My Sect Is Down to Seven People

Chapter 17: One Pot, Twenty Bowls

When the ladle slipped into the pot, rice water splashed onto the edge of the stove platform.

Qian Duoduo reached in to fish it out. His fingertips touched the rim, pulled back, then went in again, pinching the handle and lifting it free. Rice water ran down his wrist to his elbow.

"One pot, twenty bowls," Xu Yan said. "Two Spirit Stones a bowl."

Qian Duoduo set the ladle across the rim. The handle started to slide; he pressed it still.

"Chixiao's people are in the market every day."

"I know."

"Don't think I'm joking." He wiped his hands on his apron. "Someone like Cao Hu sits down at your stall, eats a bowl, doesn't hand over a single Spirit Stone, and you still have to serve it to him."

"He eats a bowl, he owes two stones."

"He owes." Qian Duoduo paused. "But he won't pay."

Xu Yan spread the account book on the dry part of the stove platform and flipped to the right page. The kitchen was heavy with steam; the corners of the paper had gone soft. He pressed them flat with a finger.

"Next market day is the twentieth," he said. "One pot, twenty bowls, forty stones. A pot of Spirit Rice costs four. The mushrooms and wild greens from the Back Mountain are free. One pot clears thirty-six stones."

Qian Duoduo said nothing. His arm hung straight, a wet cloth draped over it.

"The townsfolk can't afford it," he said suddenly. "One Spirit Stone exchanges for ten taels of silver. Two stones a bowl—that's twenty taels. A day laborer earns a few dozen copper coins a day. One bowl would eat a year's wages."

"Then we don't sell to townsfolk." Xu Yan looked at him. "We sell to Rogue Cultivators, to traveling cultivators passing through, to the young men in the martial halls who've reached the first or second layer of Qi Condensation, to the Outer Court of Chixiao—the ones who spend Spirit Stones like meal money."

"The Outer Court of Chixiao?"

"They buy, we sell. Two stones a bowl. One bowl is worth half a day of meditation."

Qian Duoduo stared down at the pot. The porridge had thickened. Bubbles rose and broke; white steam climbed steadily upward.

"One pot costs me most of my Spiritual Power," he said. "The rice goes in, I feed it my power, feed it until the grains split open. One pot and I have to sit and recover for half a day. Two pots is my limit. Three and I'm flat on the ground."

"Two is enough."

"Enough for what." He muttered. "One market day, two pots, forty bowls. Some people eat two bowls because one isn't enough. Some eat three. Shi Po can put away six."

"Shi Po doesn't count." Xu Yan closed the account book. "He eats the mountain's own rice."

Qian Duoduo choked, then laughed at himself. Mid-laugh, he stopped, his face going pale again.

"What if they don't sell," he said. "A whole pot unsold—four stones of Spirit Rice wasted."

"One pot wasted, one pot recorded in the ledger."

"But the rice is wasted," Qian Duoduo looked up, "and so is my Spiritual Power. Doesn't that count for something?"

The hand holding Xu Yan's brush paused.

"It counts," he said. "I can't write that in the ledger. But I'll remember it."

Qian Duoduo wrung out the cloth. Water fell onto the dirt in front of the firebox and soaked in. He nodded, very lightly.

The fire in the stove leapt. He picked up the fire tongs and shoved the wood deeper. Sparks scattered, landed on the ground, and died out one by one.

"There's also the pot," he said. "The bowls. It's ten li from the Mountain Gate down to town, over mountain paths, an hour's walk. If the pot knocks against a rock, it cracks. That's the only pot on the mountain."

"Shi Po carries it."

"He can carry it." Qian Duoduo admitted it, his voice dropping low. A moment later he added, "His left shoulder is still bruised."

"He says it doesn't hurt."

"He said it doesn't hurt." Qian Duoduo set the tongs down. "When he says the stone's getting lighter, I believe him. When he says it doesn't hurt, I believe him too. But Elder Cheng says he'll know once the rain comes."

"Tomorrow's the seventeenth. I'm going down the mountain." Xu Yan half-closed the account book, then spread it open again. "One pot of Spirit Rice: four stones. One furnace of medicine from the Medicine Hall: six stones in herbs, selling through Huichun Hall. We have twenty-three stones at home. We take ten down, thirteen stay."

