My Sect Is Down to Seven People

Chapter 49: The Man at the Foot of the Steps

It was just past Dragon hour on August 16, and the window paper of the Accounts Room was still damp.

A He ran all the way from the Front Courtyard, only shouting when he reached the window: "Sect Master! There's a man standing at the Mountain Gate!"

Xu Yan set his brush down on the edge of the inkstone and closed the ledger halfway, pinning it shut. Spread across the table were the supplies to prepare for the twentieth: rice for two pot-batches, eight blocks, plus a batch of medicinal herbs for Qi-Gathering Powder from the Back Mountain, enough for one furnace—and firewood to split, one furnace's worth. His finger was still resting on a row of figures.

"What sort of man?"

"Don't know. He's been standing there a while. Hasn't come up." A He leaned against the windowsill, panting. "A Sui's keeping watch."

"Watching what?"

"Him."

Xu Yan picked up the ledger and went out. Passing the Kitchen, Qian Duoduo was scraping the bottom of the pot, the iron blade dragging against the iron pot, and when he reached the lowest ring, the sound went hollow.

Grass pushed up through the cracks in the Front Courtyard's flagstones. The daylight had only just reached the eastern wall. The Mountain Gate faced south, and looking down from the steps, fog still held the mountainside by the waist, and from the town below only a line of roof ridges showed.

The man stood on the lowest step. One foot was on the stone, but he hadn't started up.

His clothes were gray cloth, clean, washed until they had faded pale, the collar and cuffs re-stitched with thread. On his back was an old bundle, the corners bound twice over with hemp rope. His boots were crushed down at the heels, the split in the uppers sewn shut, half a thread-end left sticking out.

His temples had gone white. His face wasn't pale—it was the dark color of a man who'd spent his life under the sun, with several deep lines carved at the corners of his eyes.

A Sui crouched behind the stone footing by the gate, arms wrapped around her knees, watching him.

Nie Bo was sweeping. The broom moved from the right side of the steps to the left, pushed right up to the man's feet. The man drew his foot aside, turned half a body's width, and only set his foot back after the broom had passed.

Xu Yan stopped on the steps above.

"Looking for someone?"

The man raised his head. Before he looked up, he pressed his lips together.

"Do you people take in those nobody else wants?"

"Who told you that."

"The town did." He said, "Yesterday I sat at the Town Gate until dark and asked three people. All three said the same thing. One of them said you've got a man up the mountain who hauls stone, and the Spirit Testing showed he's got no Spirit Root."

Xu Yan didn't answer.

"I've attempted Foundation Establishment ten times." The man said. "Ten times, never made it. Been laughed at for twenty years." He hitched the bundle higher on his shoulder; the knot rasped against his shoulder blade. "So you want me, or not?"

The fog climbed up from the mountainside, burying the pines outside the gate to half their height. A bird cried somewhere in the distance.

"Name."

"Shao Ming."

"Where from."

"From around Linchuan City." He said. "Got to town yesterday. Spent the night sitting at the Earth God Shrine outside town."

"Cultivation."

Shao Ming paused a beat.

"Qi Condensation Ninth Layer."

Behind the stone footing, A Sui's mouth fell open. A He poked half his head out from behind Xu Yan's back.

"Qi Condensation Ninth Layer," Xu Yan repeated.

"Someone like me shouldn't be coming to your place." Shao Ming said. "I know that. I'm not here to pick and choose. I'm here because no one else will have me."

"Come in." Xu Yan shifted aside half a step.

Shao Ming didn't move.

"I didn't come here to beg."

"I know." Xu Yan said. "Men who beg don't stand at the foot of the steps to talk."

Shao Ming hiked the bundle up his shoulder and stepped onto the stone steps. At the fifth step he paused and looked back down toward the gate—the fog was moving up the slope, swallowing the blue stone where he'd just been standing.

"Sit in the Kitchen first." Xu Yan said. "Have you eaten?"

"Ate at midday the day before yesterday."

Xu Yan lifted his chin toward the Kitchen. Qian Duoduo was crouched at the stove mouth scooping out ash. He heard, stood, slapped the apron clean twice, reheated the remaining half pot of porridge, and ladled out a bowl. White steam rose from the rim.

Shao Ming took the bowl standing, ate, scraped the bottom clean, and set it on the stove platform.

"Good," he said.

