My Sect Is Down to Seven People

Chapter 267: The Eleventh Space

After the lamps were lit, the bowls in the main hall were cleared away, and people drifted off one by one. Xiao Ling stood inside the threshold, waiting until the front courtyard had emptied before making her way toward the east courtyard. With each step she took, the hem of her robe swayed once.

The door to the east courtyard room stood open, a lamp already burning inside. Jiang Wan had moved the wooden chest by the wall to a spot behind the door, and had dragged out two door-panel-width boards from the corner, laying them across two long benches. A layer of dry hay covered the boards, and half an old mat was pressed over the hay, its edges hanging down to the floor.

"Lie down and try it," Jiang Wan said.

Xiao Ling didn't move. She looked at the two boards first, then at Jiang Wan's own bed, looking back and forth twice.

"What's wrong?"

"It's flatter than anywhere I've slept on the road." After she said it, she realized the words hardly made sense, and tightened her grip on her hands.

"Up at the Mao hour tomorrow." Jiang Wan pulled an old wind hood from beneath the cabinet and placed it at the head of the plank bed. "The wind's strong. Wear it when you go out." She pulled out an old pair of shoes as well, the uppers stiff but the soles thick. "Change into these. That pair of yours, I'll take to the kitchen tomorrow and see if they can be mended."

Xiao Ling removed the pair on her feet and set them side by side by the door. The two spots where Cheng Banshan had applied salve had broken open, and a thin scab had formed over them.

"Thank..." she started, but couldn't find the word that came after. She knew full well what she ought to call someone here, but the form of address hadn't yet made it to her lips.

"Tomorrow, after the bowing, you can say it," Jiang Wan said.

Xiao Ling nodded.

Jiang Wan moved the lamp to the wall side and sat on the edge of the bed, slipping off her shoes. The room fell quiet for a while. From the direction of the kitchen came the sound of someone fitting a lid onto a vat—wood knocking once—and then nothing.

"How many days did it take you, coming up from the north?" Jiang Wan asked.

"I lost count. I walked slowly, waited out the road twice."

"Someone chasing you?"

Xiao Ling kneaded the wind hood in her hands, flattening the brim once, then flattening it again. "No one caught up," she said.

Jiang Wan watched her for a moment, then didn't press further.

"On the mountain, no one asks where you came from." She trimmed the lamp wick a little shorter. "If the people down below ask, that's their business."

"Down below, it's not only my business." Xiao Ling's voice was very quiet. "Last night, when I came up, the first thing I saw was smoke over here."

"Where there's smoke, there are people," Jiang Wan said. "Not many people, and all of them known to each other. Sleep."

She went out once and came back carrying half a basin of water, which she set beside the plank bed, draping a cloth over the rim. "Keep your feet dry. Just wipe yourself down and sleep. Don't rub off the medicine." She laid her outer robe at the foot of the bed and propped the half-window by the door open a crack. "The room's had a fire burning all day. It's stuffy."

Xiao Ling answered with a small sound. She crouched down and washed her hands in the half basin, washing slowly; the black grit that had gathered under her nails along the road streaked into the water one line at a time. When she finished, she wrung out the cloth and wiped at her knees, skirting around the broken skin.

"The Ancestral Hall is behind the main hall." Jiang Wan lay down and finished what she'd been saying. "Out of the east courtyard, walk north, no turning. The kitchen's to the west; the Medicine Hall is further west. The fenced plot behind the Medicine Hall—don't step in it. Elder Cheng planted it. The outhouse is behind the firewood shed."

"Understood," Xiao Ling said.

Before the lamp went out, she set the wind hood beside her pillow, one side of it pressing against the top of the old shoe. The plank bed sat half a foot lower than the bed proper; lying down, the first thing she saw was the roof beam, from which hung a string of dried red chilis, put up in some earlier year and never taken down by anyone.

"Chen hour," Jiang Wan said in the darkness.

"Mm."

Wind came through the cracks in the window paper. She could hear the wind, and she could hear, across the courtyard, someone far off to the west say something and laugh once, and then nothing.

