My Sect Is Down to Seven People

Chapter 270: It Matches

Inside the old cloth were three stacks of spirit stones, two leases folded to the same width, pressed flat beneath the account books. Xu Yan tied the corners of the cloth around them and tucked the bundle into his robes. The account book went into another layer, against his chest. Thirty stones were going out; not one page of the ledger was. The two could not be mixed. By the time he had walked some distance, the cloth bundle had warmed from his body heat.

Mao hour, the Mountain Gate. Nie Bo was sweeping inside the gate. His broom swept right up to Xu Yan's feet, then shifted half a step aside without stopping. Xu Yan glanced back. The West Wing was still quiet. A thread of firelight showed through the window paper on the Medicine Hall side—Du Xiaochuan was watching the furnace.

A thin frost had formed on the stone steps, and he had to pick his footing in the cracks between stones. The grass along both sides of the mountain path had yellowed. A few clumps had been pressed flat against the ground by the wind. Pine needles lay thick along the edges of the steps, soft underfoot, silent. A dead branch lay across the path halfway up. He stepped around it on the inside and went over the day's business in his mind: two leases, thirty stones, the lock on the market gate.

By the time he reached the bend halfway up the mountain, the sun had just cleared the ridge to the southeast and thrown his shadow out ahead of him. Below, the rooftops of Luoxia Town emerged from the mist. A layer of white hung over the river. Boats were unloading at the wharf, and shouts drifted up in waves.

He reached town at Chen hour. The eighth day was not a market day; Market Street stood empty. The spot against the wall by the third pillar was unclaimed. An old nail on the pillar held a length of straw rope that swung twice when the wind blew. The neighboring shop had opened halfway—the tofu workshop had taken down one door panel, and steam leaked through the gap, carrying the smell of bean curd.

The grain shop was at the northeast corner of the market. The wooden sign by the door still hung there, the charcoal writing faded by wind. The shopkeeper was working an abacus behind the counter, pausing after each column to tap a finger against the frame. When he saw Xu Yan come in, his hands never stopped. "Sect Master Xu, early."

"Shopkeeper."

Xu Yan set the cloth bundle on the counter, untied it, and drew out the two leases, smoothing them flat one at a time. The paper still carried last night's ink smell. The edges were cleanly trimmed.

The shopkeeper pushed the abacus aside and dragged the leases toward him with both hands, reading from the top. He read slowly. When he reached "lease term, one year," he murmured "one year" under his breath. When he reached "door opened in east wall, rear wall untouched," he glanced up and nodded toward the east wall. When he reached "no one staying overnight," his finger stopped on that line and tapped it once.

"That clause—you write it every year."

"It holds every year," Xu Yan said.

"Thirty stones, and you won't even bargain?"

"The lease says thirty stones, so it's thirty."

The shopkeeper smiled and looked north. The window above the counter faced the north end of Market Street. From here the only thing visible was the old pagoda tree at the street corner, its branches bare. "If the north really comes down, I can't move this building anyway."

Xu Yan did not answer. He pushed the seal paste box on the counter a little closer to the man and lifted the lid; the red velvet cloth inside was packed firm.

The shopkeeper pressed his thumb into the paste, then brought it down on the blank space at the end of the lease. This time he got it right on the first press, the print even and straight. Last time he had pressed three times, and the first two had gone past the edge of the blank. He stamped the second lease the same way, held the two sheets together and compared them for a moment, then rolled his own copy into a tube and slipped it into the wooden box under the counter. The box already held other papers and an old ledger. The lid snapped down with a click.

The old cloth was shaken open. Three stacks of spirit stones sat on the counter, one beside the next. The shopkeeper lifted the lid again, took each stack out and examined it, gathered them into the wooden box, and closed the lid once more. He turned and scooped half a bowl of hot water from the stove, setting it on the counter. "The road's cold."

Xu Yan cupped the bowl in both hands to warm them, drank it down, and set the bowl back. "Market rent, thirty stones. Paid in full today."

"Recorded." The shopkeeper pushed the box further back. "People come asking even on non-market days—whether we'll open on the tenth."