Qian Duoduo froze for a second before setting the ladle down. "There's more in the pot."

"Enough," Shao Ming said.

Snake hour, the Accounts Room.

One window, one long table, with last night's rough paper still weighing it down. There were only two stools in the room. Xu Yan pushed one stool toward the other end of the table, sat on the other himself, and spread the ledger open between them.

"Sit."

Shao Ming sat on half the stool. He held his bundle in his lap, both hands resting on top of it. On his knuckles were three old scars, horizontal, all on his right hand.

Under his hand, the ledger flipped a page.

[Debit: One point of Heritage.]

[Audit: Shao Ming. Qi Condensation Ninth Layer.]

[Audit: Old poison in the dantian. Injected in his youth.]

Xu Yan's finger stopped on the page.

"Your first attempt at Foundation Establishment—when was it."

"Twenty years ago." Shao Ming said. "Back then nobody laughed at me yet. First time failed, they said my foundation was thin. Second time failed, they said my heart was too hasty. After the third, no one said anything at all."

"Each time you attempted it, where did the qi dissipate."

Shao Ming looked up at him, as if not expecting anyone to ask this. He reached out and marked a spot on his own chest.

"Right here." He said. "Three inches above the navel. My chest goes tight, the qi scatters to both sides under the ribs—it disperses faster than it surges. My palms go cold, both legs shake, and for three days after, I can't keep food down. Once I lay in an inn for three days. When I got up, the spirit stones under the pillow were still there, but I'd shrunk a full size."

"How many of your attempts were made in front of others."

"The last eight, all of them." Shao Ming said. "Breakthroughs need a Protector, and Protectors cost money. I hired one twice; the rest I locked myself in an inn room. The inn walls were thin. The neighbors could hear."

"What have you taken?"

"Everything." He said. "Bought pills three times, tried other people's formulas twice. Drank talisman water too. Same result every time—reaches three inches above the navel, then scatters."

Xu Yan took it all down on rough paper, line by line, the brush tip held low, breaking the man's words into short rows. When he reached the last stroke, he raised the brush and looked across at the man.

"The point you're pushing qi to isn't wrong. Your intent isn't wrong either." He said. "The problem isn't you. Something's blocking it."

Shao Ming's hands closed once on his knees.

"Blocking."

"There's old poison in your dantian." Xu Yan closed the ledger and pressed it down over the rough paper. "Someone poisoned you in your youth."

The room went quiet. Outside, a basin of water sloshed across the flagstones with a splash. The scraping of the iron blade against the pot stopped, then started again.

Shao Ming sat there, silent for a long time. His hands were clenched on his knees, white-knuckled; he released them, then clenched again. The rope-end of his bundle slipped from his fingers and landed on his boot. He didn't pick it up.

"I've never made an enemy in my life," he said at last.

"Some people don't need an enemy," Xu Yan said.

"Who was it."

"The ledger doesn't say." Xu Yan said. "It only records that the debt exists."

Shao Ming lowered his head to look at his hands, spread open on his knees. Across the backs were white marks where stone had scraped him.

"For twenty years, there were men in the wine shops laying bets on how many tries I had left." He spoke slowly. "Betting whether I'd dare attempt it again. And some bet I'd make it on the next try—two spirit stones. I'd be sitting at the next table, listening to them count my failures, one after another. When they reached the tenth, the whole room laughed."

"Why didn't you leave."

"If I left, I'd truly have nowhere to go." Shao Ming said.

Xu Yan folded the rough paper and tucked it under the ledger.

"There's no monthly pay here." He said. "Meals and lodging are covered. Medicines from the Medicine Hall, used when needed. The sect keeps its books—every bit in and every bit out is recorded. No one can take a single stone off those books."

"I'm alone. I won't need much."

"One more thing." Xu Yan pushed the ledger toward him. "The roster doesn't ask about cultivation. It only asks whether you're willing. Once you're on the roster, it's not just a name on paper. You have to be here, and you have to cultivate. I can't promise you'll break through to Foundation Establishment. You may come up this mountain and still be Qi Condensation Ninth Layer on the Double Ninth."

Shao Ming raised his head.

"The Double Ninth?"

"That's when our Rank Silver is due to the Sect Alliance." Xu Yan said. "The ninth day of the ninth month. Two thousand one hundred stones. We're short one hundred sixty-eight. If we can't pay, this mountain gate goes to someone else."

