My Sect Is Down to Seven People

Chapter 40: One Thrust, One Withdrawal

On July 27, while it was still dark, sounds began from the East Courtyard.

A single rip through the air, short, and then nothing. A pause, and then another, clean as the last. Xu Yan came out of the Accounts Room carrying a lamp. The wind flattened the flame; he cupped a hand around it and stood under the eaves listening.

Huo Qing stood at the east end of the open ground. The sword was in his left hand. He sent it forward, shoulder height, a little over a foot out, then pulled it back, tip angled down; out, back; out, back. His feet never moved. The two damp footprints stamped into the soil stayed exactly where they were.

Xu Yan counted. Around seventy or eighty thrusts, the left arm slowed. On the last withdrawal, the tip dropped an extra inch. Huo Qing shifted the sword behind his back, wiped his palm on his robe, and started again from the beginning.

The sky was paling. Jiang Wan came out of the East Courtyard, sword in her left hand still sheathed, and walked to the other end of the open ground. She stopped, drew. Her blade sounded in a continuous stream, fast and slow, rising and falling. His side was still one, pause, one, with long silence in between. The two of them stood half a practice ground apart, neither looking at the other.

Xu Yan stayed until smoke rose from the Kitchen, then went back to the Accounts Room.

On the 28th, before dawn, the East Courtyard still produced those two sounds. Huo Qing crouched at the foot of the steps, unwinding the cloth on his wrist and rewrapping it. The cloth was the piece Cheng Banshan had given him, cut to finger width. He wound with one hand, holding the other end in his teeth. On the third loop it slipped; he started over. When it was done he flexed his wrist twice, stood, and began again with the same opening.

After the seventieth thrust that day, his withdrawals came faster, as though he wanted to catch a breath before the next thrust.

Once he tried to combine the two into one: thrust out, no withdrawal, and turn straight from that end into a second thrust. On the second, the tip dropped three inches and his right shoulder pulled back; his whole body stopped. He stood there panting, then began again from the start.

When Jiang Wan came out, she did not go to the far end of the open ground. She came down the steps, walked to the wall by the firewood shed, dragged out an old rafter leaning against it, and set it upright: one end braced against the stones of the east wall, the other leveled with small rocks. It stood a little higher than her chest. She stepped back two paces, looked, pushed the rafter half an inch tighter, brushed the dust from her hands, and went to her own side. She drew.

Huo Qing looked at the rafter. He did not stab it right away. He sent a dozen more thrusts into empty air, then turned his shoulder toward it.

The first strike shook the rafter; the stones beneath scraped. The second also shook it. On the third, he drove his waist forward half an inch. The rafter held firm against the wall, silent, with a fresh white mark in the wood.

Before noon, the Medicine Hall's smoke ran thicker than usual.

Cheng Banshan had dragged the old furnace—the one no one had touched in years—out into the yard and set it beside the one they used daily. The old furnace's chamber was caked with ash that had hardened into black lumps. He worked at it with the furnace hook, one hand, prying lump by lump. Each one cracked and dropped. "Fifty years and nobody touched you," he muttered as he worked. The empty sleeve was tucked into his belt.

Bai Xiaoman squatted on the mat, sorting herbs. Astragalus root from the Back Mountain in one pile, bupleurum root in another—one pile per furnace. The medicinal smell, warmed by the sun, had a sweetness with an earthy edge.

"Charcoal's only enough for one furnace." Cheng Banshan didn't look up. "This one burns firewood."

"Firewood's hard to control," Bai Xiaoman said.

"Then watch it. Two furnaces at once, two different heats. This one's got a rough temper—lose focus and it scorches." He jabbed the furnace hook into the ground. "One furnace, ten bottles. It scorches, all ten are wasted."

Xu Yan stood outside the threshold. "The ten wasted are half of the twenty."

"You can do the math," Cheng Banshan said, taking a swig of wine. "But this arm of mine isn't a bellows."

"We saved the cost of charcoal," Xu Yan said.

Cheng Banshan grunted and crouched down to attack the second black lump.

