My Sect Is Down to Seven People

Chapter 24: Two Hundred Forty-Nine

The charcoal pile behind the Medicine Hall's back wall was half as tall as the first time he'd seen it.

June 28, Monkey hour. The sun still hung over the Medicine Hall's western wall. When the furnace door slid open, the heat rushed out and blew the loose strands of Bai Xiaoman's hair straight back. She took half a step away, then pressed close again.

"See for yourself." Cheng Banshan sat on the threshold, one arm resting on his knee, his Wine Gourd standing by his foot.

She crouched before the furnace and studied the fire. Flames climbed through the gaps in the charcoal—yellow along the edges, a patch of white at the center. She lowered the Palm Fan in her hand, angling it parallel to the furnace mouth to feed the draft. The white patch pulled back a line, but the yellow edge held.

"It's gone over," she said.

Cheng Banshan lifted the gourd and took a swig. "Over where."

"The fire's heart has gone white." She tilted the fan up slightly. "Any whiter and the medicine's potency follows the heat."

"Who told you white means it's running."

"I watched it go white on the last batch." She didn't turn around. "And you said 'over' too."

Cheng Banshan grunted and set the gourd back down.

The furnace lid came off, and a bitter-sweet smell spread through the air. She carried the Bamboo Tray to the furnace mouth while Cheng Banshan ladled the powder into Porcelain Vials, one scoop at a time. Ten vials stood in a row, each still carrying dust marks from the last market. She wiped them clean one by one with her finger.

"Stoppers."

She pressed the Wooden Stoppers in one by one. At the sixth, her palm flinched—the two blisters had burst and scabbed over thin; even gripping something still grated.

"Ten vials." She counted them off, then went through them all again in order.

"Why count twice."

"The first count is a count. The second is a check." The words sounded funny even to her; the corner of her mouth twitched.

Cheng Banshan didn't laugh. He lifted his chin toward the base of the wall. She swept the remaining charcoal into one place, measured it with the Dustpan Basket, then reached in and grabbed a handful. A layer of black came away on her hand.

"One more firing left."

He walked over and crouched by the charcoal pile, poking at it twice with the fire tongs. "Burn through this lot and there's no more charcoal."

"What about wood from Back Mountain?"

"That works." He set the tongs on the ground. "But firewood's unstable—blazes up one moment, dies down the next. Not like charcoal. Burning wood means someone has to watch it, eyes never leaving the furnace mouth."

Xu Yan stood in the doorway, propped the account book against the doorframe, and wrote: June 28, Qi-Gathering Powder second firing, ten vials. Beneath that he started a new line, crossed out the earlier entry "charcoal, three firings," and below it wrote "charcoal, one firing."

"Little Xu." Cheng Banshan sat on the threshold. "When do we light the third firing."

"On the thirtieth we sell these ten vials first."

"Selling's your business. The third firing burns wood." He picked up the Wine Gourd, then set it back down. "Wood from Back Mountain costs nothing. What it costs is labor. One firing on wood means several days and nights of watching, with people rotating in shifts. Have you worked that out?"

"No."

"Neither have I." Cheng Banshan said. "I never used to have to. When the Old Sect Master was alive, charcoal was just there."

Xu Yan filed that away in his mind, but didn't write it in the ledger.

They went down the mountain before dawn on the thirtieth. Dew on the grass soaked his trouser legs halfway up before the sun finally broke over the ridge.

Shi Po walked at the front, carrying the cooking pot, firewood, and a bag of Spirit Rice on his carrying pole. Qian Duoduo bore two baskets of bowls, ladles and rags packed underneath. Bai Xiaoman carried the Wooden Box—ten empty vials separated by straw inside, an abacus resting on top.

At the Mountain Gate, Nie Bo was sweeping up last night's leaves. Shi Po passed in front of him without a single stone sounding underfoot.

