My Sect Is Down to Seven People

Chapter 1: A Bronze Token

"Shut the door."

Xu Yan already had one leg out the threshold. He stepped back in, pulled the door closed, and paused with his hand on the bolt. The medicinal smell in the room was heavy; leaving it sealed overnight wouldn't be good.

"Shut it," the man on the bed said again.

The bolt slid home with a click. Only one oil lamp remained lit, its wick trimmed so short the light reached just to the bed's edge. The lamp oil had come from East Street, eighty wen a pot, low smoke, a faint scorched-bean smell when it burned, unable to mask the medicine. Fang Henian's hand lay outside the quilt, veins standing out on the back, a small ink stain still on his knuckle.

Xu Yan stood three paces from the bed.

"This year's accounts," the old Sect Master asked, "how far have you got?"

"May thirtieth." Xu Yan answered. "One pot of lamp oil for the Ancestral Hall, eighty wen. Three tiles on the west side of the front courtyard patched, twenty-three wen."

"Who went up on the roof?"

"Elder Cheng."

"That hand of his."

"He said one hand was enough."

Fang Henian gave a short laugh, the sound catching in his throat. He stared at the dark stain on the roof beam, left by last summer's leak, still not fully dry.

"That stack of old ledgers in the Accounts Room," he said, "don't sell them for scrap paper."

"I won't. They wouldn't fetch much as scrap anyway."

"Mm." Fang Henian closed his eyes. "I'm going to sleep. Go on back."

Xu Yan made a sound of assent but didn't move.

Ten years ago the old Sect Master had spoken the same way, sitting on a stool in the Accounts Room, asking him one question after another: which column the spirit stones went in, how to cover a shortfall, whose wages were paid and whose weren't. Back then Xu Yan had just been brought up the mountain from Luoxia Town, wanting to turn everything into a ledger entry, even calculating what the stone steps at the Mountain Gate were worth.

Fang Henian's hand groped under the pillow, missed twice. Xu Yan stepped forward and lifted a corner of the pillow. Beneath it lay a bronze token, palm-sized, its edges worn smooth. The old Sect Master worked it out with two fingers, placed it in Xu Yan's palm, and pressed down once.

The hand was dry, cold, but gripped harder than Xu Yan expected.

"The accounts. You can settle them."

Xu Yan looked up. The old Sect Master's eyes were already closed, his chest rising and falling, very slowly.

"Sect Master, this token—" he started, then swallowed the words back down. The man on the bed didn't answer.

He turned the token over. The front was cast with "Qingya," the back with "Token." Pressed under the pillow for who knew how many years, there was an indented line near the edge that felt like a thin groove under his fingers.

He held the token in his hand and stood by the bed counting the old Sect Master's breaths. Lost count once, started over. When he passed four hundred, he couldn't keep going—something clogged his throat, forcing him to swallow.

Early in the Hai hour, the breathing stopped.

Xu Yan looked first at his hands, then his face, then reached out and held his fingers under the nose. He held them there longer than he'd meant to. He straightened, pulled the quilt up, then felt he shouldn't have, and let it fall back.

There was no moon in the courtyard. A sliver of light from the Medicine Hall's window to the west flickered, then went out.

"Elder Cheng—"

Cheng Banshan came quickly. He approached from the west side, robes untied, the empty sleeve flapping in the wind. He didn't look at Xu Yan when he entered, went straight to the bed, bent down, pressed the back of his hand to Fang Henian's nose, then moved it to the mouth.

He stood there a moment, then pressed Fang Henian's eyelids down with his thumb.

"The old Sect Master has passed," he said.

"A physician…" Qian Duoduo squeezed half his body through the doorway, the words catching in his throat before he could finish. "Should we call a physician?"

"I am a physician." Cheng Banshan unhooked the gourd from his waist.

Someone at the door began to cry. Qian Duoduo slumped against the doorframe, his plump hands covering his face, shoulders heaving, crying without any composure, wiping at his robe front as he wept. A He and A Sui crowded in behind him, both silent. The younger sister clutched her brother's hem; the brother craned his neck for a look, then turned back, eyes reddening. A Sui said something under her breath and A He clapped a hand over her mouth.

Cheng Banshan sat on the bed's edge, bit open the gourd's stopper, and tipped his head back for a drink. He rested the gourd on his knee and pressed his remaining hand down on the corner of Fang Henian's quilt, as if tucking someone in.

"Alright." He spoke to the quilt. "I'll keep the wine."

Only then did he notice the corner of the bronze token peeking from Xu Yan's robes.

"Let me see it."

Xu Yan handed it over. Cheng Banshan held it up to the lamp, turned it front and back, ran his thumb over "Qingya" once—the patina didn't budge.

"If the old Sect Master gave it to you, you keep it." He pressed the token back into Xu Yan's hand. "I'll go down to town in the morning. The coffin should at least be a thick one."

"Send Qian Duoduo," Xu Yan said. "You stay. The furnace in the Medicine Hall is still warm; you can't leave it."

Cheng Banshan glanced at him but didn't argue. "Silver's in the Accounts Room drawer. Twelve taels."

"Coffin and burial clothes, eight is enough," Xu Yan said. "Keep the other four for emergencies."

"Emergencies." Cheng Banshan chewed on the word, tipped back another drink, and said no more.

The lamp in the room was too dim. Qian Duoduo, still sniffling, went looking for a lamp and came back with another, his hand shaking—it took him three strikes to light it, lamp oil spilling on the table, which he hastily wiped with his sleeve. A He helped set the lamp on the cabinet. A Sui tugged at Qian Duoduo's robe hem, her eyes darting toward the bed, then down again.

"Move him to the Main Hall," Cheng Banshan stood. "No mourning banners tonight. Let him have one quiet night. We'll sort it out at dawn."

