My Sect Is Down to Seven People

Chapter 35: You Still Have One Hand

The two bowls clinked once in the basket, then went still. Xu Yan didn't leave. He set the bamboo basket down outside the threshold and sat on the third stone step. That spot had been worn glossy by countless sitters, a shallow dip in the middle, cold through his trousers even with the cloth between. The ring of damp left by the bowls on the threshold had already dried to a faint gray line.

Inside the temple, the clay idol sat behind the offering table. The red lacquer had flaked away until only a patch by the ear remained, dust layering the face, the left ear broken off halfway. A thin film of dirt covered the offering table; a finger dragged across it left a clean line. In the incense burner, three incense stubs had long gone cold. Wind slipped through the doorway, tilting them slightly before settling.

The roof leaked. Sunlight fell through a gap in the tiles, a slanted beam landing on the floor, on the straw, and on that man's back.

He sat in the straw, facing away from the door. His collar had been washed, but the shoulder area was still damp, the cloth darker there. A sword stood against the base of the wall, sheathed end inward, a crack along the scabbard sealed with tung oil.

The light shifted half a foot, and he stood.

With his left hand he pushed the straw aside. As he rose, his right hand braced behind him for support—failed to hold, and he switched to the left. He didn't speak first. He walked around behind the offering table, untied an old cloth from his waist, soaked it in the water vat, wrung it out, and wiped the clay idol. When he reached the broken half of the ear, he worked the cloth's corner into the crevice, digging out the dust bit by bit. After the idol he wiped the offering table from inner edge to outer, and at the table's rim, the cloth paused, then passed over it again.

Xu Yan watched him clean from the stone steps, and in his mind he tallied the temple: several tiles missing, three pillars worm-eaten, only one door panel still hanging. The only place sheltered from rain was that heap of straw against the wall.

When he finished, the man took the cloth outside the threshold and wrung it; water ran down the stone steps. Then he lifted a wooden bucket from beside the wall—a chip missing from its rim—and went around the back of the temple.

There was a well behind the temple. Moss grew at the well platform's edge, soaked soft by last night's water, slick underfoot. He hung the bucket on the windlass's iron hook and cranked the rope with his left hand. The bucket sank; the rope passed through his left palm coil by coil. When it reached the well mouth, he reached over with his right hand to steady the rim. He touched it, but couldn't hold—the bucket knocked against the well side and sloshed out half its water, a wide splash darkening the platform.

He didn't look at Xu Yan. He righted the bucket and lowered it again.

The second time he changed his method: as the bucket neared the well mouth, he twisted his whole body sideways, cradling the bucket against his chest with his right arm while his left hand locked the rope. This time it came up full, not a drop spilled. He carried it, pausing every two steps, resting the bucket on his knee. His left arm was shaking, and didn't stop.

He poured the water into the vat; sand lined the bottom. The empty bucket he upended on the vat's rim, leaving a ring of mud. He bent, scooped up a handful of water, drank two mouthfuls, the water leaking through his fingers, then splashed the rest on his face and wiped with his left sleeve. The right hand hung at his side the entire time.

"Qingya is short-handed," Xu Yan said.

His feet didn't stop. "Short of what."

"Wood-chopping, water-hauling, night watch. Short of everything."

"I can't carry more than a few loads a day."

"There aren't that many loads up the mountain," Xu Yan said. "Three names on the roster. We need ten."

The rope end on the windlass gave a soft creak. He set the bucket down and turned around. Faint brows, sunken eyes, an old scar across the bridge of his nose—shallow, a paler color than the surrounding skin. He looked Xu Yan in the face. That was the first time.

"Seven short," he said.

"Seven short."

"You want me to fill the number."

"Fill it," Xu Yan said.

That word landed, and the little lightness in the man's face vanished. He carried the bucket past Xu Yan, then turned back and straightened the bucket on the vat's rim.

"Someone there just to fill the number," he said, "does he cultivate too?"

"He cultivates too."

The sun climbed over the temple eaves and dragged the courtyard's shadows to the wall. On the well platform, that puddle of water dried into a white stain.

Someone came to the temple gate.

An old woman, toting a basket: a cut of meat, three incense sticks, a stack of yellow paper with curled edges. She stopped outside the threshold, looked at Xu Yan first, then peered into the temple.

"I'm here to offer incense," she said.

"Go in."

"You here to offer incense too?"

"Delivering things."

The woman set her basket on the square floor tiles before the offering table, took out the incense, struck a light. When the tips caught, she fanned them with her hand and planted them in the burner—crooked, so she pulled them out and set them again, straight this time. She knelt and kowtowed, her forehead tapping the tiles with three soft thuds, murmuring all the while; the words were homely things, too low to make out. When she finished she rose and wiped her hands on her knees.

"I come to this temple twice a year," she said. "My grandson's full-month—I came to give thanks."

"Mm."

"Someone's living in the temple?" She glanced toward the corner.

"Yes."

"I thought so. The steps are swept so clean." She softened her voice. "A bad hand, and still he sweeps the temple."

The man in the straw didn't move.

The woman took a steamed cake from her basket, cushioned on yellow paper, and set it on the offering table, straightening it. "This is for the temple." She shouldered her basket again, and at the door she stopped and looked back at Xu Yan, lowering her voice. "That poor man. The town says the Heavenly Sword Sect cast him out."

"So I've heard."

