My Sect Is Down to Seven People

Chapter 192: No Reckoning

Ninth day of the ninth month. The sky was still dark, but smoke was already rising from the kitchen chimney.

The ninth wasn't a market day, but Qian Duoduo still had a pot going before dawn—spirit rice porridge, with two leftover coarse grain buns warming at the bottom of the pot. A He crouched by the stove mouth, feeding in firewood. A Sui stood at the stove edge watching the porridge, asking him whether it would turn into a spirit meal if it simmered too long.

"It'll turn into scorched pot," Qian Duoduo said.

By the time the porridge reached the table, Xu Yan was already back from the front courtyard. He asked about tea, and Qian Duoduo said it was heating. Xu Yan waved it off. "No need to bring it up. She brought her own water."

At the Dragon Hour, a shoulder emerged over the top step of the mountain gate—the clerk who carried the register. He climbed up bracing a hand on his knee, caught his breath before straightening, then turned to wait for the two behind him. Wen Su came up looking like she hadn't just walked ten li of mountain road, sleeves tucked in, one hand holding a water flask from the Branch. The clerk with the chest hugged the wooden box to his chest, the seal strip across it still intact.

Nie Bo's broom paused. He stepped aside toward the gate to let the three pass, then the broom pushed on again—swish, swish.

The square table in the middle of the front courtyard was one Shi Po had hauled out yesterday afternoon. Four long benches, the corners wiped down twice. Wen Su walked behind the table and sat, setting the water flask at her left hand before laying both hands on the table.

"The roster."

Xu Yan entered the Ancestral Hall. Two oil lamps burned on the offering table, the ancestral tablets standing row upon row. He crouched down, lifted the wooden chest from beneath the offering table with both hands, opened the lid, and took out the paper roster. He closed the chest and slid it back into place. Standing, he glanced once at the tablets before carrying the roster out.

The roster was spread open on the square table. The clerk opened the ratings register, pulled a stack of name-verification papers from the back, and laid them out one by one along the table's edge, weighing them down with a paperweight. Another brush rested beside the paper, tip facing in.

"Go page by page through the paper roster. Read them out one at a time," Wen Su said.

"Qingya, Jiang Wan."

Jiang Wan stepped forward, took the brush, and wrote standing—one continuous stroke, then set the brush back where it had been. The clerk moved that sheet aside to let the ink dry.

"Shi Po."

Shi Po's strokes were thick and heavy. By the time he finished, the brush tip had splayed. The clerk swapped in a fresh one for him.

"Bai Xiaoman." She looked up after writing, checking whether the wind had lifted a corner of the paper.

"Huo Qing." The clerk nudged the paper half an inch to the left. Huo Qing wrote with his left hand—slow, steady. When he finished, he laid the brush down sideways.

"Qi Qi." The final stroke flicked upward, the way he walked.

"Shao Ming." Upright characters, holding the paper down.

"A He." After writing, A He stepped back half a pace, checking whether his sheet was crooked.

"A Sui." A Sui pushed her sleeves up twice before gripping the brush. Her writing was the slowest; the last vertical stroke ran all the way down, the ink heavy at the end, bleeding into a small blot. The clerk didn't rush her. He waited until she set the brush down, then moved the paper to the breeze to dry, flipped through the paper roster to compare, and said, "Matches."

"Qian Duoduo." "Du Xiaochuan."

When all ten sheets lay on the table, wind came in under the eaves and the corners bowed together, just slightly. The clerk straightened the ten sheets into the ratings register in the order of the roster, stitched them in with hemp thread, and pressed the thread ends flat with his finger.

"Foundation Establishment, from the roster," Wen Su said.

Jiang Wan and Shao Ming stepped forward. Wen Su rose and pressed two fingers to Jiang Wan's wrist, held them there a while, then switched to the other wrist. "Foundation Establishment, late stage." Then she pressed Shao Ming's. "Early stage." The clerk dipped his brush and recorded line by line, the brush hissing across the paper.

By the end of the Dragon Hour, the sun had climbed over the east wall of the front courtyard.

