My Sect Is Down to Seven People

Chapter 276: A Hundred and Twenty-Plus Stones

On the twenty-fourth, at the Mao hour, Cheng Banshan and Xiao Ling went back up the North Slope.

Same two back baskets. The basket dug on the twenty-third lay spread across the worktable in the outer room of the Medicine Hall to dry, taking up half the table; this time the baskets they carried up were empty. A night had passed over the North Slope's snow, and a thin, hard crust had formed on top. Every step crackled first, then sank.

Xiao Ling walked in front. She was short, so she pulled each foot out of the snow step by step, stopping every stretch to look back and wait for him. It took three quarters of an hour to reach the shaded patch.

She crouched down and got to work. She scraped the snow aside, loosened the soil bit by bit until the root fibers showed, then pinched the section flat against the ground and pulled upward. This time the pulling went fast—one plant after another, roots carrying soil, not a single one broken. Cheng Banshan worked a new spot three paces behind her, his herb hoe lifting only a small clod of soil at a time and shaking it off to the side.

"This patch—after going higher up, it's gone?" she asked.

"Higher up is all rock face." Cheng Banshan said. "Nothing can hold there."

"It only comes up once all winter?"

"Once all winter." He set one plant into his back basket, pressing the roots toward one end. "It comes up and won't grow once the snow melts. Once you've dug out this whole patch, there's no more."

The plant in her hand had three or four fine white rootlets hanging from it. She shook it, the soil fell away, and only then placed it in her basket.

"How many plants per pot?"

"Three. Combined with those from the old herb garden, it simmers for two days." Cheng Banshan said. "At the rate we're burning through it now, it won't be enough even digging until the snow melts."

"What if it's not enough?"

"Then we say not enough." He knocked the mud off his hoe against the snow. "If the medicine's short, people don't necessarily die. But if the medicine's scorched and a person drinks it, that's where trouble starts."

She nodded and went back to digging.

At the Medicine Hall that day, Du Xiaochuan was still keeping watch over the charcoal stove. He had the stove door propped open one notch, sitting on the plank bed watching the fire, adding a piece of charcoal every so often and wiping his hands against his trouser legs.

Near the end of the Si hour, the two on the mountain came back. Both baskets were full. Xiao Ling spread the newly dug batch along the bench in the inner room, one plant touching the next, all roots facing the same end. Once the windowsill was full too, she turned and asked, "Will stacking them together work?"

"Stacked, they heat up. Once heated, they rot." Cheng Banshan said. "Better to spread them on the floor."

She moved the rest to the floor, laying down a layer of old paper first.

At the end of the Wu hour, there was sound on the stone steps at the Mountain Gate.

Three people. Two old ones and a child. The older of the two carried a patched sack over his shoulder and stopped on every step. The other old one held the child's hand; the child's soles were worn through, one foot in snow, one in mud.

Xu Yan came out past the threshold. "Where have you come from?"

"East of the pass's northern side." The old one holding the child said. "Down from our village. We've been walking five days."

"Only three left in your family?"

The old man's mouth twitched. "My son went down that way and never came back." He glanced toward the child. "The two old ones can't walk anymore. The town wouldn't let us in."

"How many people still in your village?"

"Half have left." The old man said. "The rest stay to watch their houses."

Xu Yan asked no more. Jiang Wan came over, took the child's hand from the old man's, felt it, cold, and led him toward the Main Hall. A He ran out from the direction of the kitchen, brought the child to the stove door, and ladled out a bowl of hot water. The child held it in both hands, not drinking yet, warming his hands first.

The three were split between two rooms of the Main Hall.

At lantern-lighting, Qian Duoduo served bowls one by one. He ladled and counted as he went: nine in the Main Hall east room, seven in the west, four in the woodshed, six in the old storehouse. Counting to there, he tapped the ladle against the pot rim and called toward the East Courtyard, "Senior Sister and them will come get their own." One more bowl went to the low hut by the Mountain Gate—A Sui scrambled to take it.

The twenty-fifth was a fives day; market day.

