My Sect Is Down to Seven People

Chapter 64: One Incense Stick

Shi Po walked into the ring with both hands hanging at his sides, empty.

The ring had been drawn on September 3. Days of foot traffic had worn it faint, and that morning Qi Qi had gone over the old lines with a small basket of lime, tracing them back out. Not very straight. The clerk had paced it off and reported three zhang. Wen Su nodded and had him move the bronze incense holder to the edge of the steps, then set an incense stick into it.

Zhou Kui came over from the gate arch with his iron staff. The staff's tip tapped the ground, punching a row of small holes in the dirt. He didn't look at Shi Po's face. He was looking at his feet.

"The rules," Wen Su said.

Shi Po brought his feet together, then set them apart again. "Don't leave the ring. Don't fall and stay down. Stop when the incense burns out."

"Enter the ring."

Shi Po stepped over the lime line. Zhou Kui followed him in, spinning the staff a half-turn in his hands.

"Chixiao's trial opponent, listen as well," Wen Su said.

"Stop when the incense burns out," Zhou Kui answered.

By the gate arch wall, Cao Hu muttered something under his breath. It wasn't loud, but everyone standing close under the eaves heard it: "Qi Condensation Second Layer." Ge Song didn't stop him. Xu Yan kept his hands hanging at his sides and didn't look back.

Xu Yan stood three paces outside the ring and repeated what he'd said that morning: "Stop when the incense burns out."

Shi Po gave an answering grunt.

Wen Su struck her fire starter and lit the incense. The flame licked at the tip, a red point flared to life, and a thin line of white smoke rose straight up, only dispersing when it reached high overhead.

One hand behind her back, the smoke passing in front of her face. She didn't move aside.

The first hit was to his left shoulder.

Zhou Kui crossed the distance in two and a half steps and brought the staff up from below, slamming it into Shi Po's left shoulder. The sound was dull, like striking a packed mass of wet earth. Under the eaves, someone sucked in a breath.

Shi Po's stance sank half an inch. His feet didn't move, but the dirt inside his shoes squeezed out in a ring around the edges.

The second strike went for his left ribs.

Shi Po tucked his left side in half a step, his qi sinking all the way to his heels. The staff whistled past his waist and hit the ground, kicking up a spray of dirt. Zhou Kui's staff paused for half a beat.

By the gatepost, Huo Qing's chin lifted a fraction.

Someone outside the ring let out a soft "Ah," then clapped a hand over their own mouth.

Zhou Kui changed his approach. He stopped spacing his blows and struck the same spot three times in succession, all pressing down on Shi Po's left shoulder, the last one almost driven straight down from above. Only after taking all three did Shi Po lift his eyes.

"You're not fighting back," Zhou Kui said.

"No."

After that, there was no point counting. The staff landed on his back, his waist, his ribs. Wherever it landed, he sank a little there, then straightened back up. Both hands stayed hanging, never once lifted.

The day they decided he would take the trial, Shao Ming had said one thing in the Main Hall: when the staff comes down, don't let the qi surge up. Sink it down. Sink it to your heels. He remembered that one thing. He didn't remember the rest.

Outside the ring, Du Xiaochuan's lips kept moving, counting. He stopped somewhere past twenty. On the veranda, Bai Xiaoman was counting too, fast, lost her place halfway through and started over.

The blood came from the corner of his mouth. He swallowed, a wet trail running down his chin, and didn't raise a hand to wipe it.

The first time he was driven to the edge of the ring was when Zhou Kui swung the staff in a full horizontal arc and it slammed into his chest. Shi Po's upper body pitched backward and his left foot finally retreated one step, the heel scraping over the lime line and gouging a shallow channel through the white powder. His heel settled into the groove.

Under the veranda, someone shifted their feet. A Sui buried her face in A He's arm; A He kept his own eyes open and watching. Qian Duoduo's hands twisted in his apron, pressing a row of white finger marks into the cloth.

Jiang Wan's hand had been on her sword hilt for a while now. The sword hadn't left its sheath. She stood without moving.