The old furnace was lit with firewood. The flames leapt and shrank; Bai Xiaoman fanned with the palm fan, two strokes, then looked up at the furnace mouth. Cheng Banshan's one hand worked the bellows and couldn't spare to lift the pot lid, so he nodded his chin at her. She ran over and lifted it. Steam burst out and singed a lock of her hair.

"You don't watch the fire through the lid," Cheng Banshan said. "You watch the medicinal aroma. It floats up, you damp the fire."

On the 29th, before dawn, the sound from the East Courtyard changed. The rip through the air ended now in a dull thud.

Xu Yan stood under the eaves listening. The first few strikes still shook the rafter. By the fifth, it held. Around the eightieth thrust the arm slowed, but on the withdrawal the tip no longer dropped.

He tried the two linked thrusts once more. The second was still crooked, the blade skimming past the rafter's edge and leaving a shallow scratch in the wall. He pulled the sword back, stood before the rafter, and stared at that scratch for a long while.

Jiang Wan came out to train. She walked over, set the tip of her sheath against the top of the rafter, and pressed it a fraction tighter. She glanced at the white marks on the wood and went back to her own end. Not a word.

At Monkey hour, the two furnaces in the Medicine Hall went out one after the other. Bai Xiaoman set the bottles one by one upright in the straw lining the wooden box. She counted twice.

"Twenty bottles," she said.

Cheng Banshan closed the second furnace door, sat against the wall, and braced his one hand on his knee. The fingers trembled as they reached for the wine gourd. It took two tries.

"Don't sell them at the town price out there," he said, taking a swallow and wiping his mouth. "Three stones in town—that's for town folk."

Xu Yan nodded and closed the wooden box.

On the 30th, market day. Qian Duoduo was up before dawn washing rice. Huo Qing appeared at the Kitchen doorway. As Qian Duoduo hoisted the carrying pole onto his shoulder, Huo Qing reached over and took the front pot from him. This time Qian Duoduo said nothing, only shifted the back load higher.

By the time the sun climbed the wall, they'd sold a pot and a half of the two. The door panel was propped at the foot of the collapsed wall. Lift the lid and the steam rolled from the wall all the way to the Market Entrance. Buyers came one after another, dropping two stones at a time into the wooden box.

Toward the end of Snake hour, a man leading a mule came by. Baskets hung on either side of the mule, layers of paper packets tied tight with rope. He tied the mule to a tree stump by the wall, squatted down, and asked Qian Duoduo to ladle him a bowl.

He drank the broth first, slow. When he finished, he set the bowl by the door panel and ordered a second. After the second bowl, he laid four Spirit Stones on the edge of the wooden box. He didn't leave right away.

"That rice of yours—what kind is it?" he asked.

"Spirit Rice," Xu Yan said.

"What's the cost per pot?"

"Four stones."

The Traveling Merchant tapped the dirt with his finger. "Four stones of rice, twenty bowls a pot, sold at two a bowl. That's Luoxia Town pricing."

"Town pricing," Xu Yan said.

"I come from Linchuan City," the man said. "In the Linchuan market, a meal like this sells for four a bowl."

Xu Yan's hand stopped counting stones. Qian Duoduo was scraping the pot bottom with the ladle; his hand jerked and scraped up half a ladle of broth.

"Four," Xu Yan repeated.

"Four. Your pot's got a rough energy—the eaters in Linchuan City recognize that." The Traveling Merchant wiped his mouth with his sleeve. "One piece of advice: there are other Spirit Meal vendors in the market. You haul your price over there, they might not be pleased."

Xu Yan didn't answer that. "How do you set up a stall in the market?" he asked.

"Ask the Market Office," the Traveling Merchant said. "Market business isn't my business. I just sell paper."

"Do they have Formation Stones there?" Xu Yan asked.

The Traveling Merchant looked up. "You want Formation Stones?"

"Three. Metal, Water, Earth."

"The Formation Implements Shop has them," he said. "A whole shelf of Five-Element Formation Stones. You name the one you want, they hand it to you. A hundred each, no haggling. You bring a hundred and twenty, he still only gives you one."

Xu Yan ran it through his head: three stones, three hundred.

The Traveling Merchant's gaze drifted to the wall. Huo Qing was collecting the empty pots there, sword slanted across his back, left hand on the pot rim.

