My Sect Is Down to Seven People

Chapter 269: Frost in the Herb Garden

Cheng Banshan walked to the Medicine Hall door, then turned back. "The fire doesn't leave your sight. If it drops, add charcoal. Don't touch the furnace door with your hands."

Du Xiaochuan hugged the charcoal basket and crouched back by the furnace. "I know."

"You know, yet you still ask."

Cheng Banshan carried a herb hoe in one hand as he walked around behind the Medicine Hall, his empty sleeve tucked into his waistband. Xiao Ling followed half a step behind him, her wind hood not on her head but hanging from the crook of her elbow. The old herb garden lay beyond a broken stretch of old fence. Narrow ridges of crushed stone divided the plots, and frost had painted ridge and leaf the same white. The sun had not yet climbed over Back Mountain, and its light could not reach this spot.

He stopped before the first plot and jabbed the hoe into the ground. "This one. Used for boiling Qi-Gathering Powder." She crouched down, turned a leaf over, and pressed her fingertip into the frost. The frost melted into a fingerprint. "I know it," she said. "The fuzz on the underside is denser than the others." Cheng Banshan shifted half a step forward and said nothing.

The second plot grew low, leaves hugging the ground. The third stood tall, stems bearing fine thorns. The fourth was mostly empty, only a few clumps of weeds left along the edges. He went plot by plot, naming each one's use in the briefest terms: this plot for Qi-Gathering Powder, this one boiled for cough medicine, that one kept for use as a catalyst. At the third plot, he tapped the hoe handle toward the stunted clumps on the north side. "These few clumps don't grow in winter. Frost presses them flat, and they stay flat until spring."

She stayed crouched by the fourth plot, reaching in through the frost to feel the undersides of leaves, then squeezing the soil at the roots. "These three have shallow roots," she said. "Frost has heaved the soil up around them. One pull and they'd come loose."

Cheng Banshan passed her the hoe. "Pull one."

She chose the middle one, pinched the stem base between two fingers, wiggled it side to side twice, and drew it up in one piece. The root was short; one shake and the soil fell clean away, not a single root broken. Cheng Banshan pointed the hoe to the side. "Now pull another—one you'd say is deep."

This one came up slowly. The root was long, the clod of soil held firm in her hand. Cheng Banshan set the two side by side and examined them, then tucked the deep-rooted one into the cloth pouch at his waist and handed the shallow one back to her. "Leave the shallow ones. They'll keep growing come spring. The deep ones can be dug, but stop when half remain." He paused. "When you pulled, the roots didn't break."

"They didn't break."

"Then that's how you pull them."

She stood and looked at the empty half. "Can that half be planted?"

"The soil's thin." Cheng Banshan knocked the back of the hoe against the ground. "Half a foot down it's solid rock. Anything you plant grows into a stick." He settled the hoe onto his shoulder. "We'll see in spring."

At the corner of the plot he bent and pulled up a plant, its leaf undersides coated in white fuzz. He snapped the root; the inside was yellow. "This one. What did I tell you last time?"

"Don't memorize the name first," she said. "Memorize where it grows."

"Where does it grow?"

"Southeast corner, at the foot of the wall. Only this one clump."

"Mm. The name comes later. First say the place." He pressed the plant back into the earth and firmed the soil down. "Half the plants on this mountain are known by that one rule."

The two children came running from the Ancestral Hall, their Mao-hour formulas just recited, the yellow paper still in A He's hand. A Sui stomped through a patch of frost, shattering it, and A He shouted behind her, "Now you've stepped on all the frost," and A Sui said, "It only melts when you step on it." She circled around to Xiao Ling and tilted her face up to look at her forehead. "Does it hurt?"

"It doesn't hurt."

"I asked first." A He caught up.

"You didn't ask."

"I asked in my head."

Xiao Ling handed A He the shallow-rooted plant. "Hold this. Don't break the roots." A He took it in both hands and walked on, slower than he'd come. After seven or eight steps, a small root tip still slipped through his fingers. A Sui crouched to pick it up, blew the dirt off, and placed it back in his hand. "Grip tighter this time."

