My Sect Is Down to Seven People

Chapter 13: Falling Rock

On the ninth day of the sixth month, at Dragon hour, Xu Yan arrived at the quarry to find work already underway on the slope.

The accounts room door stood open, but no one was inside. The labor ledger lay on the table, its blue cloth corners smoothed flat. The creases from the day before were still there, only pressed neat and even. A bowl of water sat at the table's edge, a ring of dust settled at the bottom.

Xu Yan didn't go into the accounts room. He walked to the base of the slope and stopped by the big stone there. On the sixth he'd sat on that stone all day, and a layer of white powder still dusted its surface.

The dull thuds from the slope rolled down one after another. He was here today to collect a debt: the two hundred wen they'd agreed on yesterday, in front of a dozen or so craftsmen.

Up at the top of the slope, Shi Po set down his stone slab and came down empty-handed, two hemp ropes in his grip, moving faster than when he carried stone. Two empty buckets sat by the water vat at the slope's base. The old work-logger sat at the top, bamboo slips spread over his knees.

A skinny kid crouched in front of the rubble pile, basket at his feet, picking shards out one by one. He'd been crouched there that other day too, when a piece of rubble rolled down the slope and Shi Po kicked it aside without the boy lifting his head.

The sound that came from the slope then was not the sound of stone being broken.

Stone being broken goes "clang"—it lands clean, one sound and done. This was a "crack," splitting out from a seam in the rock, dragging behind it a long hiss of sand and dirt sliding down.

Xu Yan looked up.

Midway up the slope, two or three zhang above the ground, the rock face had slipped. Debris spilled from the fault first, shards hammering into the rubble halfway down and bouncing; then the stones came. The first was the size of a millstone, followed by a few broken pieces, tumbling end over end. The lowest one exposed a flat bottom and was aimed straight at the foot of the slope.

The boy looked up, grabbed his basket, and stood. He didn't run.

Shi Po lunged from the water vat, kicking through the rubble as he ran. He didn't stop—he threw himself forward, driving the boy and basket both down beneath him, and arched his back upward.

The stone hit him in the back.

A dull impact, dust blasting up from the foot of the slope. The smaller shards kept rolling, stopping only when they reached the water vat.

"Everyone back!" the old craftsman shouted from up on the slope, his voice cracking.

Xu Yan ran toward them. Halfway there he could see Shi Po's legs trembling, his knees driven into the rubble, his arms braced against the ground, his back arched and holding up the stone. One end of the stone had landed on a half-buried old stone footing at the base of the slope, lifting it half a foot; the other end bore down fully on his back. Beneath him was a small space, and in that space was the boy.

From the cooking shed came a clatter—a ladle dropped on the stove platform.

The old craftsman got there second, dragging a pry bar. He worked the tip into the gap beneath the stone. It wouldn't go in.

"Wedge it," he said.

Two craftsmen ran off to find broken pieces. Xu Yan crouched down and scraped the sand from under the stone's lower edge with his hands, digging until he could see into the gap: one of the boy's legs was moving, and his crying was stuck in his throat, coming out only as hiccups.

"Hold on," Xu Yan said.

"Holding," Shi Po said. The voice was forced out of his chest—muffled and short.

The first wedge was the size of a palm. The stone lifted slightly, and Shi Po's hands pressed white against the rubble. The second time they jammed in two pieces. The old craftsman's bar slipped, the stone dropped back half an inch, and Shi Po let out a grunt as his knees sank and the rubble crowded up from both sides.

"Don't rush," Xu Yan said, and put his shoulder under the tail end of the bar.

The third time, the old craftsman pressed the bar down to its limit. Two craftsmen bore down on the head of the bar, Xu Yan braced the tail, and the stone came off the ground.

They pulled the boy out. The back of his shirt was torn away, a patch of his arm scraped raw by the rubble, and he still had the basket clutched to his chest.