Two door panels from the Main Hall had already been taken down and laid across four long benches. Xu Yan and Qian Duoduo carried the body; Cheng Banshan supported the middle with one hand; A He and A Sui led the way with lamps. Nie Bo stood by a pillar. He'd leveled the last bench himself, then stepped back.

The lamplight reached the plaque in the Main Hall, the characters dark and faded. Xu Yan laid the body straight, smoothed the quilt edge, stepped back two paces, and thought about what he ought to say—then realized he didn't know what that was.

"All of you, go back to bed," Cheng Banshan said. "Tomorrow will be busy."

A He and A Sui were led away by Qian Duoduo, one in each hand. Cheng Banshan sat on the threshold, back against the doorframe.

At the end of the Hai hour, Xu Yan returned to the Accounts Room.

He ground ink first. It was the leftover inkstick from last winter, hard, needing pressure to grind. He trimmed the wick one notch brighter, spread open the ledger, and ran the brush tip twice along the inkstone's edge.

Sixth month, first day, Hai hour: Sect Master Fang Henian passed from old age.

He set the brush down and looked at the line. The characters were too straight. He'd always written the accounts straight, year after year. This line was no different.

He meant to open a new page for funeral expenses, so he went to the cabinet's top shelf for that stack of old ledgers. When the hemp rope came loose, the thin one on top slid beneath his hand.

This ledger had sat on the cabinet shelf for years beyond counting, its paper yellower than the rest, stiff as a wooden plank. When Elder Cheng was young he'd tried draping it with a wet cloth overnight—didn't come apart. The old-timers on the mountain said it was the Founding Patriarch's ledger, though they never said it as if they believed it. Xu Yan had tried a few times himself, worked a fingernail into the page edges, couldn't get it open.

This time it opened on its own.

The pages fell open without a sound.

[Balance: Heritage 30 points.]

Xu Yan brought the lamp closer. The characters were black, the strokes fine as if carved, not pressed into the paper. He pressed a fingertip to the line—dry.

He set the lamp back and flipped to the previous page. Blank, not even a dot of ink. Flipped forward again—the line was still there, same position, same height.

His first thought was that the old Sect Master had written it. He knew the old Sect Master's hand: short horizontals, long verticals, strokes that hooked back at the end. This didn't match. Besides, the ink was dry and the paper was old—so old the corners crumbled at a touch.

He held the page up to the lamp. The back was clean; only the shadow of the lamp showed through.

Balance he understood—a lifetime in the Accounts Room was spent calculating balances. "Heritage" he'd heard before. When Elder Cheng drank too much, he'd sometimes mention "Qingya's heritage," meaning things the Founding Patriarch had left behind, always vaguely, and if you pressed, he'd drink more. What a point was worth, how many spirit stones it converted to—Xu Yan had no idea. There was no such column in the ledgers, and he'd never seen it in any other account book.

He took the bronze token from his robes and laid it on the line.

The token pressed against the paper for a while. Nothing happened.

He turned to the next page. Blank. Another. Blank. He tucked the token back into his robes, hand resting on the page's edge, eyes on that line. Behind the Accounts Room was the door to the Old Storehouse, locked, the key in the back of the drawer. He didn't go over.

[Balance: Registered Disciple, one person: Jiang Wan.]

Xu Yan stood there for a while.

He went through the people on the mountain one by one. Elder Cheng was the Medicine Hall Elder, had eaten on this mountain for twenty years, not a Registered Disciple. Qian Duoduo was a Kitchen Servant; he made the spirit meals, but the ledger recorded him as a Servant. A He and A Sui helped out on the mountain; during festivals the old Sect Master gave them spirit stones. Nie Bo guarded the Mountain Gate; no one had ever seen him write any name. There was only one Registered Disciple—Jiang Wan. The old Sect Master's last personal disciple, sent down the mountain on the twentieth of the fifth month by his order to request a deferment from the Dongzhou Branch in Linchuan City. She hadn't come back by tonight.

The roster sat in a wooden box under the offering table in the Ancestral Hall. He dusted it once a month—no one knew it better. It carried only one living name.

As he held the page, that bit of spiritual power in his meridians twitched on its own. Qi Condensation Third Layer, stalled for five years. In ten years in the Accounts Room, he'd handled more spirit stones than he could count, and not one had ever entered his meridians. The spiritual power just sat there, accumulated, unmoving.

He closed the ledger, held it to his chest, and walked out of the Accounts Room.

Two lamps in the Main Hall. One lit the body on the door panel. Cheng Banshan still sat on the threshold, back against the frame, gourd at his feet. Qian Duoduo knelt inside burning paper money, the ash swirling upward, settling on his sweaty forehead—he didn't even wipe it off.

"Elder Cheng."

Cheng Banshan raised his chin.

Xu Yan handed over the ledger, open to that page.

Cheng Banshan set the gourd aside and looked down. He didn't look long—just narrowed his eyes, opened them again, and tapped the page twice with a finger.

He turned the ledger over to check the cover. Nothing on the cover. He held it up to the lamp and gave it a shake; a little dust fell.

"Xiao Xu, you're tired."

Xu Yan opened his mouth.

Cheng Banshan closed the ledger, pushed it back against Xu Yan's chest, bit open the gourd's stopper, and shook it twice. Empty.

"Three days. Bury him on the third day." He pressed the stopper back in, voice dropping. "He left instructions. At dawn, arrange for someone to go down the mountain. Qian Duoduo buys the coffin—tell him to get a thick one. These next two days, keep the twins out of the Main Hall."

Xu Yan tightened his arms around the ledger, stood on the steps at the Main Hall's entrance, and glanced back at the two lamps.