"The day before yesterday, the house being built at the east end of town needed someone to haul tiles—five copper coins a day, one meal included. He went. They took one look at his hand and sent him away." She shifted her basket to the other arm. "Not that anyone's cruel. For five coins a day, everyone wants to buy two hands." Then she remembered something else. "The old man from the next village says he bought three flatbreads for three coins. Not one more, not one less, and he didn't ask for credit."

"At your age, where do you find work."

"On the mountain to the north. Qingya."

"Qingya." She turned the name over in her mouth. "Isn't that place nearly gone."

"Not yet."

"Everyone has their burdens." The old woman sighed, glancing back at the temple corner. "Poor thing."

She left. Her footsteps faded down the dirt road.

The man in the temple stood. He picked up the steamed cake from the offering table, carried it to the door, bent down, and set it on the stone step outside the threshold—gently, so the yellow paper didn't shift.

"It's an offering," Xu Yan said.

"It's for the temple," he said. "I'm not the temple."

He stepped back and stopped just inside the threshold. His right hand hung at his side; his left did the same. The sun lit half his face; the other half sat in the doorframe's shadow.

"A cripple the Heavenly Sword Sect threw away," he said. "What do you want with me."

"Hauling water. Sweeping the courtyard." Xu Yan said. "There's someone in the kitchen cooking, and a room standing empty in the West Wing."

"What's to eat."

"Rice. Unsold spirit meals from the market."

"Enough to eat."

"Eat first, then cultivate," Xu Yan said.

The man let that turn over in his mind, then asked the next question: "Fill the roster to ten, and the mountain gate isn't forfeited."

"Double Ninth, the rank evaluation. Fewer than ten names on the roster, the gate goes." Xu Yan said. "Plus the formation has to rise, plus the debts have to be cleared. All three. Right now we're short seven people, three formation stones, and one thousand six hundred forty-five."

"One thousand six hundred forty-five." He repeated it, his voice dropping. "You can pay that back."

"We have to."

"With what."

"Spirit meals, elixirs. Counting it out one by one."

He took two steps toward the threshold. Sunlight fell on the back of his hand—thin skin, thick knuckles.

"What kind of people has Qingya taken in."

"One with no detectable spirit root, hauling stone at the quarry." Xu Yan said. "One with a Five-Element Mixed Spirit Root, turned away by the medicine shops. One sword cultivator—the only real fighter on our mountain."

"A nest of the unwanted."

"Yes," Xu Yan said.

"Who's the Sect Master."

"I am."

The man looked him over from feet to head, only speaking after he finished. "An accountant," he said. "An accountant, trying to fill ten names on a roster."

"Fill it, and the mountain gate stays."

"A sect that's already scattered."

"Scattered," Xu Yan said, "and yet two bowls showed up here today."

He didn't answer that. His right shoulder dropped a fraction, then straightened again.

"Just write the name on the roster and it counts?" he asked.

"Write it, and it counts. The roster doesn't ask about spirit roots. It asks if you're coming."

The sword still stood against the wall behind him, light falling through the roof gap onto the small brass fitting at the sheath's mouth.

"Grab anyone off the street, they could haul water," he said.

"The people on the street," Xu Yan said, "don't fill a roster."

He chewed on that sentence, then raised his eyes. "What does Qingya want with a man who can't even hold a sword?"

Xu Yan rose from the stone step and stood outside the threshold, not entering. He looked at the sword, at the crack sealed with oil.

"Who cut it," he asked.

The wind stirred the heat rising off the threshold. The temple went quiet. The man stood straight, his shoulder blades pushing two corners against his clothes, though the longer he stood, the more the stance frayed. He fixed his eyes on Xu Yan's face, and kept them there for a while.

"The people in town," he said, "only ask how many flatbreads I eat in a meal."

"I'm asking who cut it."

He raised his right hand to chest height, fingers spread, then let it fall until his fingertips brushed the wooden edge of the threshold—one touch, then withdrawn.

"This hand," he said, "was cut off by Wei Changge, my own fellow disciple. One stroke."

He didn't go on. His lips moved, then closed.

"He's still in the sect." A pause, then he continued. "I walked out of it. I carried the sword out with me."

Xu Yan said nothing. He counted the three statements over: the one who cut is still inside; the one who was cut left; the sword left too. All three belonged on the ledger—yesterday's page only recorded the first.

The sun rose another inch. Half the wet patch on the well platform had dried; the moss turned pale green.

"That's what you wanted to ask," the man said suddenly, his voice quieter. "Not how many flatbreads I can eat."

Xu Yan lifted the bamboo basket. It was light; the two bowls sat empty inside, knocking together.

"You still have one hand."

And with that he turned to leave. Down the stone steps, around the steamed cake outside the threshold, onto the dirt road.

The road offered no cover. In the fallow fields, last year's stalks lay uncut, flattened in patches. At the bend in the road, he switched the basket to his other hand and glanced back.

The man stood at the temple gate. He stepped out from inside the threshold, reached for the sword by the wall, and slung it across his back. The whole time, his left hand cradled the scabbard; the right just touched it once, then fell back to his side.

He turned and went into the temple. His left hand never came down from behind him, his palm pressed against the sword hilt, holding it still.

The wind lifted dust from the dirt road and scattered it over the two empty bowls in the basket. Xu Yan stood at the bend, and did not walk back.

The temple gate was half-collapsed, one door panel leaning against the wall. Outside the threshold, the wind caught a corner of the yellow paper under the steamed cake, lifted it, and let it fall. Inside the door, the man's shadow stretched across the threshold, motionless.