My Sect Is Down to Seven People

Chapter 75: A Field with a Crack in It

The three old clay pots under the wall by the third pillar were empty of spirit porridge before noon. It was the October 5 market day, and as usual Qian Duoduo had carried the pot down the mountain at Mao Hour, Du Xiaochuan hauling the buckets, A He and A Sui each with a bundle of bowls. Ten bottles of Qi-Gathering Powder sat at the corner of the stall, each resting on a scrap of old cloth. When only two bowls of porridge remained, Qian Duoduo scraped his ladle twice around the bottom of the pot and poured the last of it into a bowl.

At closing, he weighed out two pots' worth of spirit rice at the grain shop for the next market day—five spirit stones per pot. By Shen Hour he was back up the mountain, where he handed a hundred and ten spirit stones to the Accounts Room. Xu Yan added two lines to the running ledger: October 5, income one hundred ten. Spirit rice, two pots, ten.

As dusk fell, there was a noise at the rear wall of the Kitchen. Shi Po hauled two wooden buckets out from against the wall, slipped the carrying pole through their rope handles, and started toward the fork on the east side.

Cheng Banshan was sorting herbs at the entrance of the Medicine Hall, a bamboo sieve on his knees. He looked up and called him over.

"Put those down."

Shi Po stopped, but didn't set the buckets down. "I can carry them."

"You'll carry them when I say you can carry them." Cheng Banshan set the sieve on the ground, walked over, and held one arm crosswise in front of Shi Po's chest, not quite touching him through his clothes.

Xu Yan came over from the Main Hall, still holding his brush. He stopped two paces away. "How many mu is the field."

"Twelve mu."

"To soak one mu properly takes several hundred loads. You've got two buckets, two loads a trip."

Shi Po said nothing.

"Three li downhill, three li back up. That's one round trip." Xu Yan said, "You could haul from dark to dawn and only wet one patch of the field."

"A wet patch is still wet."

Xu Yan didn't argue. He crouched down, picked up a piece of broken stone, and scratched a long line in the dirt. "This is the field embankment. This is the creek. Water's here, three li away." He tapped a dot beside the long line. "You make one trip, pour it into the field, and what soaks in is about this big."

Shi Po stared at the dot for a long while.

"Is one night enough to cover one mu?" Xu Yan asked.

"Three hundred trips would do it."

"And in three hundred trips, you'd need to rest half an incense stick each time." Cheng Banshan cut in from the side. "Those two ribs are newly grown. Every layer you build, you rest a layer. Figure out how many trips you can actually make in a night."

Shi Po worked it over in his head. His shoulders dropped.

"A field isn't a water vat." Cheng Banshan withdrew his hand and started back. "A vat empties, you haul two buckets and refill it. A field leaks. Pour in as much as you want, it all drains away."

Shi Po pulled the carrying pole free of the buckets, took one bucket in each hand, and carried them back to the wall, walking very slowly. When he came back, he stopped on the flagstones before the Mountain Gate and asked, "The twelfth. Will there be water?"

"What the twelfth settles is whose land it is," Xu Yan said. "Once the land's settled, then there's something to say about the weir."

Shi Po nodded once, crouched down on the flagstones, pressed both hands to his knees, and didn't move.

No one mentioned the field all through the sixth. On the seventh day, at Snake Hour, a man came up the mountain road, footsteps urgent, his carrying pole clanking against the stone steps as he climbed. Wang Shuan was carrying an empty pair of baskets, his shirt soaked through to the waist with sweat. He set the load down at the foot of the steps and swept his eyes across the courtyard.

Jiang Wan stood at the top step of the Mountain Gate, sword cradled in her arms. Wang Shuan dipped his head to her but said nothing. She shifted aside to let him through.

Xu Yan came out of the Accounts Room.

"Sect Master Xu." Wang Shuan took two steps forward, then stopped. "The field's cracked open."

"When did it open?"

"I checked on the fourth. There was a white crust on top; when you stepped on it, it was still hard. Went back this morning—it's cracked clean through to the bottom." He wiped his muddy hand on his pant leg. "I came up here first. Haven't been anywhere else."

He paused, and his voice dropped. "The water. Any word on the water?"