The boy started crying the moment he was out. His mother came running up from the gravel-sifting area below, one shoe lost, her bare foot cracking down on stone shards as she ran. She dropped down beside him and began picking the little stones off his arm one by one.

When Shi Po came out from under the stone, it didn't look like crawling. He straightened one leg, then slowly flattened his back, and only then pulled his upper body free. He sat in the rubble with one hand braced on his knee.

"There's a basket under the stone," he said.

The old craftsman hauled the basket out and handed it to him. Shi Po took it, stood, and walked over to the boy, crouching down and setting the basket by his feet. Half the rubble inside had spilled out.

The cloth on his back was worn through. From his left shoulder blade down to his waist, the skin was mottled dark—bruised black, but not broken.

Xu Yan reached out to steady his arm.

Shi Po's arm shifted away, avoiding his hand. He straightened up on his own.

The boy's mother knelt and kowtowed. The ground was all broken stone; her forehead went red at once. Shi Po backed up until he hit the stone and had nowhere left to go. He said only one word: "Get up."

The old craftsman pulled the woman to her feet.

The dust on the slope settled. The sun shone down, and the displaced section of rock wall still hung with dirt, shedding bits of it slowly. The old woman from the stove shed came down from behind the slope with a small jar in her hands, a bitter smell at its mouth. She scooped out a wad of black salve and smeared it onto Shi Po's shoulder. He turned his head, but didn't pull away.

"Did it hit the bone?"

"No."

"Say if it hurts."

"It doesn't."

The old work-logger came down from the top, still clutching his bamboo slips, and stood outside the circle watching for a while.

"Today's work still counts," he said.

Zheng Tie came from the direction of the accounts room, later than anyone. He looked first at the fallen rock, crouching to paw at it, then straightened and glanced at the basket.

"All that good stone wasted," he said. "This batch was supposed to load this afternoon."

Xu Yan crouched down and sorted through the fallen stone: seven usable pieces, rubble piled to either side—enough to pave a stretch of road. He didn't state a count.

"Fallen or not, it's still stone," he said. "Broken pieces go to the road; whole pieces still go on the carts. The quarry pays good money for road-fill stone from the town."

Zheng Tie didn't answer that. He wiped his hands on his trousers. "The rubble pile isn't a place for people to stand."

"His father breaks rocks on the slope. His mother sifts gravel below." The old craftsman said, "If the boy doesn't follow them, who does he follow?"

Zheng Tie had no answer to that either. He turned to Shi Po. "Today's lost time won't be logged."

"Log it," Shi Po said. "I'll make it up this afternoon."

"Make up what? That arm won't be carrying stone slabs again all month."

"I can carry."

Zheng Tie opened his mouth. The men on the slope were all watching him. He glanced at Shi Po's shoulder, shut his mouth, and turned back toward the accounts room.

"Two hundred wen," Xu Yan said.

"Noon," Zheng Tie said without looking back.

The moment Zheng Tie was gone, Shi Po returned to the slope. He wrapped the rope over his right shoulder, his left arm dangling at his side. When he stood, his waist dipped once, then slowly straightened. The old craftsman untied the scrap of old burlap from his own shoulder and pressed it into his hand: "Pad it." Shi Po laid the burlap under the edge of a slab, walked three steps, took a heavy breath, and kept going up.

At the top, he didn't brace the stone with his knee the way he usually did. Instead he set the slab on the ground before releasing the rope, a dull thud. The old work-logger made a mark on his bamboo slip.

The old craftsman crouched at the base of the slope catching his breath. He watched Xu Yan for a while. "That boy'd do better going with you than staying at the quarry."

"I've never said that to him," Xu Yan said.

"You wouldn't need to." The old craftsman rested the rope end across his knee. "Thirty-some men in this quarry, and not one ever spoke up for him. You stood in front of the whole crew and read a ledger aloud that day. He remembers."

At noon, the iron bar by the stove was struck three times.

