My Sect Is Down to Seven People

Chapter 278: The Hollow in the Center

The path behind the Ancestral Hall had only been swept as far as the wall. Bai Xiaoman stood waiting just past it with a page of silk rolled in her hands, both ends bound with hemp thread. Du Xiaochuan crouched under the eaves tying his shoes, the laces wrapped twice around his ankles, then stood and ran over, one foot sinking into the snow, the side of his shoe ringed white.

"No one's swept up there," Bai Xiaoman said. "Step in my tracks."

It was two li from behind the Ancestral Hall to the halfway slope of the Back Mountain, and the two of them took two quarters of an hour to cover it. The snow was deeper than it had been at the Mountain Gate; halfway there, Du Xiaochuan's pant legs were soaked to above the knees. He tried stepping to the side once and his foot sank half a foot into the snow. He pulled it back quickly.

"There are pits and stones under the snow," Bai Xiaoman said without turning around. "The places I've stepped are solid. Step where I step."

The formation eye's stone platform was capped with a layer of snow. She crouched down and pushed the snow aside with both hands, heaping it into two ridges. Where she cleared the middle, the stone surface showed through: five slots arranged according to the five elements, five formation stones resting in the slots, their surfaces caked with old mud. In the center there was also a hollow, shallower than the five slots, its rim worn glossy, its floor flat—a laid-open palm fit it perfectly.

"I tried putting a stone in this hollow," Bai Xiaoman said. "Set it in, and it's just a stone lying there. Nothing more."

Du Xiaochuan reached out to touch it. She smacked the back of his hand.

"When the formation's lit, don't touch anything in the slots. One touch and the formation scatters."

She spread the silk out on the stone platform and weighed the four corners down with chunks of snow. Drawn on it was a circle, and inside the circle, five small squares arranged, with a hollow in the very center and a square object pressed into it.

"That square on the diagram—that's a hand pressing down." Bai Xiaoman tapped the drawing with a fingertip, then tapped the hollow on the stone platform. "Press it here. A mid-grade stone."

"The hand just presses like in the picture?"

"The picture only shows a stone lying in the hollow. How it goes in, that's trial and error." She flattened her palm. "The whole palm comes down. No clawing with the fingers."

"What happens if you claw?"

"Failing to get it in is the least of it. All your strength drains away." She pressed her hand into the hollow to test it, palm down, arm extending across from that side of the stone platform. "Once you press down, wait for it to soften. When it softens, the palm feels it first—like pressing a piece of wax that's sat in the sun too long. Once it softens, it sinks. Sinks in, seeps into the stone, gone—and the formation holds for another shichen."

Du Xiaochuan crouched and pressed his empty hand into the hollow.

"Palm-heel first," Bai Xiaoman said. "That time you led with the fingertips."

The second time his palm arched, leaving an empty space in the middle. Bai Xiaoman tapped the edge of the stone platform with her foot. "Flat." The third time, the heel came down, the whole palm lay flush against the stone, five fingers together, arm steady. She stood by and watched him lift his hand.

"Good. That's the hand."

"One shichen per stone," Du Xiaochuan said.

"One shichen per stone," Bai Xiaoman said. "When I light it, I hold the first shichen. Once I've held it through, I come down, and you go up and press. Each stone buys another shichen. When the formation light thins, press the next one."

"After you come down from the formation plate, can you still walk?"

"I can walk. My hands will shake." Bai Xiaoman wiped her hand on her sleeve. "Spiritual power fully drained. For two days, don't ask me to use it—anything else is fine. So after I come down, nobody should count on me going up a second time."

"When the light thins, can you see it from up here?"

Bai Xiaoman didn't answer right away. She smoothed the diagram flat and studied the small lines of text outside the circle; the part water-blurred was still blurred. "The diagram only says press when the formation light thins. How to tell—not a single word." She scratched with a fingernail just outside one of the stone slots, where there was half of an old carved line, broken into two pieces. "This is what I'm thinking. When the formation rises, the carved line will lift up a layer of light. When that bright layer dims, that's the thinning."