Shao Ming glanced out the window. The stone steps of the courtyard climbed one by one, sunlight lying on them, the water stains on the stone flashing white.

"Short that much, and you still take people in."

"We take them in so we can pay it back," Xu Yan said.

Shao Ming wound the rope-end around his finger, once, then untied it.

"I'll come up," he said. "I've got my own bedding."

Wei hour. The door of the Ancestral Hall stood open.

Xu Yan pulled the wooden box out from under the offering table and spread the roster on the long table, ground ink, and set the brush beside it. More people had come than in previous times: Bai Xiaoman stood outside the threshold hugging a cloth bundle; Huo Qing leaned against a veranda pillar. Qian Duoduo herded A He and A Sui over from the Kitchen, wiping his hands twice on his apron. Shi Po had come down from the Back Mountain, one shoulder of his clothes still damp.

Cheng Banshan arrived last, one hand holding his Wine Gourd, leaning against the door frame.

"Qi Condensation Ninth Layer," he said.

"Yes," said Shao Ming.

"Qi Condensation Ninth Layer, and you come to us."

"Elder Cheng," Xu Yan said from beside the table, looking up. "Pay respects to the mountain first."

Cheng Banshan pressed the stopper back into the mouth of the gourd and leaned harder against the frame.

"Come in," Xu Yan said.

Shao Ming entered the hall. He stopped in the center of the brick floor and lifted his eyes to the offering table at the front: on the upper tier were the tablets of the Founding Patriarchs; below them, the past Sect Masters, the lacquer on the last tablet still bright.

"Kneel."

He knelt. Three Kowtows, his forehead striking the brick with a sound. When he rose, he turned to Xu Yan, brought his hands together before his chest, and bent low—very low.

"Say it yourself. Are you willing to come here."

"I voluntarily pledge myself to Qingya."

"Write your name."

Shao Ming took the brush and leaned over the table. He wrote slowly, brushstroke by brushstroke, the characters small and crowded into the lower half of the grid square. When he finished, he returned the brush and kept both hands braced on the edge of the table, as if afraid it might move.

The ledger turned a page beside his elbow.

[Balance: Six Registered Disciples.]

No sound in the hall. The East Courtyard was silent too. No one else came.

Shi Po stood at the front and watched him for a while, then spoke: "Uncle Shao."

Bai Xiaoman echoed it. Qi Qi squeezed in from under the veranda: "Uncle Shao, does it hurt when you break through?"

"It hurts," Shao Ming said.

"Where?"

"Everywhere."

A He pushed forward to call him Uncle Shao as well; A Sui followed behind him, softer, and after saying it she retreated to clutch Qian Duoduo's arm.

Shao Ming acknowledged it. He lowered his hands to his sides and stood still for a good while before straightening his back.

"That's the first time anyone's called me that," he said.

Qian Duoduo had already rolled up his sleeves. "There's still some in the pot. I'll go put another half-bowl of rice on."

"Half a bowl's enough," Shao Ming said.

Xu Yan closed the roster and tucked it back into the wooden box. "The room on the outside end of the West Wing is free. Bedding's on the plank bed."

"That room leaks at the corner when it rains," A He said. "I'll set a basin under it."

Shi Po said, "I'll get on the roof and take a look tomorrow."

Qi Qi added from the side, "The innermost room of the West Wing—Shi-shixiong and I are sharing it, so we'll be one door apart from you."

After hearing all this, Shao Ming slipped the bundle off his shoulder and hugged it to his chest.

Out of the Ancestral Hall, the sun in the Front Courtyard had already swung west, and the shadow of the Main Hall lay across the stone steps. Shao Ming walked at the rear. He stopped under the veranda and turned around.

"Sect Master." He said it, then paused, as if the address still didn't sit right on his tongue. "Can it be cured?"

Xu Yan looked at him for a moment.

"Ask Elder Cheng first."

Cheng Banshan stood by the entrance to the Medicine Hall, biting the stopper off his gourd. He tilted his chin up.

"Tomorrow at Dragon hour, come to the Medicine Hall." He said. "Fair warning: I've only got one hand. I take pulses slowly."

Shao Ming hugged the bundle a bit higher.

"I've waited twenty years," he said. "Slow is fine."

He turned toward the West Wing. At the door of the outer room, he hung his bundle on the nail in the door frame, sat on the threshold for a while, and only then stood and went in.