"Twelfth, at the Branch. A confrontation hearing."

"So there'll be water by the twelfth?"

"The twelfth settles whose land it is. Once the land's settled, then there's something to say about the weir."

Wang Shuan turned the words over in his head, brow still furrowed. "Then I'll wait for your word." He bent to pick up his pole. "I'm heading down."

"I'll go down with you." Xu Yan tucked the account book into his robes. "Take a look at the field."

At Horse Hour the two of them started down the fork on the east side of the mountain gate. Three li downhill, the path narrow, untended slope land on both sides—stumps dark where firewood had been cut. At the bottom, the field embankments stretched out, twelve mu in one connected piece.

The soil was dry and brown, a layer of fine dust floating on the surface. Footsteps didn't sink; the ground was hard as old roof tile. The deepest crack ran through the middle of the field, a fissure that ran clear from one embankment to the other. Wang Shuan crouched and worked one finger into it, down to the second knuckle.

"Fits a finger, and goes another half-inch deeper." He looked up at Xu Yan. "This time of year, this field used to be standing in water."

Xu Yan crouched and picked up a lump of dry earth. It crumbled at the slightest pressure in his palm, the dust sifting through his fingers.

"Dry down below too," Wang Shuan said. "Day before yesterday I dug a pit by the embankment, a chi deep. Found a little damp, just a little." He pointed at a broken clay jar sitting at the end of the embankment. "I scooped water from the cracks between the rocks in the creek bed, one ladle at a time, for two days. Poured it in the pit. Dampened just that one patch."

Xu Yan stood and walked along the embankment. This twelve-mu stretch lay at the very bottom of the slope, the highest ground. Water came down from the creek and reached his stretch first, then soaked onward down. Below it were two more fields, their embankments half a chi lower. The two families who worked them had left last season's rice stubble unturned, and bundles of dry hay lay stacked on the ridges, one corner lifted by the wind, the stone that had weighted it rolled to the edge.

"Those two still have water under them," Wang Shuan said, coming up beside him. "My stretch is the highest. Water stops, mine dries first."

The creek bed curved around from the foot of the ridge, running along the east side of the field. In past years the water came up this channel and poured straight into the field. Now only stones remained, bleached white in the sun, wilted water grass caught in the cracks, faded to gray.

"No soaking through the winter, and the spiritual qi scatters." Wang Shuan crouched by the fissure and pressed his palm into the dirt. "Come spring planting, what grows will be common rice. Common rice won't sell. What do I pay the two sacks of rent rice with?"

"Two sacks of rent rice. I've got it noted," Xu Yan said.

"I'm not trying to rush you."

"I know."

Xu Yan looked east along the creek bed. Past the field outlet, it bent northeast, skirted the foot of the ridge, then climbed out of sight. At its end stood a gray stone ledge—the spring source lay beneath that ledge. He'd gone up there once in the ninth month. The weir was built below the stone hollow. Water from the weir's east side ran off through a channel cut to the east. Not a drop came down this western channel.

Wang Shuan stared in that direction for a while too, then drove his hand into the dirt and pulled it out again. "Before the eleventh month. Can it come?"

Xu Yan stood at the creek's edge and didn't answer right away. He laid the days out in his head: the twelfth, Snake Hour, confrontation at the Market Office. The map was at the Branch, the stele was on the ridge—those two things had to be brought together. If the judgment came down to tear out the weir, how many days the demolition would take, he didn't know.

"I don't know," he said.

Wang Shuan grunted, wiped the dirt from his hands onto his pant leg, as if he'd expected exactly that answer.

"The old channel's still there, not blocked," Xu Yan said. "Weir comes out, water follows the old channel."

"Can the weir actually be torn out?"

"The twelfth decides."

"What if—" Wang Shuan cut himself off, lifted his pole to his shoulder. "I'll wait."

"Uncle Wang." Xu Yan stopped him. "From today on, write down what the field looks like, every day. How wide each crack is, which day a crack widened another notch. Write it down."

Wang Shuan stared blankly. "I can't read or write."

"Drawing marks works too. One vertical line for each day. If a crack widens, add another mark."

"Who am I drawing it for?"