"We'll open on the tenth. From now on, every fifth and tenth day."

"The patch on the rear wall from the Eighth Month won't be a problem this winter."

"We'll have another look in the spring after the thaw."

"A look." The shopkeeper nodded, then remembered something. "Those two grain carts that went north a few days ago came back later than usual. Rice prices haven't moved yet. The carts are just slow."

"Can you hold out?"

"No problem through the end of the month." He tilted his chin toward the window. "After that, hard to say."

Xu Yan acknowledged this and waited until the ink on the counter had dried, then folded the lease back along its original crease. "The market opens on the tenth. The scale gets calibrated again on the morning of the tenth."

"I'll sweep the back path clear first," the shopkeeper said.

At that same Chen hour, up on the mountain in the Medicine Hall.

The charcoal furnace had burned for seven nights. The rim of the firebox glowed a dull red. Du Xiaochuan crouched by the furnace, dark circles under his eyes, clutching the furnace hook. Cheng Banshan set the formation hand onto the ring of the furnace lid, his other hand pinching alchemy flame and pressing it into the firebox. The flame shrank, and a muffled sound rolled through the furnace's belly, like a door closing somewhere far away. He lifted, and the formation hand came up with the lid. Heat rushed to the rafters, pushing the window paper outward.

"Step back half a pace. Count," Cheng Banshan said.

Du Xiaochuan reached in and pinched the pills out one by one, calling each as he pulled it: "One, two, three..." At the eighth pill his hand paused in the air. The ninth stuck to the furnace wall, just beyond his fingers. Cheng Banshan passed him a bamboo slip. He used it to flick the pill free from the wall. It rolled down into his palm, and he quickly called "Nine," louder than the ones before. The tenth was deepest inside. He pinched it out in one breath. "Ten."

Ten pills lay on the tray, round, a ring of fine lines on each surface. Not one was cracked.

Xiao Ling had been counting along at the door. At nine, the hand she had clenched inside her sleeve went slack.

Du Xiaochuan had a layer of sweat on his forehead. He wiped it with the back of one hand, then yawned—and caught sight of Cheng Banshan's eyes mid-yawn. He forced it back down.

"Seven nights on watch, and the one moment you miss is this one." Cheng Banshan carried the tray to the worktable and pinched each pill into ten small porcelain vials, turning each vial half a turn as he went so the mouth faced up.

Du Xiaochuan drew out the ten labels Xu Yan had pressed beneath the bottles the night before, one by one, and affixed each straight on a bottle's shoulder, moving each bottle one space across the tray as he went. Cheng Banshan scraped the last trace of pill powder from the furnace floor with a bamboo slip, gathering it into a small pile. Bai Xiaoman spread a sheet of prescription paper over her palm to catch it, folded it into a triangle, pressed the fold flat, and wrote "Eighth day of the Eleventh Month." The characters landed centered on the fold. When she finished, she pressed it once against her palm to make the fold lie flatter, then set the packet on the shelf in line with the row of retained samples.

Cheng Banshan did not look up. "Not the top shelf."

"I know," Bai Xiaoman said.

"That packet is this batch's face." He tapped the bamboo slip against the furnace rim. "If any later batch comes out wrong, you compare it back to this."

Only then did Xiao Ling come in. She gathered the trimmed scraps of prescription paper from the worktable into her sleeve, then wiped the table with a rag. She stopped when she reached the tray and waited until Cheng Banshan had set the last vial in place before continuing. She studied the wiped tabletop for a moment, then asked quietly, "How long does this packet stay?"

"Until someone asks what day this batch came out," Cheng Banshan said, hanging the furnace hook back on the wall. "The shelf is empty. Buy the alchemy materials on the tenth and fire the furnace at Mao hour on the eleventh."

Si hour. Xu Yan left town.

Ten-some paces north of the grain shop stood the market gate. The door panels were shut tight. The new panel on the east wall was a shade darker than the old boards on either side. An old lock hung on the door, dust settled on its shackle, a small pile of leaves gathered in front of the threshold. He pressed the door panel. It did not budge. Through the crack between the doors he could make out the corner of the cabinet inside. The consigned goods of the three sects were locked in that cabinet, untouched. He gave the door one more look, did not linger, and headed for the town gate.