Shi Po carried his clay basin over. The old woman filled it, dipping the ladle in and pausing for a moment before adding another half-scoop. He carried the basin to the stone platform and set it down without eating, then turned and walked out to the road.

Xu Yan was crouched there, smoothing out folded paper and writing on it with charcoal—recording that morning's rockfall: how many whole stones, how many rubble piles. Shi Po stopped in front of him.

"I'm going up the mountain with you."

Xu Yan looked up at him.

"You've thought it through?"

"I have."

"Qingya needs someone who can hold the line." Xu Yan said, "The mountain is poor. Qingya owes the Sect Alliance twenty-one hundred spirit stones, can't pay year after year. If we fail the evaluation on the Double Ninth, the mountain gate goes to someone else. There are seven people on the mountain. You'd be the eighth."

"I can't write."

"Each person has to write their own name in the roster." Xu Yan said, "I'll teach you."

"I eat a lot."

"How much?"

"The men on the slope say I eat enough for three."

"Qingya covers meals," Xu Yan said. "There's food, a place to sleep, and a mountain of debt to pay off. Nothing else."

Shi Po studied the ground for a moment. "I'm not bringing anything."

"Bring two changes of clothes."

"I've been tested for spirit roots. I don't have one," he said.

"What you can carry has nothing to do with spirit roots," Xu Yan said. "The roster doesn't ask about spirit roots. It only asks whether you're willing to come, whether you write your name, whether you're willing to learn."

Shi Po turned those two sentences over in his mind, then nodded.

"When do we leave?"

"Tomorrow, finish saying what you need to say at the quarry and pack up," Xu Yan said. "The morning of the eleventh, I'll come to Zhenxi."

"I can walk up myself."

"It's ten li of mountain road," Xu Yan said. "I'll meet you."

Zheng Tie came down right at noon, the labor ledger under his arm and a cloth bundle in his hand. He spread the ledger open on the stone trough, flipped to the last page of Shi Po's three months, and counted out strings of copper coins. At two hundred, he wrapped them in the cloth and set the bundle beside the ledger. The craftsmen on the slope gathered around gradually, no one coming too close, just standing there watching.

"Put your thumbprint down."

Shi Po didn't know where to press. Zheng Tie took a small wooden box from his coat, vermilion paste inside, grabbed Shi Po's hand, pressed his thumb into it, and stamped it down on the line.

"Settled." Zheng Tie closed the ledger. "You don't need to come look at the quarry's accounts anymore."

"He won't," Xu Yan said.

Zheng Tie pushed the cloth bundle to the edge of the stone trough and paused. "Qingya's debts—people in town have talked. The Double Ninth."

"I'll remember," Xu Yan said.

Shi Po untied the bundle and counted on the stone trough. He counted slowly, split half off, wrapped it back up, and tucked the other half into his coat. He carried the separated half over to the boy and crouched down. The boy sat on the ground hugging his basket, looking up at him.

"He can't take it," the boy's mother said, her voice hoarse.

"His arm got pinned," Shi Po said. "He won't be picking stones for a few days."

He pushed the cloth bundle into the boy's arms. The boy looked to his mother. Her lips moved once, but no sound came out, and the boy held the bundle to his chest.

Shi Po stood and looked back at Xu Yan.

"Tomorrow I'll tell them," he said. "Day after, you come to Zhenxi."

"Dragon hour," Xu Yan said.

Shi Po nodded, then walked over and picked up the basin of food from the stone platform. His left arm wouldn't lift, so he rested the basin on his knee and ate with the spoon in his right hand, scoop after scoop. The bruise on his shoulder looked darker in the sun.

Xu Yan crouched back down by the roadside and opened the ledger. He wrote to the line from the sixth day of the month—"Quarry, Shi Po"—where the "Debt" column had sat empty for three days, and filled in the amount: two hundred wen, paid in full. On a new line he wrote: Eleventh, Zhenxi, pick him up. He closed the book.