My Sect Is Down to Seven People

Chapter 5: The Red Tick in the Roster

The ledger lay open. He reached to close it, and with his fingertips still half an inch from the page, writing began to appear.

[Entry: Before the ninth day of the ninth month, Registered Disciples must number ten.]

The oil lamp's light fell squarely on that line. The ink was dry, and its color matched the earlier entries about balances and audits—neither fresh nor old, as if it had been written there for years.

He read it from beginning to end, once, then again. It was on the third read that he realized he'd been holding his breath.

"Ledger Entry." He said the words aloud.

Nothing in the old ledgers was written this way. Money in was marked "Income," money out "Expenditure," debts as "Debt"—who owed what, how much, and which year it was settled. He pulled down the nearest stack of old ledgers and felt through the page edges one volume at a time. Not a single page began with the words "Ledger Entry."

He drew out the top volume, the one Fang Henian had kept. Something had once pressed against the first page, leaving a ring of yellow stain. Every spring, the Old Sect Master would cut a slip of paper and write down the year's tasks: the west wing roof leaked, the kitchen needed another pot, that stretch of stone steps on the Back Mountain needed patching, the Medicine Hall's window paper needed another layer. When finished, he'd tuck the slip into the front of the ledger. At year's end he'd take it out, go down the list line by line, and scratch a mark across each completed item with his fingernail.

This entry in the ledger was the same kind of thing.

One slip of paper, one task: before the ninth day of the ninth month, the roster must carry ten names.

He flipped the ledger from front to back, then back to front, checking for anything else that had appeared. Nothing. Apart from the two recognition lines at the front, the roster page, and his own page, every other sheet was blank.

"The ninth of the ninth." He spoke the date, then stopped.

That date wasn't one he'd chosen. It was the date Ge Song had read aloud from the document before the spirit altar: the Autumn Evaluation, the Rank Silver due, the Rank Evaluator's inspection in person—all of it, exactly the same. The entry in this ledger followed the Sect Alliance calendar.

"If it's accomplished, what gets recorded?" he asked.

The ledger made no sound.

He waited a while, then closed the ledger and opened it again. The words were still there. Not one more, not one less.

What happened if the task wasn't accomplished—the ledger didn't say. He read the line one more time. The page held only that single line, blank before and after, and no amount of asking would yield a second sentence.

The empty account book on the table was still open to that middle page, bearing his own writing: Spirit Root: one. Creditor: —the brush had lifted after "Creditor," and nothing followed. The two matters sat side by side and looked absurd together: a ledger informing him he owed a Spirit Root, and another line on the same day telling him to round up nine people.

That number, nine—he understood it perfectly well. But a debt couldn't be settled by understanding. He rose and picked up the lamp.

The Main Hall was empty. The door panel lay across two long benches, white cloth draped from head to foot, a corner stirred by the draft from the doorway but not lifted. The Eternal Lamp on the incense table burned low, a ring of black around its rim. The packet of candy bought from Linchuan City sat on a corner of the table, still tied with hemp rope, never opened. Three incense sticks stood in the burner, burned halfway before going out, a bit of ash clinging to each broken tip.

He lifted the oil pot and added half a ladle of oil to the Eternal Lamp, then used the bronze wick pick to nudge the wick. The flame rose, and a stretch of the white cloth brightened.

A door at the back led into the Ancestral Hall. He pushed it open, and the door pivot groaned—like someone coughing behind the door.

The room was colder than outside. The smell of incense ash, of camphor wood, of paper gone damp and musty, lay in layers. On the highest shelf sat the Founding Patriarch's tablet, its lacquered characters cut deep, the strokes turning hard. Below, on either side, the tablets descended in rows—generation after generation of Sect Masters. The last position stood empty, its wooden base still carrying the marks of a tracing line drawn in powder, waiting for someone to paint in the name.

A sheet of yellow paper lay weighted on the offering table, Cheng Banshan's handwriting: the Old Sect Master's personal name, pinned at two corners by copper coins. The space beneath the name was blank. Only after tomorrow's burial would the tablet be inscribed.

The wooden box was tucked beneath the offering table, toward the back. He set the lamp on the floor, knelt on one knee, and reached in. His fingers found the cool camphor wood first, then the bronze clasp. Unlocked—just an old cloth strap wound twice around. He untied it and dragged the box out.

The roster was paper with a blue cloth cover, corners curled, the binding cord replaced at some point with new string. Opening it released a smell of mildew. The paper was soft, pages stuck together at the edges; he didn't dare force them apart and only turned what would open freely.

The first few pages were ruined. Only shadows of ink remained, impossible to tell whether they'd been names or something else. He left those pages alone.

Further in, the handwriting changed several times. Some strokes were squared off, written slowly. Others used a fine brush tip, the characters packed tight—two names squeezed into a single line. The red of the vermilion brush had blackened with age. Name after name had been ticked off. Some ticks were light, the names still legible beneath; others heavy, the red lying over the names and blotting them out entirely.

Beside each tick ran small notes, all in Fang Henian's hand:

Year 190 of the Alliance Calendar, went down the mountain.

Year 206, died of illness.

Year 231, never returned.

One entry read only: Scattered.

Some ticks had no note at all. Just the tick.

He turned further, to Year 280 of the Alliance Calendar. That was the year the Mountain Gate had been pledged to the Branch. Three new names added to this page, all three ticked off, a small note beside them: Year 281, two left. One headed north.

Further on, he found a name he knew.

