My Sect Is Down to Seven People

Chapter 10: Chixiao's Recruitment Stand

It was still dark. He strapped the folding table to his back basket and hoisted it up, the basket loaded with flatbread and a stone to weigh down the sign. The wooden sign was tucked under his arm, and his eyes weren't fully open yet when he passed through the Mountain Gate.

Downhill went faster than up. Halfway down, a pale line split the eastern sky. Dew clung to the grass along both sides of the path, and his trouser legs were soaked halfway up. The table on his back shifted higher twice; the sign moved from under his arm to his hand, then back again.

By the time he reached Luoxia Town, the sky was fully light and the market was already open. From the Market Entrance inward, stalls crowded one against another all the way to the middle of the road: cloth sellers, straw sandal sellers, egg sellers, sugar figurine sellers, and in the middle a huge pot billowing white steam. Shoppers jostled shoulder to shoulder, laughing, haggling, scolding children, the noise layered into a single din.

He stopped at the edge of the crowd, and only then saw the open ground right at the Market Entrance.

A platform stood there, its four legs sturdier than his folding table's, the top lacquered. In front of it stood a wooden sign with "Chixiao" painted in red. Behind the platform stood three people in crimson robes, waist tablets at their belts. Beside the platform were stacked several sacks of rice and two bolts of cloth piled on top of the rice. One person sat behind the table, a ledger spread open before him, half a block of red seal paste at his hand.

A queue formed in front of the platform. Not a long one—all adults leading children. The children hung their heads, not one of them speaking. A woman shoved her boy forward; the boy's feet shifted half an inch, then retreated. She shoved again.

"The rice—do we take it on the spot, or after?" A man in the queue craned his neck forward.

"On the spot." The disciple behind the table didn't look up. "One dou measure of rice, one length of cloth. The spirit stone comes at year's end, one per year."

"And the clothes?"

"One set, issued in autumn."

The man turned and nodded to his wife, then gave his son another push forward.

A thin old man in a straw hat sidled out of the crowd. He glanced at the table on Xu Yan's back, then at the wooden sign. "Where are you setting up?"

"End of the market."

The old man lifted his chin toward the west. "That patch by the wall, nobody's using it. Just don't block the way." He melted back into the crowd.

The end of the market backed onto a wall, the ground packed hard. Xu Yan set the folding table down flat, wedged half a broken tile under the outermost leg, and pressed on the tabletop—no wobble. He parted the dirt two fingers deep and thrust the sign in, then fished the stone out of his back basket and pressed it against the base of the sign. The stone had come from the courtyard yesterday; the gray surface still bore the print of his hand.

He laid the register and a stiff brush on the table, then sat down.

The sun climbed over the eastern roof ridges and lit the market. The queue in front of Chixiao's platform never broke: one child went in, another came out, the ones coming out carrying rice, cloth draped over their arms. The rice sacks at the platform's edge had been opened; a crimson-robed disciple scooped with a measuring dipper, filled it, and poured it into the families' bags. The one seated behind the table read names off the ledger—read one, looked up at the child, grabbed the child's hand and pressed it onto the red seal paste, then onto the ledger. That register lay open half a foot wide, one page per child: name written, handprint stamped. He sat too far away to see anything but the corners of the turning pages.

One child refused to mount the platform, clinging to his father's leg. The disciple behind the table said something. The man picked the child up and set him on the platform. The child cried twice, then stopped on his own.

Xu Yan kept counting. From sunrise to noon, eleven children passed before Chixiao's platform. A tall, thin man stopped to look at the sign and asked, "Qingya's still recruiting?"

"We are."

"Who's going to pay off what you owe the Sect Alliance?" The man grinned.

"The mountain's debts are recorded in the Accounts Room," Xu Yan said.

The man grinned again, shook his head, and walked off.

Xu Yan shifted his gaze back. One of the two bolts of cloth was gone now, and two and a half sacks of rice had been carried off. One dou measure of rice, one length of cloth, per child. Here on his table: a blank sheet of paper and a stiff brush; no rice, no cloth, and even Old Tao's bowl of tea he had to pay for out of his own pocket.

All morning, no one stopped.

The straw-sandal seller next to him shifted his stall forward into the shade along the wall's base and, without looking up, said, "Your sign has nice lettering."

"Thanks."

"Nice lettering's useless." He flipped a sandal over to inspect the sole. "People have to head east. East gives rice."

Xu Yan smoothed the dirt on his table. In the margin of the paper he did a quick reckoning based on Chixiao's rates: one dou measure of rice, one length of cloth, one spirit stone per year. Once he'd worked it out, he set the brush down.

At midday, he pulled out the flatbread Qian Duoduo had griddled. It was hard; each bite shed crumbs, and he washed them down with tea. Old Tao came over from the cloth seller's stall with his bowl, set the tea on the corner of Xu Yan's table, and squatted against the base of the wall.

"Two mule carts came in from the east, stopped at the mouth of the lane," Old Tao said. "The ones they take in, they'll haul them off together later."

"Mm."

Old Tao looked at the empty space on Xu Yan's table. "All morning."

"All morning."

Old Tao kicked a pebble away from the wall base and stayed squatting. After a moment he said, "I rented out my benches to the cloth sellers today—one copper each." He laughed at himself. "Tea's two coppers."

Xu Yan counted out four copper coins and handed them over. Old Tao took them, looked at his palm. "You only drank one bowl."

"The other one's for you."

Old Tao's fingers tightened on the bowl's rim; he hesitated, said nothing more, and carried the bowl back to his stall.

