Chapter 5: The Master's Tea

The Sect Master poured the tea himself.

He did it in the Summit Hall, at a low table by the open window.

His hands were pleasant and unhurried, the hands of a man who had never been refused anything.

Yuan Qiandu was a hundred and eighteen and looked forty-five.

He had a square kind face and a laugh that made servants smile before they knew why.

Shen stood.

He always stood in the Master's hall, and the Master had stopped offering him a cushion years ago.

"Zhiheng. Your cup."

"I take no gifts, Master."

The Master laughed, and the sound filled the room.

"He refuses everything, Chief Enforcer. He refused my pill of long life. He refused a Peak's worth of spirit stones."

He held out the cup.

"Then it is an order, and not a gift."

Shen took it.

It was plain tea, and he drank one sip, which was what the order required.

To his left, Mo Chengyan did not drink at all.

He held his cup in both hands and watched the steam.

At the table sat Yuan Qianhe, the Master's younger brother, tapping his jade ruler.

Beside the window stood Elder Fu, the Oath Warden, with his hands in his sleeves.

The Master turned his own cup in its saucer, once.

"Now. The matter of this book."

His eyes crinkled.

"I am not a cruel man. The writer is unwell, I think. A man with a grievance and a clever hand."

He smiled.

"When the Chief Enforcer finds him, I would like him brought to me alive. I will see that he is made quiet."

The smile widened.

"Silence can be a kind of mercy."

Under Shen's breastbone, the jade grew warm.

It was nothing yet, only a thumb of heat where the oath lay.

He tasted metal at the back of his tongue, and he kept his face as it was.

Mo bowed over his cup.

"The Hall will do as it is told."

"I am sure. What do you have for me?"

"Three names." Mo set down his cup. "Three clerks of the Master's own Document Office. Their ink, their hours and their paper match the book."

Keep reading free with an account. Start The Enforcer Hunting My Pen Name Reads Every Chapter from Chapter 1, then sign up free to read the rest of this chapter.