Shi Po ground his heel into the groove, sinking the qi down, down to his heels, down into that scraped-away strip of lime. He stood back up. His heel left the groove and came back inside the line.

Zhou Kui narrowed his eyes at him.

The staff came again, denser than before.

One blow swept into the back of his knee. The leg buckled, nearly dropping his knee to the dirt. One hand started to rise half a foot as if to grab the staff, then stopped halfway and returned to his side. He pushed himself back up on his own. A few muffled sounds from outside the ring, impossible to say who they were for.

Xu Yan ran the math of one incense stick through his head: two quarter-hours. He looked up at the incense, saw there was still a small stub left, and didn't look again.

On the Medicine Hall veranda, Cheng Banshan had one hand around Bai Xiaoman's wrist, his eyes on the ring. The moment he let go, Bai Xiaoman would stand up.

"Sit," he said.

The second time he was driven to the ring's edge was near the end of the incense. This time Zhou Kui didn't go for the knee. One staff strike swept straight at his waist, and Shi Po's upper body was carried sideways with it. One foot shot out behind him for balance, his heel biting into a patch of white powder. He didn't fall. Half-crouched, he drew two breaths before straightening up, inch by inch. The blood at the corner of his mouth dropped and landed on the front of his clothes.

The incense had only its last segment left.

Zhou Kui glanced at the incense, then at Shi Po's feet. He raised the staff high and brought it down on Shi Po's back.

Shi Po's knee made a sound. He stayed standing.

The incense ash bent and dropped into the bronze dish. The red point dimmed. The white smoke broke in midair.

"Stop," Wen Su said.

Zhou Kui's staff was already swinging. This blow started higher than all the rest and came straight down, aimed at Shi Po's head. Shi Po's hands hung at his sides, eyes lifted, not moving.

A sword sheath came in from the side and caught the staff.

Crisp as a hammer on stone. Jiang Wan stood half a step in front of Shi Po, her back to him, one hand gripping the sheath and the other pressing down on its tip. Her hands didn't shake.

Zhou Kui's staff stopped against the sheath. He let off half the force, saw who it was, and pulled the staff back, stepping away.

Jiang Wan tapped the sheath against the ground, shaking off the dust.

"That blow after the incense ended doesn't count," Wen Su said, coming down from the steps to stop at the ring's edge. "Nine-Rank Trial: passed."

She turned toward Ge Song's side. "Chixiao's trial opponent struck after the incense burned out. I'll note that in the Ratings Register."

Ge Song's mouth twitched. "He couldn't stop in time."

"The rule says stop when the incense burns out. He answered it himself."

Ge Song said no more.

Shi Po looked down at his own feet. The lime line had a chunk scraped out of it, but the line still lay outside his feet. He moved both feet out of the powder before saying to Xu Yan, "I didn't leave the ring."

Xu Yan nodded. What he wanted to say was something else. What came out was only: "One incense stick. You stood the whole thing."

Huo Qing walked over and stopped behind Shi Po's shoulder. "That half-step to the left—you dodged it right."

Shi Po walked back to the veranda on his own and sat down. Du Xiaochuan reached out to support him and got waved off.

The sun was sinking west.

On the square table in the Front Courtyard, the Ratings Register lay open. Wen Su turned to the page for Qingya. She wrote slowly, stroke by stroke. When she was finished, she took the Branch seal from its box, pressed it firm into the red paste, and stamped it down.

The people standing in the courtyard said nothing.

She raised her head, her voice as flat as when she'd read the rules: "Qingya Sect, Zongmeng Year 300 Autumn Evaluation: re-evaluation passed, Ninth Rank."

A line appeared before Xu Yan's eyes.

[Balance: Ninth Rank. Registered Disciples: Ten.]

"Next evaluation in ten years," Wen Su said.

Xu Yan cupped his hands. "Noted."

Only then did sound return under the eaves. Lu Shoutian squatted and stood again, slapping his knee. "Thirty years I've collected stall fees at the market, and this is the first time I've seen a Rank Evaluator climb up to our mountain." Zheng Tie stood beside him, hands behind his back, lips moving but no words coming out. One rogue cultivator clapped twice, remembered the Rank Evaluator was still in the courtyard, and lowered his hands.