Qian Duoduo worked through the numbers in his head, and his face went whiter. "Thirteen. We're still short three dou of rice."

"When the pot sells on the twentieth, the rice is covered."

"And if it doesn't sell?"

Xu Yan smoothed the crease at the corner of the page.

"Then we recalculate."

He walked to the kitchen door. Behind him, Qian Duoduo called out, "I counted the bowls. Nineteen good, one chipped. Enough for twenty servings."

"Noted."

Xu Yan stepped down off the stone steps. A few paces out, Qian Duoduo called him back from the doorway.

"Sect Master."

"Yeah."

"Nothing else to add?"

"Twentieth, fire up the pot."

Qian Duoduo pulled the wet cloth off his shoulder and held it in his hand, standing in the doorway, watching him go.

Snake hour. The Medicine Hall.

Cheng Banshan sat on the threshold, one hand working the grinding wheel, crushing herbs in the trough with a steady scrape-scrape. The room held a bitter odor of years, mixed with dust. In the patch of floor where sunlight fell, fine motes drifted.

"Elixirs save lives," he said without looking up. "They're not market goods."

Xu Yan sat down on the stone steps outside, the account book open across his knees.

"One furnace, ten bottles," he said. "Three stones a bottle, thirty stones. Herbs for one furnace: six stones. I'm buying from Huichun Hall tomorrow. One furnace clears twenty-four stones."

"Twenty-four stones." Cheng Banshan stopped the wheel.

"The annual Rank Silver is seventy stones. Twenty-four covers about a hundred and twenty days of it."

Cheng Banshan raised his head to look at him. His hand rested on the rim of the trough, the knuckles thick, herbs caked in the creases of his fingers.

"Last time you sat here working out the debt, you laid it out the same way. Line by line."

"Twenty-one hundred stones," Xu Yan said.

"So you remember it's twenty-one hundred." Cheng Banshan swept the wheel across the trough, gathering the powder into a small pile. "By your reckoning, one furnace covers a hundred-odd days. This hall hasn't sold a single bottle in years, and overnight it becomes Qingya's income?"

"The Medicine Hall isn't new." Xu Yan kept his voice even. "The prescriptions are here, the furnace is here, the firewood is here. One firing isn't about the last few years. It's about this one time."

Cheng Banshan took a drink from his gourd and pressed the stopper back in.

"Three stones a bottle. Who's buying?"

"In the Market it's five." Xu Yan looked at him. "Here it's three. Whoever buys once comes back."

"Nobody's bought once." Cheng Banshan looked at him flatly. "Who's eaten it?"

"Nobody."

"Then what makes you say they'll come back?"

Xu Yan didn't answer. He flipped the account book back a page, to the entries recording the old debts, and raised it for Cheng Banshan to see.

"People in town know Qingya's medicine," he said. "When the old Sect Master was alive, if someone came up from below, the Medicine Hall's door was open."

Cheng Banshan tapped two fingers against the belly of the gourd.

"That was giving it away," he said. "Give it away, and who remembers."

"Giving it away makes no money," Xu Yan said. "But the people who got it know there's medicine here."

Cheng Banshan laughed, short and dry, and set the gourd by the threshold.

"The quality is mine to decide," he said. "The price is yours."

"Done."

"One more thing." He lifted the wheel and tapped the edge of the trough with two fingers. "When people come up from town asking for medicine, no turning them away."

Xu Yan's brush-hand stilled over the paper.

"People asking for medicine don't have Spirit Stones."

"People asking for medicine don't go in the ledger." Cheng Banshan looked back at the trough. "Those who need it take it first. That's a rule of this hall, not just mine."

"I'll record those separately," Xu Yan said. "On my own account."

"Suit yourself." Cheng Banshan's attention was back on the herbs. "You keep your ledgers, I'll do my refining."

He pulled a sheet of yellow paper from his robes, spread it on his knee, and wrote line by line with a charcoal stick. When he finished, he shook the paper and handed it over.

"Buy exactly what's on the list tomorrow. If a single herb from Huichun Hall isn't fresh, come back and tell me. Don't haggle with him—haggle, and he'll mix in worthless filler."

Xu Yan took the list and checked it line by line against the account book.