He San. Only a few years older than him, and had entered the Accounts Room before him. The day He San left the mountain it was raining. Before he went, He San ground an ink stick and filled an inkstone for him, saying the Accounts Room was cold and one full stone was enough for three days of writing. That stone lasted four days, the ink growing gray and thin toward the end.

Beside He San's name: Year 294, went down the mountain.

One page further and another familiar name appeared: Wang A'niu. That man had taught him how to bind firewood so it wouldn't fall apart when carried, scattering sticks the whole way home. The day Wang A'niu left, he'd wiped his bed board clean and folded his bedding into a neat square left in the center of the bed. Beside the name: Year 297, went down the mountain.

A thought struck him, and he flipped back to the front, then paged backward, sheet by sheet.

He wasn't there.

He'd come up the mountain in the second month ten years ago. Fang Henian had brought him from Luoxia Town and given him a stool and a stack of ledgers in the Accounts Room. The sect's daily ledger recorded his first entry at the top of a page; this roster held no name for him. Servants weren't recorded—that was the rule, and he'd never thought he ought to be.

Ten years he'd worked through ledgers on this mountain, and the roster couldn't find a trace of him.

Further on, the pages went blank.

Cleanly blank. Past Wang A'niu's page all the way to the back cover—most of the book held not a single character, only the yellow of old paper and a few creases pressed in by weight, not by writing.

He turned faster now, flipping to the very end, and his eyes landed on a spot near the bottom of the page.

A name was there. Strokes straight, the finishing stroke pressing downward with force, all its strength left in the paper.

Jiang Wan.

No tick beside it.

He stared for a long while, then reached out and pressed the finishing stroke with his fingertip. A little black came off on his finger. The ink was long dry. It wouldn't rub away. That name had been in this book for years.

He rested the roster on his knee and opened the ledger, searching backward.

On the roster page, the same name, the same stroke, even the finishing press in the same spot. The depth of the ink identical.

He closed the ledger and opened it again. The words remained.

In three hundred years, this mountain had taken in enough people to fill a book, and now only one living name remained—a name that wasn't in his keeping, a name that wouldn't acknowledge him as Sect Master.

He moved the lamp closer and, by its light, did the math. Today didn't count. June had twenty-eight days left, July thirty, August thirty—to the ninth of the ninth came to ninety-seven days.

Ninety-seven days. Nine names.

Three a month. One every ten days.

His mind pressed on: where would the people come from.

Seven people lived on the mountain. Jiang Wan was on the roster. He himself was a Servant and couldn't enter that book; Elder Cheng was an Elder, not counted; Nie Bo guarded the mountain, not counted. Qian Duoduo and the two children were Servants now, and Servants weren't recorded on the roster—unless they were willing to pay their respects at the mountain and sign their own names.

Even if all three agreed, that was only three more. Six still short.

He counted through possible sources, one by one, striking each off as he went.

Children in town who'd failed Spirit Testing? He remembered a few: the two little ones in the grain shop's back courtyard, the tea stall owner's grandson at the Town Gate, and a girl from a household beside the Quarry. Their families raised them as mortals; grown, they'd work the fields, the Quarry, the Wharf. What could a crumbling mountain offer them?

Exiles from other sects? He didn't know a single one.

Rogue Cultivators with nowhere else to go? Rogue Cultivators looked down on a Ninth Rank sect. A Ninth Rank sect couldn't even feed itself.

Orphans, refugees from famine, children abandoned in town—he couldn't say how many such people Luoxia Town held. He'd never asked. For ten years he'd managed accounts, not people.

Six. Ninety-seven days. He held not one name in his hand.

He closed the roster, pressed his palm against the cover, and sat for a while.

The lamp sat on the floor, its light angling across and catching the lower halves of the tablets, never reaching the highest one.

He stood, lifted the lamp from the floor, returned the roster to its box first, wound the cloth strap twice, and pushed the box back under the offering table. His knee was stiff when he straightened.

The last empty position held nothing. He faced the Founding Patriarch's tablet, then the rows of Sect Masters, and finally the empty space.

"I've read the roster," he said.

His voice was swallowed in the room, gone the instant it touched the ground.

"Tomorrow, Dragon hour," he said again.

One corner of the yellow paper on the offering table had curled upward. He pressed it down with a hand. The moment he let go, the corner lifted again, just as high as before.

He pulled the door shut behind him. The pivot groaned again.

Someone was in the courtyard.

Jiang Wan had brought a lamp and set it on the step edge, and was practicing her sword in the middle of the yard. A thin layer of dust lay over the brick, and though she landed each step lightly, the dust still rose. Her sleeves were rolled to the elbows; the sheath lay tossed beside the lamp on the step. Her sword moved fast and, halfway through a motion, suddenly faster—the sound trailing one beat behind. He didn't practice the sword and couldn't judge good from bad; he only saw that her sword tip came down again and again along one single line.

He stayed at the Ancestral Hall door, not stepping down.

She ran through the full form and drew the sword back, and the wind swept up from the center of the courtyard. The lamp in his hand wavered, the flame pressing against the rim, shivering twice—but not going out.

She lowered her sword tip and stood still, chest rising and falling, sweat running from her temple to her jaw.

"How many on the roster?" She didn't turn around.

"One."

"Ninety-seven days. Nine."

He didn't answer.

She bent and lifted the lamp from the step edge, picked up the sheath with the other hand, and walked toward the East Courtyard. The lamp lit one brick after another beneath her feet. Passing around the low wall, the light vanished first, then the person.

From beginning to end, she never looked at him.

In his hand, the flame of the lamp slowly righted itself.