Once in the night she was awake. The door to the Medicine Hall had opened; someone was dragging a charcoal basket, two dragging sounds and then a stop, followed by the sound of the furnace door clinking once, distant. She closed her eyes. After a while, that side went quiet again too.

She woke before dawn. Someone was practicing sword outside the east courtyard.

Xiao Ling sat up, smoothed the mat flat on her bed, walked to the door, and peered out through the crack. Jiang Wan stood in the open ground of the east courtyard, her sword moving very slowly, step by step; the grass where her feet landed was coated in a layer of white. When the tip of the sword swept downward, that layer of white was lifted up and flew to her hand, where it scattered.

The sword suddenly stopped in midair.

"Come out." Jiang Wan didn't turn her head.

Xiao Ling pushed open the door and took a step out, standing under the eaves.

"No shoes on your feet." Jiang Wan brought the sword across her body and ended the form. "Go back and put them on. If you freeze those two spots again, the salve was wasted."

Xiao Ling went back inside and put on the shoes. When she came out again, Jiang Wan was already waiting at the gate of the east courtyard, only turning to go inside once Xiao Ling had reached her.

"Xiao Ling!" A He shouted from the courtyard gate. "Grandpa Cheng said the Chen hour, and the Chen hour's here!"

Xiao Ling pulled on the wind hood, the brim pressing down to her brows, and followed A He toward the front courtyard. From the Mountain Gate came the sound of a broom, stroke after stroke—Nie Bo sweeping the ground before the gate, not even looking up when he reached the stone steps.

The threshold of the Ancestral Hall had been wiped down early; the bricks were still wet. A Sui took a half-worn cloth and wiped outward from the offering table, tile by tile, stopping at the threshold to turn the cloth over and wipe the seam pressed beneath it once more. The three incense sticks in the bronze burner had been taken from the cabinet by Cheng Banshan, three placed together; the fire starter was blown by A Sui, lighting one stick at a time while Cheng Banshan watched and said only, "Stick them in straight." The smoke rose, spreading out as it reached the beam.

The blue brick before the offering table was shinier than the others, polished smooth by kneeling.

The roster was taken from the wooden box beneath the offering table and spread open on the long table. Ink was ground in the small inkstone—A He did the grinding, and he ground too fast; A Sui watched and said, "Lighter. If it foams, you can't write with it." A He pushed his sleeves up and slowed down. The brush rested on the rim of the inkstone.

People came in one after another. Shi Po stood in the corner, both hands hanging at his sides. Bai Xiaoman felt the two pebbles in her sleeve, took them out and put them back, then moved to stand by the table. Huo Qing came in and stood by the pillar under the eaves, his right arm hanging, his left shoulder slightly higher than his right. Qi Qi crouched just outside the threshold until Bai Xiaoman grabbed him by the collar and hauled him inside. Shao Ming followed, both hands folded in front. Du Xiaochuan came running from the Medicine Hall, charcoal ash on his fingers; he wiped them twice on the door frame as he entered, couldn't get them clean, and simply hid his hands behind his back. Qian Duoduo stood just inside the door with his arms crossed, eyes fixed on the book on the table.

Jiang Wan came in last. She leaned her sword against the wall outside and didn't bring it in, walking to the other end of the table and stopping there.

"The highest one up there is the Founding Patriarch." Cheng Banshan leaned against the door frame and pointed at the offering table. "The row below is the past Sect Masters of every generation. The last one, the old Sect Master. You just say one word to them, no need to face anyone in particular."

Xiao Ling looked up once. The tablets went up layer by layer; the topmost one had the darkest wood. She took off the wind hood and held it in her arms.

Xu Yan turned the roster page by page, all the way to the last page. On that page each name occupied one line, some characters large, some small, some crooked. He pointed at the space below Du Xiaochuan's entry.

Du Xiaochuan took half a step forward, looked at his own space, then stepped back and murmured, "The twenty-seventh of the Eighth Month." No one could tell whom he was saying it to.