"That jar of salve the old woman gave us," Cheng Banshan said suddenly. "The one for the boy's shoulder."

"Nearly used up."

"When it's empty, return the jar." Cheng Banshan pushed the wheel back into the trough. "Qingya doesn't hold debts to outsiders past autumn."

"Noted."

"The furnace chamber's damp." Cheng Banshan set the wheel down. "It's been cold since the firing on the third—half a month untouched. I reached inside and my fingertips came back wet. It needs to burn all night to dry out."

"Firewood's enough?"

"Enough for two firings." Cheng Banshan looked off toward the firewood pile. "That boy of yours hauled up enough to last to the end of the month."

"I'll come add wood at night."

"You're no good at it." Cheng Banshan picked up the fire tongs and laid them across his knee. "I've been tending fires half my life. The way I lay it, it burns even. The way you lay it—one piece big, one piece small."

In the afternoon, the sun tilting west, Qian Duoduo scrubbed the big pot in the kitchen clean, then crouched in the doorway and did the math: one pot, twenty bowls. If the market on the twentieth left him with a dozen unsold, there were eight people on the mountain. Two bowls each—it'd be gone in a meal.

At that thought, something in him eased. He slapped his lower back as he stood.

Dog hour. A patch of red on the Medicine Hall's window paper.

Xu Yan crossed the Front Courtyard and stood in the middle, watching. The red glow pressed against the paper, flickering bright to dim. Inside, when the charcoal shifted, the paper bulged outward, then settled flat again.

The hall's door stood open. Cheng Banshan sat on a low stool before the furnace, one hand feeding charcoal into the firebox.

"...Look at this." He was cursing with his back to the door. "Furnace chamber this damp, and I'm the one who has to dry it. When you were here, this furnace never went cold. And what did you do? Let go of everything, left me one-handed to stoke your fire for you."

Xu Yan stood in the doorway but didn't enter.

"What are you standing out there listening for?" Cheng Banshan didn't turn.

"Listening to you curse."

"If it's justified, then stay standing." He added another piece of charcoal and set the tongs on the ground. "That one in the kitchen?"

"In the kitchen."

"Tell him to pick the good rice." Cheng Banshan's tone turned serious. "The first pot sells; what people taste that first bite is everything. If the first bite's no good, the next ninety-nine don't matter."

"I'll tell him."

"When does the first furnace come out?" Xu Yan asked.

"Depends on the flame." Cheng Banshan frowned. "First firing takes five days. Slow. Fire it too hot, you get eight bottles instead of ten, and you've still burned the wood for ten."

"Eight bottles is twenty-four stones."

"You calculate fast." Cheng Banshan picked the tongs back up and stirred the firebox. The flames shot up, lighting half his face. "Buy the herbs tomorrow, light the furnace the day after. No leaving the furnace unattended."

"I'll keep watch."

"You take the night." Cheng Banshan shook his head slightly. "I can't sleep at night anyway. No reason you should get a full night either."

"Understood."

Cheng Banshan set the tongs down and turned half his face toward the door.

"Little Xu."

"Yeah."

"How many numbers did you work through today?"

"If I don't work them through, I can't open my mouth to ask for money."

Cheng Banshan gave a short, gruff sound and turned back to the fire.

Xu Yan turned and headed toward the Accounts Room. The front courtyard lay white under the moon. Shi Po moved across it with the great stone across his shoulder, from the doorstep toward the base of the wall, step by step, agonizingly slow. A He crouched by the doorstep counting his steps. He lost count somewhere past ten and gave up, hugging his knees and just watching.

From the East Courtyard came a single long sword-note. After it, no second.

The kitchen lamp still burned. Xu Yan reached the steps, and the sounds inside stopped. Qian Duoduo leaned halfway out from behind the door, apron still tied, hands wet.

He stood in the doorway, voice low, careful that no one in the courtyard would hear.

"Sect Master."

"Yeah."

"What if nobody buys?"

Xu Yan stood below the steps and looked up at him.

"Then we eat it ourselves."

Qian Duoduo opened his mouth but no words came. He wiped his hands on his apron, stepped back half a pace, then stopped.

"Twenty bowls," he said quietly. "We can finish them."

"We can."

He pulled the door half shut. The last of the fire in the stove glowed red through the gap, then went dark.