Just after noon, a man dragged a child of five or six past Xu Yan's table. The child's arms were short; passing the table he reached for the sign, and his father smacked the hand away. The man glanced sideways at the words on the sign, quickened his pace by two steps, and tossed out: "Qingya's done for." The child was yanked off balance, his feet scraping the ground, and the man hoisted him up and clamped him under one arm. The child lay over his father's shoulder, looking back at the sign the whole way, until they rounded the corner and he could no longer see it.

Xu Yan stood and straightened the sign, which had been knocked askew. The soil had loosened; he tamped it, pressed the stone back down, stepped back half a pace to check—the sign faced outward, not crooked.

The old man who sold flatbread packed up his stall, picked up his basket, and came over. He set the basket by his feet and squatted beside the table, first glancing at the still-unbroken queue by the Market Entrance.

"Sitting all day," the old man said.

"Mm."

"Sitting like this won't bring anyone in." He lifted a corner of the old cloth covering his basket and fished out two flatbreads, setting them on the corner of the table. "Couldn't sell them today. They're hard enough to break teeth."

Xu Yan took out four copper coins and placed them in the basket. The old man looked, offered no refusal.

"If you'll take the ones nobody else wants," the old man said, "I can tell you about one."

Xu Yan closed the register in his hands.

"There's one at the quarry west of town. Tested for spirit back in the day, nothing showed. Carries twice the stone of anyone else, hauls all day without a word. They call him Shi Po."

"Which quarry?"

"Five li past the west end of town, up above the River Bend. The foreman's surnamed Zheng. Dark-faced. Only cares about money." The old man bit into his flatbread. "That kid eats three men's worth of food at a sitting. The quarry credits him two men's wages and still complains he eats too much."

Xu Yan said nothing.

"One that tested negative—you'd take him too." The old man said it not as a question.

"Yes."

The old man looked up at the sign, then back at him. "I can't read what's on that sign."

"Qingya Sect Recruiting Disciples."

"Qingya." The old man rolled the name around in his mouth. "Years ago, your mountain was full of people. I carried my pole up there to sell flatbread. Back then there wasn't a crack in the stone steps of your Mountain Gate."

"Now there are seven of us."

The old man's flatbread stopped at his lips. He finished the remaining half, brushed the crumbs from his hand. "Seven people." He looked at the sign again. "Your sect hasn't fallen apart yet."

He hefted his basket and stood, took two steps, then looked back. "The quarry gives room and board. The ones who owe money, they can't walk away."

Just before the market closed, two crimson-robed disciples passed the end of the market carrying an empty rice sack. One of them spotted the sign, stopped, read the words aloud, glanced back at Xu Yan with a brief laugh, and carried the sack on.

In the afternoon the market quieted. A woman holding a small child stood before the table, studying the sign for a long time. The child slept on her shoulder, a bit of drool at the corner of its mouth.

"What ages do you take?" she asked.

"Age doesn't matter."

"Ones who've been tested and nothing showed—do you take them?"

"Yes."

She lowered her head and hitched the child higher on her hip. "Our eldest, when he was six we sent him for spirit testing. Nothing showed. His father said no result means mortal—no schooling for him, no trade. If he can carry, he'll carry for a few years." She said it evenly. "Then we sent him to the wharf."

Xu Yan opened the register halfway but didn't write.

"Does it count?" she asked. "The ones nothing showed for—you really want them?"

"Yes."

She stood still. After a long moment, she shook her head. "His father won't allow it."

She carried the child away. A little way off, the child woke on her shoulder and looked back.

The market emptied quickly in the late afternoon. He wiped the dirt from the table and opened the ledger. Under the expenditure column he added a line: eight copper cash—two bowls of tea, four; two flatbreads, four. In the margin he noted separately: with today's eight coppers, twenty-eight saved up. The balance column remained unchanged: twenty-three spirit stones, three taels of silver. The income column stayed blank; he didn't write in it. On a new line he wrote: Sixth month, fifth day, market, recruiting. After writing, he paused, and beneath that line added half a line: before Chixiao's platform, eleven.

At the Monkey hour, the stalls began closing. The cloth vendor rolled up his remaining fabric, the chicken cages stood empty, trampled vegetable leaves stuck to the flagstones. He pulled the sign from the earth, shook off the dirt, stuffed the stone into his back basket, and strapped the folding table down.

He didn't take the road up the mountain.

The road west of town was a stone-hauling road. Stone slabs out of town, then dirt beyond, a layer of white dust scattered over it, thicker the farther he went. It settled on his shoes, puffing up with every step. On either side lay fallow fields and heaps of broken stone stacked waist-high, every block scarred with chisel marks.

After a quarter hour, the town fell behind. The land sloped downward, and ahead he could make out a corner of the river bend, the water gray. The sun sat in the west, light coming from behind him, making the white dust on the road glare. A mule cart hauling stone slabs came up from behind; the carter didn't yield, the wheels grinding through the dust and throwing up a huge cloud. After it passed, the dust slowly settled back onto the road.

At the foot of the distant mountains, a plume of gray dust rose higher than the rooftops, fell a little, rose again; the wind caught it and bent it sideways.

He stopped. From beneath that dust came a dull, muffled sound—one blow, then a pause, then another. Audible even at this distance.

From the town gate to that dust, the walk would take four quarter-hours. He stood there calculating: tomorrow, leave at the Dragon hour, four quarter-hours to get there, observe all day, head back at the Monkey hour. He'd make it back to the mountain before nightfall.

The wind came again, scattering the dust farther, settling it on his shoulders and shoes. He stood a moment longer, adjusted the folding table on his back, and turned around.

Tomorrow, at the Dragon hour, he'd go west.