"What if it doesn't dim, just goes out?"

"That's why the first stone goes in early," she said. "On the day, once the second stone goes in, I'll know whether I'm reading it right."

"And if you're not reading it right?"

"Then keep pressing half a quarter-hour early. Better early than late." Bai Xiaoman drew her hand back. "A dead formation in total darkness—no matter what you press, it's useless. That line's on the diagram, written at the edge."

Du Xiaochuan repeated the whole matter back: after she came down from the formation plate, hand pressed flat, only the center, never the five slots, press one stone the moment the carved line dimmed.

"Can't wait for it to go out," Bai Xiaoman added.

"Can't wait for it to go out."

She rolled the silk up, wrapped the hemp thread back around, and kept it in her own hand. At the end of the Snake hour the two of them headed down the slope. Halfway down, Du Xiaochuan glanced back at the stone platform; the two snow ridges still stood.

In the Medicine Hall, the charcoal stove's mouth glowed red. Cheng Banshan sat on a low stool beside it, one hand working the furnace hook to stir the coals at the mouth, knocking loose two sparks. At the Medicine Hall doorway crouched a mountain child, hands hugging his knees, watching the fire. Xiao Ling came out from the inner room and moved him just past the threshold: "Too long by the fire and you'll cough." She lifted the clay pot from beside the stove and led the child out toward the Kitchen to brew medicine.

Bai Xiaoman spread the silk on the worktable, pinning the four corners with an inkstone, a pestle, a packet of herbs, and an empty bowl.

"From now on, Xiaochuan presses, and Elder Cheng takes over for him," she said. "One shichen per stone, in rotation, holding until the formation goes dark."

"While I'm holding the first shichen," she went on, "my hand's on the formation plate and I can't step away. In that shichen, whatever happens up here, you'll have to handle yourselves."

Cheng Banshan set the furnace hook down and lifted the wooden formation hand, bringing the palm down on the table and pressing it flat. The table carried a fine layer of herb powder; compressed, it left a perfectly neat handprint. Then he set his own hand down in the same spot.

"Easier on the hand than pill collection," he said.

"Pill collection needs both hands," Bai Xiaoman said. "This needs just one. When you press, kneel on this side of the stone platform. Your arm reaches over just right. Don't stand and lean over."

"What if the press goes wrong?"

"There's only one hollow. The hand can't go far wrong. What I worry about is touching the formation stones in the slots when the hand comes down."

Cheng Banshan looked at the empty half sleeve, then at the handprint on the table. "With my one hand, I can't reach the slots."

"When the formation's about to go out, who calls the stop?" he asked again.

"I do. Once I'm down, I stay by it, and call it at the right time." Bai Xiaoman said. "Pressing an extra stone is wasted burn. The stone softens into the hollow and the formation doesn't hold any longer."

Cheng Banshan nodded, then turned and looked Du Xiaochuan up and down. "When you go up to press, keep your legs steady. Legs go soft, hand follows." Du Xiaochuan answered with a grunt of assent. Cheng Banshan added, "The first night the formation rises, you go first, and I'll be below keeping watch. Call me once before dawn."

"All right."

The inner room's curtain was tied open; on the bench lay the half of the herbs Xiao Ling had sorted, one color per pile. Du Xiaochuan looked up and studied the silk a while, then asked, "Once the formation opens, everyone on the mountain is inside it?"

"Everyone inside," Bai Xiaoman said. "Covering from the halfway slope to the Mountain Gate."

Du Xiaochuan lowered his head and straightened the empty bowl at the silk's corner a little.

Xu Yan pushed through the curtain and stood by the table, looking at the silk.

"The mid-grade stone for the formation," Cheng Banshan said, "is it secured?"

Bai Xiaoman didn't answer; her eyes went to Xu Yan.

"No," Xu Yan said. "There isn't one in the cash box."

Cheng Banshan picked the furnace hook back up, fed two coals into the stove mouth, and asked nothing more.