At the Mao hour, four people went out of the Mountain Gate, reaching town at the Chen hour. The market opened. Two or three rogue cultivators stood before the consignment counter, and two spaces had emptied in the cabinet. One rogue cultivator had his goods weighed but didn't consign them; he hoisted his sack and started to leave, then came back at the door and asked, "Sect Master Xu, will it be open next time?"

"It will." Xu Yan said.

He kept the market book as usual. This fair's entries took only a few lines on the page, thin enough to see through.

The same Chen hour: over at the Medicine Hall, the wood stove's batch of Qi-Gathering Powder came off the fire—ten bottles. Cheng Banshan collected them, Du Xiaochuan pasted the labels. Cheng Banshan wrapped the leftover powder after bottling into a retained sample, wrote "Twenty-Fifth of the Eleventh Month," and put it in the wooden box in the corner of the Medicine Hall. He did not go down the mountain.

Qian Duoduo looked at the wooden sign outside the grain shop: a sack of spirit rice, thirty stones; a sack of coarse grain, fifteen stones; one sack per household per market day. He counted out fifteen stones, shouldered a sack, and paused on the threshold on his way out, shifting the sack higher on his shoulder.

The market closed at the end of the Wu hour. They left town in the Wei hour and reached the Mountain Gate at the Shen hour. The sack of coarse grain was emptied into the kitchen vat, and the bottom of the vat echoed emptier than the last time.

At the Wu hour on the twenty-sixth, what came below the Mountain Gate was not footsteps but the sound of people gasping for breath.

Four people. Two men each carrying someone on his back, the carried ones wrapped up, heads lolling on their shoulders—an old man and a woman. The one carrying the woman bent low at the foot of the stone steps to let the person behind take over.

Xu Yan descended the steps. "Where have you come from?"

"The village below Xiaping Gate's mountain gate." The front man said between pants. "The two of them have fevers, burning for two nights. No one in the village knows how to see to them."

"You carried them up?"

"We came down the main road. Once we reached town, we carried them up the mountain."

Xu Yan turned and called for Elder Cheng. Cheng Banshan came over from the Medicine Hall, felt their foreheads first, then turned back their eyelids, then pressed three fingers to the old man's wrist.

"Carry them in." He said. "Outer room of the Medicine Hall."

Du Xiaochuan was in the outer room watching the stove. He shifted the plank bed toward the door, leaving the half-room by the stove open. Xiao Ling brought out two old padded mattresses from the inner room and spread them on the floor, then took a clay pot to the kitchen, grabbed Frost Bone Grass and the several types dried in the old herb garden, counting each one before putting them in the pot.

The old man lay down, jaw clamped tight, muttering indistinct words—not names. The woman coughed, and there was a rattling inside her chest.

"Jaw's locked up like this; nothing's getting in." Xiao Ling said.

"Use a bamboo splint to pry the teeth open a little, and give one spoonful in three parts." Cheng Banshan said. "One choking gulp costs you an incense stick's worth of time. Go slow."

She did as he said. The first spoonful went in very slowly; only when his throat moved did it count as swallowed. The woman's bowl cooled to warm before feeding. After drinking, she coughed up a gob of phlegm—yellow.

Cheng Banshan crouched to listen for a while, then stood. "The heat is inside; it's not from the cold." He picked up the phlegm to look at it and told Xiao Ling, "Frost Bone Grass at three plants as usual, add one more ingredient. You'll recognize which one by sight."

"The spicy root?" she asked.

"Mm. Half a root is enough. Too much harms the stomach."

Sang Jun came and stood at the Medicine Hall door, not entering. He glanced inside and recognized them.

"They're from below our mountain gate." He said. "This old man used to carry water for the sect gate."

"Good that you know them." Cheng Banshan said. "There's medicine enough for two days. After two days, we'll see."

Sang Jun stood a while, asked what else was needed. Cheng Banshan didn't answer, and he didn't ask again, heading back to the old storehouse.

At the end of the Shen hour, the stove in the outer room of the Medicine Hall still glowed. That half-room was warm; the other half depended entirely on that warmth. Du Xiaochuan sat on the threshold, dragging the charcoal basket close to hand.

At the You hour, Xu Yan counted people in the Front Courtyard.