The thirtieth was a Grand Market day in town. By first light, dust already hung thick over the packed-dirt road at the Market Entrance. Cloth sellers, charcoal sellers, vegetable vendors crammed half the street. Lu Shoutian stood by the door panel with his little scale, and when he saw them coming, he lifted his chin toward the open space.

"Big crowd today. Don't set your pot in the middle of the road."

"Noted," Xu Yan said.

The first customers came just past Dragon hour. Three carters sat down first, two bowls each. They wiped their mouths when done and said they still had a night run to make. The martial hall youth brought four junior brothers with him—ten bowls—then pulled out three Spirit Stones and tucked a vial of Qi-Gathering Powder into his robes. Two Traveling Merchants from Linchuan ordered a bowl apiece. One flipped his bowl over to inspect the bottom, then asked where the Spirit Rice came from.

"Linchuan," Xu Yan said.

"Linchuan rice at town prices." The man nodded and bought two vials.

The old Rogue Cultivator with the sword on his back came late, this time with a young man in tow. He stopped in front of the door panel and looked at Bai Xiaoman.

"Not slapping the table today," he said. "Saves you the counting."

Bai Xiaoman smiled, gave the young man two bowls and him one.

The flatbread-seller came around behind their stall, carrying his pole. He paused; his Bamboo Tray still held a few unsold hard flatbreads.

"Still selling?"

"Selling," Xu Yan answered.

The old man glanced into the pot, then toward the mountain. "Smells good. A whole morning selling these flatbreads wouldn't buy me one bowl of that."

Xu Yan said nothing. The old man hoisted his pole and walked two steps, then looked back: "What I told you last time still stands—this mountain sect of yours hasn't scattered."

"It hasn't."

"Then I'll come have another look after autumn." He shouldered his load and vanished back into the crowd.

Over at the Market Entrance, no one leaned against the pillars under the cloth-seller's awning, and no one squatted by the wall shelling peanuts.

Qian Duoduo glanced that way twice while ladling soup. "Those two didn't show today."

"They didn't," Shi Po said, feeding another stick of firewood into the stove.

"Last time that one talked to Lu Shoutian for ages, even pointed at our stall." Qian Duoduo's voice dropped. "Them not coming—it puts me on edge."

Shi Po said nothing.

Just past Snake hour, the second pot hit bottom. The last Medicine Bottle went to the martial hall youth—he'd gone half a block before turning back, pulling out three Spirit Stones and counting them off one by one before tucking them into his sleeve.

"My master's breaking through to Qi Condensation Third Layer," he said. "He told me to buy it."

Bai Xiaoman spaced the ten empty vials with straw, packed them into the Wooden Box, and snapped the clasp shut. "Not one missing."

She worked the abacus: "Spirit Meals forty bowls, eighty stones. Medicine ten vials, thirty. One hundred and ten."

By Horse hour the market had thinned by half, and Xu Yan went to the grain shop for rice. The shop hand dragged out two sacks from the back and shook them.

"Linchuan rice," the hand said. "Next month's price—the Shopkeeper's still keeping his word close."

Xu Yan counted eight Spirit Stones onto the counter.

On the way back from the market, Shi Po slung the two rice sacks over his shoulders, one front, one back. Xu Yan ran the day's accounts through his head: income one hundred and ten, outgo eight. Previously in the box: one hundred forty-seven. Plus one hundred and ten, minus eight.

Two hundred forty-nine.

Dog hour, the Accounts Room.

The lamp wick had been trimmed once, and the room brightened a notch. Bai Xiaoman tipped the Spirit Stones from both wooden boxes onto the table, stacking them in piles of ten, one pile after another against the table corner. She reached the twenty-fourth pile with nine stones left over.

"Two hundred forty-nine," she reported.

Xu Yan set brush to the ledger: June 30, market day, Spirit Meal two pots forty bowls, Qi-Gathering Powder ten vials, income one hundred and ten stones; Spirit Rice two pots, outgo eight; Balance on Hand, two hundred forty-nine stones.