By the time Xiao Ling came back from the Kitchen carrying the clay pot, Bai Xiaoman had already rolled the silk, wound the hemp thread, and held it in her hand.

Xu Yan wrote the ten labels for the lantern-lighting of the twenty-seventh at the worktable in the Medicine Hall. Ten empty bottles stood in a row at the head of the table. On each label he wrote "Qingya," and below it "the twenty-eighth of the Eleventh Month," and each finished label went under a bottle. When he'd done, he blew out the lamp, tucked the remaining half sheet back under the inkstone, and returned to the Accounts Room.

This night was the last night of this furnace batch. Du Xiaochuan slept outside on the plank bed. In the middle of the night he got up, felt his way to the back wall, and hauled over a basket of charcoal, feeding it into the stove mouth, then went back to the bed and lay down, unable to sleep. He sat up, and by the red glow from the stove mouth he crouched at the worktable, palm flat, pressing into its surface. On the third press, someone spoke from behind the inner room's curtain.

"What are you pressing the table for?"

"I'm afraid my hand will go stiff."

"Hand's stiff? Press a few more times." Cheng Banshan said. "Sleep. Tomorrow the furnace gets unloaded, and you'll be needed to count."

Du Xiaochuan acknowledged and went back to bed.

The twenty-eighth, Dragon hour, Medicine Hall. The first sounds came from the Kitchen side—Qian Duoduo up to boil water—and someone in the east room of the Main Hall rose too. Cheng Banshan held the pill fire with one hand, keeping the furnace chamber suppressed; the wooden hand lifted the stove lid and set it aside, then cradled the furnace tray out. Ten pills rested on the furnace floor, not one cracked, the heat puffing the window paper outward.

"Ten," Du Xiaochuan said.

He laid out the ten bottles, drew labels from under each, and stuck one to each bottle. Done, he held them to the light and checked; every label was straight. Cheng Banshan scraped the last bit of pill powder from the furnace floor into a tiny pile with a bamboo splint, clean to the grain. Xu Yan wrapped it in prescription paper, folding the corners three times, and wrote "the twenty-eighth of the Eleventh Month" on the wrapper, placing it at the very end of the stack of retained samples on the rack.

In the outer room of the Medicine Hall, the old man by the wall sat half-upright, watching the wooden hand lift the stove lid and carry the furnace tray, his eyes following that hand. His fever had eased some, but his voice was still weak.

"What kind of hand is that?"

Du Xiaochuan turned. "Elder Cheng's hand."

The old man stared for a long while. "Clever."

Cheng Banshan tapped the bamboo splint on the stove rim. "Wood. Spares the hand." He put the lid back on, steadying it with a hand as it settled.

The woman on the other bed coughed twice. Xiao Ling carried a bowl of medicine over, crouched by the bedside, and fed it to her in three spoonfuls. The old man slowly lay back down and pulled the quilt up.

At Snake hour, Qi Qi came back around from the Old Herb Garden, stomping the snow off his pant cuffs at the Medicine Hall door. "White to blindness. Nothing."

Xu Yan acknowledged but asked nothing more.

At lamp-lighting, Xu Yan opened the furnace log in the Medicine Hall and added a line: the twenty-eighth of the Eleventh Month, Qi-Gathering Pills, ten. Writing finished, he closed the book and looked at the charcoal stove. The fire at the mouth had gone out; a layer of ash remained in the chamber, the lid was cold, and the charcoal pile by the back wall had run to the bottom—one and a half dan burned over seven days, not a lump left.

Du Xiaochuan rolled up the bedding from the outer room's plank bed, bound it twice with hemp rope, and carried it toward the West Wing. At the doorway he stopped, looked back at the far wall.

The row of bottles on the rack stood empty. The retained-sample wraps sat one atop another. In the cabinet there was not a single packet of pill materials. The batch bought on the twentieth, the fire lit on the twenty-first—today, it had all come out.

Xu Yan put the furnace log back on the shelf and felt under the empty bottles—but his hand found nothing.