"Three bows," Cheng Banshan said. "Bow to the Founding Patriarch, bow to the past Sect Masters, then salute the Sect Master."

Xiao Ling set the wind hood at the corner of the table, walked over, and knelt on that polished brick. Her first bow was light, the second lighter still; on the third, her forehead rested on the brick for a moment before she rose, her loose hair falling to the brick. She stood, turned, and saluted Xu Yan.

"I enter Qingya of my own free will."

No one in the room answered. Jiang Wan didn't move. Bai Xiaoman pinched her cuff once.

"Write," Xu Yan said. He nudged the roster toward the edge of the table, to the empty space, and passed her the brush.

Xiao Ling took the brush, her grip unpracticed; the shaft went sideways in her hand for a moment, then righted itself. She touched the tip once to the bottom edge of the space, leaving a dot of ink, before setting it down, stroke by stroke. Her hand shook a little, so the characters came out small, hugging the left side of the space, never crossing the line.

And in Xu Yan's vision, on the roster page of that thin ledger, the same stroke fell at the same instant:

[Balance: Eleven registered disciples.]

That line of text steadied and did not change. He watched the final stroke of her brush finish, then looked up at her.

Xiao Ling reached out as if to touch that line on the paper, her fingertips stopping in midair and then withdrawing. Nothing clung to her fingers.

"It's written!" A He pressed forward on tiptoe.

"Don't crowd," A Sui tugged at him. "The ink isn't dry yet."

Xiao Ling straightened the brush twice against the rim of the inkstone, put it back on the brush rest, and took half a step back. She retreated properly, her heels aligned with the seam of the bricks.

"Your hand shook," Cheng Banshan said.

"It shook," she said.

"As long as it stayed inside the line, that's fine," Cheng Banshan said. "Come to the Medicine Hall at the Si hour today. Those two spots on your feet need fresh salve."

Xiao Ling answered with a small sound.

Qi Qi looked up from beside the threshold. "The eleventh."

"The roster doesn't record where anyone came from." Xu Yan closed the roster and pressed his palm once over its cover. "Or anything else."

Shi Po answered from the corner, his voice muffled in his chest. Only then did Qian Duoduo's crossed arms move; he touched his sleeve first, then touched it again, as if counting something.

"What are you counting?" A He asked.

"Chopsticks," Qian Duoduo said. "At breakfast today I'll add an extra handful of rice. One more person."

"The pot's small," A Sui said.

"Then it'll be thicker."

Jiang Wan pushed the roster half an inch toward Xu Yan, then back to its original place, before she spoke. "It's done."

Cheng Banshan straightened up from the door frame, tucked his empty sleeve behind his back, and went out first, standing on the steps to wait while A Sui put the cloth away.

Xiao Ling stood still, tucking her loose hair behind her ears—twice, before it stayed. The two bony protrusions were exposed in the lamplight, and she didn't make any further attempt to cover them. She turned and looked at Xu Yan. Only then did the form of address make it to her lips.

"Sect Master."

Xu Yan answered, "Mm."

Out of the Ancestral Hall, the sun had just cleared the roof ridge, throwing stripes of shadow across the front courtyard. A Sui ran ahead to hurry Qian Duoduo into lighting the stove; Qi Qi followed toward the kitchen. Du Xiaochuan wiped the charcoal ash from his hands and went back to the Medicine Hall, then paused after two steps and wiped the two smudges he'd left on the door frame earlier. Jiang Wan walked last; as she passed the wall, she reached out, picked up the sword she'd leaned there, and hung it back at her waist.

Xiao Ling stopped below the steps and called out behind her: "Senior Sister."

Jiang Wan's steps paused; she looked back.

"Keep your hood on," she said.

Xiao Ling pulled the brim down a little, held it on both sides, and followed toward the Medicine Hall.

Xu Yan remained in the Ancestral Hall. He straightened the wooden box, placed the roster inside, pressed the lid flat, and with both hands slid it back beneath the offering table. The bottom of the box scraped once against the brick; he pushed it in a little further, into the old worn mark in the brick—the imprint of where it had always sat. It fit perfectly.