He started from the Main Hall east room: nine there, seven in the west room; six men in the woodshed; six from Xiaping Gate in the old storehouse, Sang Jun still sleeping by the door; two patients in the outer room of the Medicine Hall. He counted through place by place and returned to the Front Courtyard, stopping.

From the eighteenth to the twenty-sixth, thirty people had come up the mountain to take refuge.

Six from Xiaping Gate, twenty-four mortals. Including Qingya, forty-four mouths to feed on the mountain.

He stood in the middle of the Front Courtyard for a while, then looked toward the kitchen. The kitchen door was open. Qian Duoduo was inside scrubbing the pot, the scrape of the pot bottom sounding stroke by stroke. A He crouched by the door, turning washed bowls upside down on the wooden rack one by one, and once the rack was full, setting them on the stove platform.

"Sect Master," A He looked up, "tomorrow still half a bowl each?"

"Half a bowl." Xu Yan said.

A He lowered his head and kept stacking bowls.

Lanterns lit. The Accounts Room.

Xu Yan set the lamp at the corner of the desk, bent down, and dragged the iron box out from under the ledger rack. The box was heavy; its bottom scrape against the stone floor made a sound as it dragged. The lock hasp had long since broken; hemp rope wrapped around it three times. He unwound it circle by circle, setting the rope end on the lid.

Jiang Wan came in and stood at the other end of the desk. Bai Xiaoman followed and crouched at the edge of the box.

"Count." Xu Yan said.

He lifted the lid. Spirit stones in stacks of ten, taken out stack by stack. Bai Xiaoman received them, arranging them on the desk, and when a row filled, she stacked them back. In the lamplight, the stones' surfaces held a sheen of oil. Near the end, the bottom of the box held a loose handful; Xu Yan counted through them one by one and set them beside the last stack.

In the bottom corner of the box, a cloth pressed down over something—ten taels of silver wrapped inside. He lifted the bundle, weighed it in his hand, then set it back, smoothing it flat.

"How much?" Jiang Wan asked.

"Converted to mid-grade, a hundred and twenty-odd stones." Xu Yan said.

Bai Xiaoman did not look up; her hand still rested on the last stack.

"On the fifth of the Ninth Month, Alliance Year 300, I pressed a mid-grade stone into that hollow at the center of the formation plate." She said. "When I pressed down, the corners softened first, collapsed, spread into a thin sheet, soaked into the stone face, and was gone. The formation light thickened by a layer."

She raised her head. "I estimate one stone lasts one hour."

Xu Yan looked at the rows of stacks on the desk.

"One mid-grade stone equals a hundred low-grade." He said. "A hundred and twenty-odd hours. Twelve hours is a day—ten days."

"One winter is more than ten days." Jiang Wan said.

"We have to buy grain too." Xu Yan said. "One sack of coarse grain per market day, fifteen stones. Forty-four people won't make it to the next market on one sack."

He paused there. No one spoke.

"A hundred and twenty mid-grade stones, converted to coarse grain, eight hundred sacks." He continued calculating aloud. "But the grain shop sells one sack per household per market day. Even with spirit stones in hand, you can't turn them into eight hundred sacks."

Jiang Wan flipped a spirit stone over at her end of the desk, then flipped it back.

"Formation running, grain eaten, medicine simmering." Xu Yan said. "Formation off, the people are still on the mountain."

The Accounts Room went quiet. From the direction of the Medicine Hall came coughing, one cough pressing on the next, rising again after a lull.

Bai Xiaoman still crouched, looking at the single layer left in the box.

"The formation manual doesn't say how to extend it." She said. "Once it's lit, I can hold up my one hour—and after that, not a word written."

Xu Yan did not answer.

"The manual came from the storehouse." She withdrew her hand from the desk and braced it on her knee. "In the storehouse—there may be a chart for extending the formation."

The lamp wick had burned long and jumped.

Xu Yan picked up the hemp rope and wound it around the box again, three loops, tied tight. He pushed the box back under the ledger rack, and as it went in, the bottom scraped once.

Bai Xiaoman stood, glanced once into the dark corner beneath the ledger rack, and went back to the West Wing.