They Called Me a Coward, My New Master Asked for Lessons novel · Chapter 2 of 24
Chapter 2: The Smallest Master
Ji's first ring and the rule of rings become physical when Shen can barely lift a cup; precise weak force holds one joint of a collapsing bench, then Tang crosses out the school's festival place.
The Low Step school owned a practice terrace smaller than the academy's washroom.
Ji recognized the dimensions, because she had scrubbed that washroom for three winters.
A strip of cloth hung over the gate with LOW STEP painted across it in dark blue.
The final letter folded around a drainpipe whenever the wind changed.
Shen leaned the borrowed stool against the doorframe and gave the sign a polite nod.
"Borrowing a chair is not a foundation for a feud," she said.
Luo sat on the step to rest her ankle and finally began eating her bun.
Sunlight warmed a row of flat black stones along the southern wall of the single hall.
Cultivators drew warmth from those stones through steady breathing and held it as force.
Keeping force steady took years, and Ji had spent most of hers earning one ring.
Her ring showed pale gold at her wrists, but it held force only where her hands touched.
A second ring would send that force beyond her fingers.
Qiu Zhenheng, a senior disciple with two rings, could slide a cloth across a floor untouched.
The academy charged more for second-ring lessons than Ji had ever managed to save.
She set a ceramic cup on the table and laid her palm against its side.
The cup rose from the wood without tipping, and she lowered it onto a folded cloth.
Shen took her place at the table, and a thin gold ring formed beneath her frayed sleeve.
The cup rose just far enough for a dry leaf to pass underneath.
It settled again with a small and entirely ordinary click.
Perhaps the leaf concealed a mountain, or the cup was lined with lead.
Shen tipped the cup over and shook a little tea dust onto the table.
"Mine is a little less than yours," she said.
Ji did not believe a master could be this honest on purpose.
She fetched the teapot, which was full, and set it in front of Shen as a fair test.
The pot did not move.
"That is our only pot," Shen said.
"If I drop it, we will be drinking from the cup."
Ji fetched the round door stone next, the one that propped the door open.
Shen laid one palm on it, and no ring appeared at all.
"I can roll it," she said, "but I would rather not roll it across the table."
Ji lifted the stone to carry it away, and it slid off her fingers onto her boot.
She hopped once.
The door swung shut with a clap, because nothing was propping it anymore.
Shen looked at the door and then at Ji's foot.
"The stool is outside, if you would like to sit," she said.
Ji looked at her master's silver-black braid and her missing right little finger.
Sixty-three years ought to have produced more than that.
She disliked herself at once for thinking it.
People had been doing the same arithmetic about Ji since the day she turned twenty.
She limped to the warm stones and chose the smallest pebble.
"Would this be more suitable?" she asked.
Shen lifted the pebble to her nose and crossed her eyes.
"It would keep flies away," she agreed.
Then the bench under Ji split at its crooked center.
Ji felt the drop begin and knew she could not get her feet under her in time.
She could have stopped the fall by pouring every bit of force into the seat.
She would have held the whole bench and torn her scarred elbow open again.
Shen touched the bench with one hand and braced the floor with her shoe.
Her thin ring flickered at the one small joint that was giving way.
The pebble dropped into Ji's lap while the split wood held just long enough.
"Stand up slowly," Shen told her.
Ji stood and pulled the table away from her knees.
The bench folded the moment both women had stepped clear.
Shen held out the broken leg.
"We have found your first chore," she said.
Ji took it, keeping her feet clear of the door stone.
Ji had more force by far, and her master had held the one place that mattered.
"You have more force," Shen said.
"I have more practice noticing what I cannot hold."
Ji dragged the broken bench away from the door and could not call that nothing.
A messenger in academy blue arrived with a rolled festival list and a ribbon-tied notice.
Low Step's name had been crossed out in fresh ink.
Beside it, somebody had written that a school required a standing disciple.
"We have two standing," Shen told him, nodding at Ji and then at Luo on the step.
"Elder Tang disagrees that Ji Yanshu can stand," the messenger said, and did not say why.
One trial remained open at dawn to the schools the elder had excluded.
It was a first-ring bowl course on the reed court, with a single judge.
Ji understood that Tang had left them one door and expected her to be too ashamed to use it.
Luo's ankle could not carry her to the starting line.
Shen took a plain ceramic bowl from the shelf and set it in Ji's hands.
"Then you will practice carrying that until the water stops arguing," she said.
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