At the Snake Hour, Bai Xiaoman stood up from the veranda. She'd measured the groove lines on the formation plate in her mind yesterday. Today she wore the robe with cinched cuffs, a water flask at her waist, nothing in her hands. Shi Po carried her flask over, but she pushed it back. "I can carry it myself."

The clerk with the register followed her up. The two walked the mountain path. At the first bend, Bai Xiaoman paused and looked back down the mountain. Shi Po stood by the rock just below the bend—hadn't followed, wasn't looking up at her. His eyes stayed on the stone steps of the path.

Halfway up the slope: the formation plate, five slots—Metal west, Wood east, Water north, Fire south, Earth center. The grass roots around the slots had been cut away yesterday; the soil was freshly turned. The clerk stopped at the edge of the stone platform, three paces from the formation plate, hands tucked into his sleeves.

Bai Xiaoman pressed her palm to the Earth-center formation stone.

Light rose from the half-slope.

It lit the yellow grass around the stone platform first, then poured downward—over the roof ridge of the Ancestral Hall, the light flowing along the tile grooves into the front courtyard, across the brick seams, across the square table, across the tops of everyone's feet, then down, covering the mountain gate. Beneath the gate, Nie Bo's broom pushed through that layer of light—swish, swish—his shadow shrunken at his feet. A He and A Sui stood outside the threshold. No one made a sound.

The first bend of the mountain path below the gate lit up too, then faded with distance.

Wen Su rose from behind the square table and walked step by step to the mountain gate, stopping at the threshold.

"Sect Master Xu, the full formation is raised," she said. "I will test it with my palm."

The clerk set an incense stick into the small bronze burner he carried. The tip caught.

The first incense stick burned to its base. She stood without moving. The second stick went in; she drew her right hand from her sleeve and let it hang at her side. The third stick went into the burner. When the ash had fallen half an inch, she raised her hand and struck the light with one palm.

The force was heavy. Her sleeve filled with wind and snapped backward. The light gave way—gave half a foot—then pressed back level and returned, pressing back against her palm.

She withdrew her hand and looked at it before slowly lowering it. Then she turned and stood by the threshold again, and did not move again.

The fourth stick burned down to its stub and broke. Wen Su glanced back at the bronze burner. "One full hour."

Noon. On the half-slope, the light withdrew layer by layer down the mountain—back past the mountain gate, back past the front courtyard, back over the roof ridge of the Ancestral Hall, gathering into a mass on the half-slope, then back into the five slots, dimming line by line.

Bai Xiaoman's hand slid off the formation stone. She sagged downward. The clerk reached to support her, but she was already sitting against the edge of the stone platform, shoulder braced on it, face white as paper, lips pale too.

Shi Po came up the mountain path without a word, crouched in front of her, back turned.

"...I can walk down myself." Her voice was very quiet.

"You can't make it down," Shi Po said. "Elder Cheng gave the order."

She tried twice to push herself up and couldn't. The third time she didn't try. She leaned onto his back. One hand supporting her legs, one guarding behind her, he walked down at half the speed he'd come up.

In the front courtyard, under the veranda, Cheng Banshan was already standing. Shi Po set her down. Cheng Banshan pressed three fingers to her wrist and held them there a long time.

"Her spiritual power is drained dry," he said. "Two days, don't let it move, and don't let her calculate anything for anyone."

"But the market on the tenth—" Bai Xiaoman lifted her head.

"The market on the tenth can lose you and the pot still boils," Cheng Banshan said.

Xu Yan had her carried to the West Wing to lie down. She propped herself up to speak and was shut up by a bowl of hot soup from Qian Duoduo.

The Monkey Hour.

Xu Yan carried that old cloth bag from the accounts room to the front courtyard and set it on the square table. He untied the hemp cord and lifted the spirit stones out stack by stack—ten to a stack, twelve stacks laid out.

"Count them in person," the clerk said. He pushed the register aside and began with the first stack, counted through and set it aside, and counted all the way to twelve. Then he looked up at Xu Yan and counted a second time from the beginning. His lips moved as he counted, no sound. When he finished, he smoothed the register on the table's edge and wrote the number down, the brush tip pausing before the final stroke.