Xiao Ling slowed when they rounded to the south side. This was the stretch where the fence had collapsed, loose stones from the ridge spilled into the plot, two of them pressing a patch of grass into a curve. She stood there a long while, then bent and moved the two stones back onto the ridge, setting each one straight, then reached out to prop the bent grass upright. It would not stand, so she left it leaning. Before dawn on the third day, when the frost lay thickest, this was the stretch of fence she had huddled beneath.

Cheng Banshan did not turn around ahead of her. He just settled the hoe onto his shoulder and waited for her to catch up before walking on.

By the Si hour the sun had cleared the mountain, the frost melting into water, the leaf undersides bright and wet. Cheng Banshan picked a flat stone from the east end of the third plot and pressed it halfway into the soil. "This marks the line. From here west, all the way to the fence, is yours to watch." He straightened. "In the morning, first check whether the frost has melted, and how far. Only when it's gone from a plot can you touch it. When you're done, come back and tell me which plots can't be touched."

"Mm."

"Speak."

"Which plots can't be touched." She repeated it slowly after him.

"One more thing." He tapped the ground with the hoe handle. "On rainy days there's no need to come look. Mud packs hard once it's stepped on. If a plot's frost melts late, check it again the next day. See if it's sick."

She pressed the boundary stone down once more, wiped the mud from its top with a fingertip, then straightened up.

At noon, at the Kitchen door. Qian Duoduo pressed an extra half-ladle into her bowl, scraping the ladle along the rim. "You come back from the herb garden, and your shoes are all mud." She carried the bowl to the veranda outside the Medicine Hall and ate there. Huo Qing's wooden target stood by a pillar, a hole punched in its center deep enough to hold a finger sideways, the splintered wood around it fresher than the rest. She glanced at it, then lowered her head and ate. Halfway through, Qian Duoduo shouted something from the Kitchen. She looked up, answered, and lowered her head again. A few grains remained in the bottom of the bowl. She swept them into her mouth with a finger and laid the chopsticks flat across the bowl.

On the seventh day, in the Wei hour, the sun was faint. Wind poured in from behind the Medicine Hall, making a patch on the window paper puff in and out. Two stoves stood in the outer room: the wood stove against the inner wall sat empty; the charcoal stove by the door held the batch started on the first day, fire banked low, the furnace mouth ringed with dark red. Half a dan of charcoal sat beside it, planks laid along the wall at the far end.

Bai Xiaoman pushed the door open, the wind lifting the hair from her forehead. "Elder Cheng, I've come for my medicine."

Cheng Banshan crouched by the charcoal stove without looking up. "Second shelf of the medicine rack. The packet wrapped in oiled paper, date written on the corner. Apply twice a day. After applying, don't go warming your hands over a fire right away."

"Understood." She tucked the packet into her robes, then turned and saw Xiao Ling scraping mud from the hoe at the worktable. She sat down on the end of the plank bed and held both hands out over the furnace mouth to warm them. "You've been in the herb garden these past two days?"

"Yes."

"Does Elder Cheng scold you?"

Xiao Ling set the hoe down. "He doesn't scold."

"He never scolds anyone." Bai Xiaoman laughed. "He won't scold—he just looks at you until you finish your own sentence. When I first came to study formations, he spread a page of formulas in front of me and said nothing. I stood there half a shichen and recited the page three times myself."

She warmed her fingers one by one, then glanced back at the door frame. The hand scale hung from a nail there, three cords dangling, the weight on the beam.

"When I worked the counter at Huichun Hall, I stood on a wooden box just to reach the scale," she said. "Proprietor Sun said the scale must never be off—off by one mace, you pay one mace. I weighed thirty-some prescriptions a day. Toward the end, I could tell by touch alone whether the beam was level." She stood, took the scale down from the nail, and held it in her palm for a look. "The Market opens on the tenth. Tonight I'll calibrate it with copper coins—if your scale is wrong, what's anyone supposed to trust?"

She shook out a cloth and wrapped the scale in it. "This is Elder Cheng's. Don't drop it."

"I won't."