Qian Duoduo came from the kitchen, carrying a bowl of spirit meal in both hands, steam rising into his face. He got to the table before remembering what he'd meant to say: "Rank Evaluator . . . would you like something hot?"

"The Rank Evaluator does not eat a sect being evaluated's meals," Wen Su said.

"Oh." Qian Duoduo took the bowl back, went two steps, then turned around. "Then I'll carry it down the mountain to the old flatbread seller. He was sitting halfway up the road this morning, couldn't make the climb."

Xu Yan said, "Add an extra ladle." A He fell in behind him as they walked off.

Wen Su closed the register and handed it to the clerk to pack into the wooden box. She paused under the gate arch, looked up at the plaque, then walked out and headed down the mountain. The two clerks followed, one carrying the box, the other the ledgers on his back.

Ge Song pressed the debt notice inside his robe, gave Zhou Kui and Cao Hu a word: "Let's go." Zhou Kui walked behind, staff in hand. At the gate arch he looked back once at Shi Po. Cao Hu carried the fir chest—it was heavy, and he shifted it to his other shoulder in the archway.

Nie Bo swept his way over from the gate arch, skirted around the lime ring by half a step, and swept on as usual.

At the You hour, the Medicine Hall lit its lamp.

Shi Po sat on a long bench, his upper robe off and laid aside. Cheng Banshan pressed down from above his left ribs, one hand working down, asking "Here?" at each spot. Shi Po answered "Doesn't hurt." At the fourth rib, his shoulder jumped.

"Broken?"

"Cracked," Cheng Banshan said. "The one below it too. Two of them."

He had Du Xiaochuan hold one end of a cloth strip in place: "Pull tight. Tighter. Let off half a hair." Shi Po's breath escaped through his teeth once. The marks across his back lay in lines: the new ones raised high, the old ones yellowing at the edges, running all the way down to his waist.

Bai Xiaoman sat on a stool on the veranda, asking through the doorway: "Does it hurt?"

"No."

"You said that last time too."

Cheng Banshan didn't look up. "Stop asking, all of you."

"Raise your left arm."

Shi Po raised it, stopping at shoulder height.

"Good." Cheng Banshan tied the bandage off. "Rest. You stand again when I say so. For the next while: no lifting anything heavy, no going up the Back Mountain."

Shi Po looked at his own hands. "I took it."

"Two cracked ribs, and you call that taking it."

Shi Po didn't answer. By the door, Shao Ming leaned against the frame for a while before saying slowly, "The second time, he got the qi to sink." Cheng Banshan snorted and put the remaining bandages back in the box.

At the Dog hour, on the Mountain Gate steps, Jiang Wan sat with her arms around her sword, blade across her knees.

Xu Yan came out of the courtyard with a lantern and walked past.

She spoke first: "Tomorrow at the Mao hour, Shi Po's pillar training is canceled for the day. Don't let him sneak in any practice."

"All right."

The lamplight fell on the sheath. Across its middle lay a horizontal white mark—the trace of that blow today.

She said nothing more, shifting the sword closer against her chest, her eyes on the mountain below. A few lights glowed down in Luoxia Town, each one lower than the last across the ten-li mountain road.

Xu Yan stood there for a moment, then headed for the Accounts Room.

At the Hai hour, the lamp wick in the Accounts Room was trimmed high. The cloth sack on the table sat open, empty.

He opened the ledger and first drew out the paper folded between two pages. The land deed, folded several times, an old crease at one corner. He pressed along that same fold once more, folded it back over, and returned it to its original place.

The wooden box under the bed he pushed back where it belonged without opening it.

The September page he checked line by line from top to bottom before picking up the brush:

"September 9, rank fee paid: 2,100 spirit stones. Balance: zero."

He set the brush down. The thin ledger at his hand turned a page by itself.

Page after page flipping onward, not fast, every page blank. The paper made a soft sound; the lamp wick flickered.

It turned to the last page.

That page had always been empty. The paper was slightly thicker than the rest.

[Debt: Qingya 3,712 people.]