The frost on the mountain path had melted. The stone steps were damp and steadier underfoot than on the way down. He was back at the Mountain Gate at Wu hour. Nie Bo was sweeping inside the gate, his broom passing over the blue flagstones without glancing up. In the Front Courtyard, A He was carrying an armload of firewood toward the back eaves of the kitchen; A Sui followed behind picking up the twigs he dropped. They passed him and called out "Sect Master."

Qi Qi was waiting just inside the Mountain Gate, grass bits stuck to the front of his clothes. "Sect Master. Nothing moving beyond the pass."

"What did you see?"

"The grass on the north slope is all yellow. The wind comes through at shoulder level—stand there a while and your ears stop being yours." He rubbed both ears with his hands. "Further out, all white. No people, no smoke. One of the dwarf pines up at the wind gap has been blown crooked, lying across the ridge."

"Don't touch the one lying across," Xu Yan said. "From now on, every third and eighth day, as before."

"I'll go up again on the thirteenth." Qi Qi agreed, then looked back as if he had something more to say. "The stone hut by the road up at the pass—I can see its roof, and a few tiles have come loose. Should we find time to go up and fix them?"

"There's no time for that right now," Xu Yan said. "You go no further than the North Slope shoulder. Not up to the pass."

After Wu hour, in the Accounts Room.

Xu Yan spread the new lease on the desk. The rolled paper had a slight curl to it. He held it down with the paperweight for a while until the crease settled back into place, then tucked it into the ledger among the pages. The old copy was still where it had been, its paper a full shade yellower than the new, its edges worn soft. The new one lay pressed on top of it, the two sheets aligned, a thin strip of the old paper showing at the edge. The land deed, the stack of judgment documents, the Pass-Guarding Order—all clipped together, untouched.

He turned to the page for the Eleventh Month. Beneath the entry for the fifth day there was still one empty line. He dipped his brush and wrote: Eighth day, market rent, thirty stones. He set the brush on the edge of the inkstone and waited for the ink to dry. Thirty stones. A year's rent on the shop. One market day of stall fees would cover it, but that one market day was built bowl by bowl, vial by vial—spirit meals and Qi-Gathering Powder. Every payment made had to have a source. He settled this entry in his mind once, then closed the ledger. The pages further back, the ones holding the accounts, he did not turn to.

Wei hour, outer room of the Medicine Hall.

Xu Yan took the retained sample packet down from the shelf and turned it to read the folded face. The date was written clearly, strokes straight and level, neater than Cheng Banshan's hand.

Du Xiaochuan was sound asleep on the plank bed, face to the wall, the covers draped across his waist and untucked. Xiao Ling was portioning out the ingredients for the next batch of Qi-Gathering Powder at the worktable, the hand scale's three strings hanging from the nail on the doorframe, the weight sliding level by degrees. She glanced at the plank bed and lightened her touch with the ingredients.

"Let him sleep." Cheng Banshan came out from the inner room, wine gourd in one hand. "Tuck the covers back at lamp-lighting time."

Xu Yan set the sample packet back on the shelf and spread the furnace log at the corner of the worktable. Bai Xiaoman lit the lamp at that corner and held the light for him—sunlight did not reach the outer room; the characters were hard to make out.

"The market opens on the tenth. I'll go down early and calibrate the market scale." She adjusted the wick as she spoke. "Bring the hand scale down too?"

"You calibrate the market scale," Xu Yan said. "The hand scale is Elder Cheng's. It stays in the Medicine Hall."

He dipped the brush and added beneath the last line: Eighth day of the Eleventh Month, Qi-Gathering Pills, ten. When he finished, he looked up and checked the ten labels on the vial shoulders, one by one, then looked over the ten vials on the table.

Bai Xiaoman leaned in and looked at the line on the packet's corner. "That's my writing."

Xu Yan set the retained sample packet back among the row, fold facing out, aligned flush with the others. "It matches."