"I'll go tell him now." She turned toward the stove. "Elder Cheng, I'm borrowing the scale to calibrate it. I'll bring it back tonight." Cheng Banshan grunted and stirred the fire with the hook.

With the scale wrapped, she sat back down and smoothed her skirt. "That wind hood of yours is good. The wind in the Front Courtyard is strong—I lay out stones once, and my ears went numb. Took half the day back in my room before they felt warm again."

"Tomorrow, ask the Senior Sister to say something," Xiao Ling said.

"No, no." Bai Xiaoman waved a hand. "If the Senior Sister says something, I'll be too embarrassed to lay them wrong next time." She spread her arms. "I set five stones in the Front Courtyard, and one gust blows them crooked. I have to stomp them firm. And even then I check—the one on the east side is always half a breath shallow."

She sighed. "Tomorrow's the eighth. Pill collection."

"Pill collection." Xiao Ling answered.

"Just watch. Don't make a sound." Bai Xiaoman pressed the packet tighter into her robes. "The moment Elder Cheng lifts the lid, if anyone so much as speaks, he turns. Last time Xiaochuan said one extra word—'pot'—and his hand stopped. That batch's furnace bottom powder came out thin." She stood and paused at the door, looking back. "And don't set the bottles out early either. He'll say you're in the way."

"Mm."

Bai Xiaoman pushed the door open, ran a couple of steps, then turned back and pulled it shut.

On the seventh day, in the Xu hour, a lamp was lit in the Accounts Room. Xu Yan turned the ledger to the Eleventh Month's page, pressed it flat on the corner of the desk, took two trimmed sheets of paper, squared their edges, and weighted one end with the paperweight. The ink had been ground that afternoon; a thin layer still remained in the ink pool. The old lease lay between two pages of the ledger. He drew it out, spread it on his left, and copied line by line, date for date:

Leaseholder, Proprietor of the Grain Shop. Now leases one storehouse, at the east side of the grain shop's rear courtyard, to Qingya Sect. Term: from the eighth day of the Eleventh Month, Alliance Year 302, to the eighth day of the Eleventh Month, Alliance Year 303, one year. Shop rent: thirty stones, paid in full that day. Door to be opened in the east wall; the rear wall to remain untouched; no one to stay overnight.

When he reached the line about no one staying overnight, his brush paused. He wrote the final stroke of that last character straight before moving on. The bottom was left blank—space for the proprietor's thumbprint and his own signature. The second copy followed the first, character checked against character. When done, he laid the two side by side to compare, then set them apart.

Then the labels. The labels were narrow strips of yellow paper. He took a trimmed stack from the drawer, counted out ten, and spread them one by one. He dipped the brush and wrote "Qingya" at the top, then started a new line below: "Eighth day of the Eleventh Month." The date had been written the night before—at tomorrow's furnace opening he would not be on the mountain, and could not write it then. When done, he laid them out to dry, ten in a row, all the same depth of ink.

The iron money box sat beneath the ledger rack, its hemp rope untied. He counted out the low-grade Spirit Stones and set them one by one on the desk. When he had a full array, he gathered them into three stacks, wrapped them in an old cloth, folded the corners over, pressed twice, and hefted it. These thirty stones were Qingya's Spirit Stones. The market box was locked in the cabinet, holding money in the names of consignors. Not one stone of it could be touched. The cloth bundle went on the desk corner, set apart from the two sheets of paper.

Before the Hai hour, he carried a lamp to the Medicine Hall. Ten empty porcelain vials sat on the outer room's worktable, lined up one by one, mouths up—Cheng Banshan had wiped them clean during the day. He slid one label under each vial, then straightened and counted: ten vials, ten labels.

A knock came at the door. Bai Xiaoman entered, the cloth bundle in her arms. She unwrapped the scale and hung it back on the nail in the door frame, smoothing the three cords one by one. "Checked," she said. "One copper coin to the mace. Beam perfectly level."

"Tomorrow, Chen hour, pill collection." Xu Yan set the lamp on the worktable. "I'm going down the mountain to renew the shop lease. You wrap the retained sample."

"Write: eighth day of the Eleventh Month."

"Write: eighth day of the Eleventh Month."