes.

"The Mother of Night calls the Owls, Jian," he said.

"Do you answer?" The question was unnecessary, and they both knew it. Yet, it had to be asked.

"I am a Shadow the Shadows fear." Jian clutched his fist and bowed his head.

"My wings for the Call. My life for the Mother." Tenzin didn't move. Yet, one of the two came forward. Their mask smirked in the gloom with a sarcastic gleam. Jian watched as they offered him a long knife, black and deadly, and a silver mask.

"Your services as an Owl have been good," Tenzin said.

"Now, you're called deeper into the Night. Kill the one who is unworthy of our order, gather her confession. Take her place in the higher flock." Awe, reverence and determination churned in Jian's chest as he received the two objects. The dark blade's grip felt perfect in his hand. The mask slid over his face and held fast as though many small needles gripped his skin. Night qi bathed him. When it was gone, he was clad in the Owl's feather mantle.

He bowed his head, thinking of bread that crackled under your finger, pain that was stifled and a little girl with a desperate smile.

"As the Night wills."