"That young man's sword is Heavenly Sword Sect style," the Traveling Merchant said.

Huo Qing didn't turn. He lifted the pot and carried it toward the door panel.

"Did I get it wrong?" the Traveling Merchant asked.

"Pot needs washing," Huo Qing said.

The Traveling Merchant smiled and didn't press. He stood, untied the mule, and after two steps turned back. "I'll come down this road again in ten days, through Luoxia Town. If you really go to Linchuan City, I'll be waiting to taste a four-stone bowl."

He led the mule off, the paper packets in the baskets swaying, all the way to the Market Entrance and out of sight.

At Dog hour, the Accounts Room lamp was lit.

Xu Yan turned the ledger to July 30.

Two pots, eighty stones; ten bottles of Qi-Gathering Powder, thirty stones. No expenditures today: the rice for the Linchuan City batch would be bought there. Above stood a carried balance of 659 stones; add 110, and it came to 769.

Below, he started a new line: silver owed, 2,100; shortfall, 1,331.

Another line: three Formation Stones, three hundred.

Another: September 9, thirty-nine days away.

The lamp wick split into a small fork. He trimmed it with the scissors.

He calculated three times. One pot, twenty bowls, four a bowl, eighty stones. Rice cost more in the city; call the ingredients six per pot. Three pots, 240 stones, ingredients 18, left with 222. Mule cart fare, four round trip. Sell out in two days and the three Formation Stones' cost would be sitting in his hand; sell for three days and the debt got a real bite taken out of it. The cart left at Mao Hour, arrived at Monkey hour—eighty li of official road.

"August 1, Mao Hour," he wrote in the ledger. "Mule cart, Qian Duoduo, Shi Po."

He looked at it for a long time. Left on the mountain: Jiang Wan, Huo Qing, Bai Xiaoman, Cheng Banshan, Nie Bo, A He, A Sui. Take one pot, two ladles, and the twenty bottles of Qi-Gathering Powder in the wooden box, traveling with the people.

Someone was at the door, standing there, not making a sound.

"Sect Master," Qian Duoduo finally said. "Eighty li, arriving at Monkey hour. Buy the rice there, wash the pot there? And four a bowl there—maybe fewer people buying?"

"Go and see first," Xu Yan said.

"Should I take three sacks of rice as backup? The road's rough; the pot handles need cloth wrapped around them."

"Take one sack. Bring the cloth."

"Then I'll go wrap the pot now." He turned, took two steps, and came back. "And... what if it doesn't sell?"

"Then we bring it back," Xu Yan said. "The rice won't spoil."

Half the breath went out of Qian Duoduo. He left.

A while later, another shadow moved at the door. Bai Xiaoman came in, a piece of paper in her hand, the back of it covered in ink from last year's waste ledger. She spread it flat on the table, smoothing the edges.

"The Formation Plate—I measured it again against the groove in the Formation Eye." She pointed at the diagram. "Metal west, Water north, Earth center. Three slots empty. The old Wood and Fire stones are still there—don't let anyone talk you into replacing them. New ones might not fit the grooves."

"Mhm."

"Those three hemp ropes—are they still here?"

Xu Yan took them from the drawer and set them on the paper. "Here."

"Use the ropes to match. Anything thicker than the rope won't fit the slot."

Shi Po stood outside the door, not entering. "How many days."

"Depends on sales," Xu Yan said.

"Then I'll bring my back basket."

Bai Xiaoman pushed the paper into Xu Yan's chest, a little too hard. "Three stones. Metal, Water, Earth. Don't buy the wrong ones."

She let go, backed to the door, and said it again: "Don't buy the wrong ones."

The door pulled shut. The courtyard was dark. One lamp still burned by the Kitchen, light leaking through the door crack onto the dirt.

Xu Yan took the diagram out and spread it over the ledger in the lamplight. Beside each empty slot she had marked a note in charcoal: Metal. Water. Earth. In the corner of the page was an old crease, pressed from how last year's waste ledger had been folded.

He folded the diagram back along that crease and tucked it inside the account book.

The lamp flame flickered.