"Counted twice. One hundred twenty spirit stones," Wen Su said. "Qingya Sect, Alliance Year 301, Eighth Rank grade silver—paid in full."

The clerk placed the spirit stones back into the cloth bag stack by stack, wound the hemp cord, and tucked it into the inner compartment of the wooden chest. Then he flipped the ratings register back to the earlier page.

"Alliance Year 301, Qingya," he read. "Second month, fourth day: objection rejected. Third month, third day: raised to Eighth Rank. Sixth month, eighth day: petition rejected. Eighth month, eighth day: application submitted for Seventh Rank." He flipped forward, then back, running a finger down the page. At the bottom, he looked up at Wen Su.

"Not recorded," Wen Su said. She picked up the water flask, took a drink, and pressed the stopper back in.

The Monkey Hour, late. The sun slanted west. The clerk took a blank document sheet from the wooden chest and spread it on the square table, the paperweight holding down the corners. Wen Su sat, dipped the brush, and wrote stroke by stroke. When she finished, she set the brush down, took the Branch's bronze seal from the chest, and pressed it into position. She lifted it and moved the paper to the breeze.

When the ink was nearly dry, she slid the document to the table's edge and handed it to Xu Yan with both hands.

"Sect Master Xu, Qingya Sect: Seventh Rank."

Xu Yan took it with both hands. The square seal on the paper was a dark red. A line of text appeared before his eyes:

[Balance: Seventh Rank. Registered Disciples: 10.]

"The Seventh Rank grade silver is due next autumn evaluation, per the rules," Wen Su said. "This year, you paid for Eighth Rank."

"Noted."

The clerk gathered the ratings register and the name-verification papers into the booklet. The chest clerk shut the wooden box; the seal strip pressed back into place. Wen Su lifted the water flask from the corner of the table—still more than half full—hung it back inside her sleeve, and walked toward the mountain gate. Jiang Wan came forward two steps from the east, studied the square seal on the document, then stepped back. Wen Su paused beneath the gate arch, looked back once at the square table in the courtyard, the children under the veranda, the tiles on the eaves, said nothing, and left down the mountain. The two clerks followed—one carrying the chest, one carrying the register.

Qian Duoduo leaned halfway out of the kitchen doorway, hands still wet. "Sect Master, Seventh Rank?"

"Seventh Rank," Xu Yan said.

"Then the next market, the tenth—still two pots," Qian Duoduo thought a moment, then added, "No price increase."

A Sui came running over from the West Wing, then remembered something halfway and glanced back at Bai Xiaoman lying inside. Her steps slowed. She walked the rest of the way.

The Rooster Hour. The sun dropped behind the western ridge.

The East Courtyard door stood open. Jiang Wan leaned against the door frame. No sword in her hand; it lay on the stone step inside the door, scabbard tip pointing out.

Xu Yan walked over and stopped at the doorway. A threshold between them.

She spoke first. "I owe you a life."

Xu Yan said, "No reckoning."

She looked at him for a while, then turned and went in, picked up the sword, and walked deeper into the courtyard. The door stayed open.

The Boar Hour. The accounts room.

Xu Yan spread the Seventh Rank promotion document beneath the lamp, folded it as always—avoiding the square seal—then folded it once more and tucked it into the account ledger. Between the ledger's pages already sat the Eighth Rank document, the Mountain Gate deed, and three judgment documents: one from the Tenth Month, Fifteenth Day of Alliance Year 300; one from the Second Month, Fourth Day of Alliance Year 301; and one from the Sixth Month, Eighth Day. He placed the new one on top, pressed the corners flat, and closed the ledger.

Then he dipped the brush and wrote a new line in the ledger: "Ninth month, ninth day. Autumn evaluation. Raised to Seventh Rank. Grade silver due next autumn evaluation." He waited for the ink to dry and set the brush on the brush rest.

Outside, the sounds settled layer by layer: the kitchen washing the pot, water splashing on the brick floor; no sword sounds from the East Courtyard; under the veranda, Huo Qing still striking the wooden target with that thrust—again, again.

He drew the thin ledger from his chest and turned to the last page.

The first two lines were still there.

Beneath them, a third line had appeared:

[Stolen Goods Are in the Stele.]