When he finished, he laid down the brush and slid that thin account book out from under the ledger, flipping to the page that had writing on it—still just the single line from June 22. Blank below. He closed it and pressed it back into place.

"How many days until the ninth day of the ninth month."

Bai Xiaoman took her hands off the abacus and counted on her fingers: "July has thirty days, August thirty, then nine days into September. Sixty-nine."

"How many markets left."

"Fifth and tenth days." She lowered her head and marked the dates on paper. "Fifth, tenth, fifteenth, twentieth, twenty-fifth, thirtieth of the seventh month; six in the eighth month; and in September there's only the fifth before the ninth. Thirteen."

Xu Yan wrote "thirteen markets" in the margin of the ledger.

"One market: Spirit Meals two pots, forty bowls, eighty stones. Medicine ten vials, thirty."

"One hundred and ten." The abacus clicked. "Spirit Rice eight stones. One hundred and two left. Thirteen markets: one thousand three hundred twenty-six."

"Add what we have in hand."

The abacus clicked again: "One thousand five hundred seventy-five."

"We owe two thousand one hundred."

Her hand stopped on the abacus beads, stayed there a long moment before she clicked them down. "Five hundred twenty-five short."

The room went quiet. The lamp wick made a faint hissing sound. Xu Yan wrote those few characters into the ledger: short five hundred twenty-five stones.

"That's assuming we don't miss a single market," she said.

"Mm."

"Even without missing one, it's not enough."

"The roster is short seven people," she said.

Xu Yan wrote another line at the bottom: roster, short seven people. The ink had faded; he didn't dip the brush again, so the characters came out a shade lighter than the line above.

"Stones short five hundred twenty-five, people short seven." She stared at the two lines. "Neither can be short."

"Work out the stones first." He set the brush down.

She pulled the abacus closer and went through it again from the beginning, flicking beads until she reached one thousand five hundred seventy-five, where she stopped and didn't go further.

The door rattled. Qian Duoduo came in carrying a bowl—scrapings from the bottom of the pot, watered down and boiled, with two mushroom slices floating on top.

"Scraped half a bowl off the pot bottom and stretched it with water." He set the bowl at the corner of the table. "How'd we do today?"

"One hundred and ten," Bai Xiaoman said.

Qian Duoduo's face split into a grin, but halfway through, his eyes landed on the paper on the table and the words "five hundred twenty-five short." The grin folded away. He wiped his hands on his apron.

"Then..."

"Sixty-nine days," Xu Yan said.

Qian Duoduo didn't ask anything more. He backed out, pulled the door shut—but it didn't close fully, leaving a crack.

At Hai hour, Xu Yan left the Accounts Room and stood in the courtyard.

Back Mountain was one solid block of darkness; even the outline of the ridge was invisible. The wind came from that direction, carrying the smell of earth. Two sword-cuts sounded from the East Courtyard, then after a pause, two more, then silence.

He folded his hands into his sleeves and stood without moving.

Back inside, he pulled one of the old ledgers from the stack against the wall. The paper was brittle, the edges curled. He turned page by page, stopped in the middle, and pressed his finger against one line.

Bai Xiaoman was wrapping the abacus in cloth. Seeing him motionless for so long, she carried the lamp over to the table corner.

She read the line, then spoke very softly: "Year 290, ninth day of the ninth month, Re-evaluation. Activated the Formation. Formation raised at one corner. Formation stones cracked, no funds to repair."

"Activated the Formation." She looked up. "Activated this formation."

"The Old Sect Master wrote that."

"'Raised at one corner'—means only one corner came up."

"The Old Sect Master used his own cultivation to activate it. That year I was squeezed in the crowd. All I saw was one corner of Back Mountain light up."

"The formation stones cracked. Were they ever replaced?"

"There's no entry for that in the ledger."

She pushed the lamp further onto the table; the flame swayed. The courtyard was silent. There was no more sound from the East Courtyard.

"Sect Master," she said, "the Sect-Protecting Formation—what kind of Formation is it?"