Page 32 of The Scarlet Alchemist

The librarian shook his head, his hair ornaments jingling. “The last alchemist we let in here with stones set fire to priceless, irreplaceable scrolls. You leave your stones with me.”

Yufei crossed her arms, but Wenshu elbowed her before she could speak. “Do as he says, Zilan. It’s the rules.”

“What if someone steals them?” I said. “Do you even know how much I paid for those?”

“They’ll be on my desk, where I can guard them,” the librarian said.

I pursed my lips, clutching my satchel, but Wenshu sighed and nudged my shoulder. “Zilan,” he said. “Just do it.”

I shot Wenshu a murderous look, then turned and dropped my satchel on the librarian’s desk. Not because I agreed with Wenshu, but because openly disobeying my male “guardian” would make Wenshu lose face in front of all the other scholars who were just past the counter and undoubtedly listening.

We moved into the building, and luckily its vastness—unlike anything I’d seen in Guangzhou—was enough to make me forget about my stones. The royal library was a labyrinth of shelves packed with scrolls, maps, and paintings. Yufei helped me carry ten scrolls on Northern alchemy stones over to a table, while Wenshu gathered essays on Confucian analects, which he and Yufei promptly started fighting over, both wanting to read the same one. They agreed to take turns, but only when another librarian came by to scold them for making so much noise.

The scholars at the other tables moved away from us, mumbling that we smelled like rotten meat. It was definitely possible that the pig’s blood on our clothes had seeped in and started to smell in a way we ceased to notice, but I thought it had more to do with us not having silk robes and speaking in Guangzhou dialect so they couldn’t understand us. After a few hours, I convinced Wenshu and Yufei to move to a study room, saying the other scholars were too noisy, but really I just couldn’t concentrate with everyone staring at us.

Soon, the sun set behind the windows and we read by candlelight. The sounds of the other scholars outside had gone quiet as the daylight waned, and I suspected most people had left. My eyes grew dry and the words I read began to lose meaning. The vastness of the library no longer seemed impressive but crushing when I started to realize how much I didn’t know, how much information the formally trained alchemists had access to while I’d been poring over outdated texts. The children of scholars had probably read through this library ten times over, while I was about to have a breakdown after struggling through three scrolls.

“These scholars wrote about Penglai Island like my father,” I said, slumped over a scroll. “They were looking for some sort of life elixir too.”

“That’s a myth,” Wenshu said, not even looking up. “You should worry about things that will actually be on your exam.”

“Well, sorry if I don’t know the contents of every scroll before reading it,” I said, rolling up the paper with more force than necessary.

Yufei groaned and flopped over her desk. “I’m starving,” she said.

“We already had dinner, so deal with it,” Wenshu said. “Besides, we already used all our gold for today.”

Wenshu had counted our remaining money and calculated how much we could safely spend each day, assuming we all passed our next two exams and had to wait for the next lunar cycle for payment. With how alarmingly expensive food and board were in the capital, we could split one meal a day between the three of us, plus whatever street food Yufei could charm off of merchants. The question of what to do if we didn’t pass our exams hung over us like a shadow, but none of us dared say it out loud.

“Fine, then I guess you don’t want any,” Yufei said, pulling an orange from her bag.

Wenshu’s eyebrow twitched. “You can’t eat in here.”

“Are you going to tell on me?” Yufei said, already peeling it.

“I want some,” I said, partially because I was hungry and partially just to spite the librarian for taking my stones.

“It will smell like oranges in here and they’ll never let us back in,” Wenshu said, trying to grab the fruit.

Yufei stood up, holding it out of his reach. “Get your own.”

Wenshu huffed and got to his feet, trying to snatch the orange, but Yufei tossed it to me over his head. Before I could reach it, Wenshu smacked it out of the air. It hit the table, splashing juice onto the scrolls.

“You got ink on my orange!” Yufei said.

“As if that would stop you! You literally eat food off the ground!” Wenshu said.

We turned toward the door at the sound of shouting from the other side of the library. Yufei took the opportunity to snatch her orange back and shove half of it into her mouth, handing me the other soggy half. Something clattered outside, like a bag of marbles had spilled, then a chair screeched and wood splintered.

“Is that how Northerners study?” Wenshu said, scowling. “What are they doing out there?”

“I thought most of them left,” I said. “Maybe the librarian is moving tables?”

“Or breaking them,” Yufei mumbled, wiping her mouth with her sleeve.

Wenshu dug a rag from his pocket and hurled it at Yufei’s wet face, his gaze still lingering on the door. “Maybe we should be worried,” he said.

I crossed my arms. “About that jerk who took my stones?”

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