"For me. Which day the field cracked, which day the water came back—that's what next year's rent rice gets argued on." Xu Yan looked out over the dry brown field. "The weir can be torn out, the water can come back. But someone has to keep the record of which day it came back."

Wang Shuan looked down at his hands crusted with dry dirt and wiped them twice on his pants. "Then I'll draw marks." He shifted the pole to his other shoulder. "What do I write on?"

"I'll tear off some sheets for you when I get back. Bring them to the market on the tenth."

"Sect Master Xu." Wang Shuan took a few steps, then turned back. "Two other families in the village have fields on this same stretch. They ask me, and I can't tell them anything."

"Market day, the tenth," Xu Yan said. "Qian Duoduo will be under the third pillar by the wall. News or no news, I'll have him pass you a word."

"News or no news, you'll send word?"

"Both ways."

Three li uphill. Halfway, Xu Yan was running with sweat. The mud under his fingernails dried into a white ring. At the mountain gate he looked back at the East Slope. The creek bed showed as a line of white in the folds of the slope, running east all the way to the foot of the ridge, then stopping.

Jiang Wan was still on the top step, sword across her knees.

"How's the field," she asked.

"Cracked open. A finger fits in."

"Wang Shuan wants water from you."

"I didn't give him a date."

She pressed her hand to the scabbard, waited a moment. "The twelfth."

"The twelfth."

On the eighth day, at Mao Hour, Shao Ming was in his usual spot below the stone steps of the Ancestral Hall, teaching the two children breathing exercises, still using the formula from Cheng Banshan's yellowed paper. A Sui paused mid-recitation. Shao Ming didn't press her; he waited until she picked it up again on her own.

The tenth was market day, same as always. Two pots of spirit porridge, ten bottles of Qi-Gathering Powder, all sold by around noon. Wang Shuan came as promised, stood outside the stall, and asked. Qian Duoduo told him, "No word yet. The twelfth." Wang Shuan nodded, accepted the five sheets of paper Xu Yan had torn off, set a small bundle of dried cowpeas on the corner of the stall, and went on into the market. That afternoon Qi Qi came down the mountain and booked a mule cart at the Luoxia Carriage House for Mao Hour on the eleventh—four spirit stones round trip, payable on boarding. Back on the mountain, he reported the time at the Main Hall.

Dog Hour, the Accounts Room.

Xu Yan went through the running ledger from the start of the tenth month to today: carriage hire on the second, four stones; firewood, one stone; two nights at the inn on the fourth, four stones; the fifth and the tenth market days, income one hundred ten each; two rounds of spirit rice, ten each. On a fresh page he wrote: Board cart at Mao Hour on the eleventh. Twelfth, Snake Hour, Market Office, bring the land deed. When he'd finished, he thought a moment, and on a new line below he listed what should be on that long table in the Market Office: the Qingya Sect land deed, the Dongzhou Boundary Map of the First Year of the Alliance, and the paper Chixiao brings.

The lamp wick had burned down to nearly nothing, the flame low, licking at the surface of the oil.

Someone was at the door; the light came in first. Du Xiaochuan stood in the doorway holding a lamp, one hand shielding the shade.

"Sect Master. The lamp."

"Set it on the desk."

Du Xiaochuan placed the lamp at the corner of the desk and moved the dying one aside. The flame caught, the room brightened a notch, and the characters on the page seemed to lift off the paper. He didn't leave. He stood in front of the desk.

"Sect Master."

"Yes."

"On the twelfth, Steward Ge will bring a sheet of paper."

Xu Yan looked up.

"Everything he says at Chixiao, he writes down first," Du Xiaochuan said. "Even when he talks to us in the Outer Court, he writes it down. Before he punishes someone, he writes a notice and posts it on the wall—he doesn't say a word until it's written. There's a cabinet in the Steward Office full of paper. The sect's rules, outer court duty rosters, punishment notices—all in there. Whoever wants to speak on something has to go look in that cabinet first."

"And if it's not in there?"

"If it's not in there, best not to open your mouth."

Xu Yan set his brush on the brush rest.

"So the paper he'll hand over to the Branch on the twelfth. What will he have written on it?"

"Whatever he wants people to believe."

The lamplight spread a layer of yellow across the desk. Xu Yan moved the page closer to the light, pinning down one corner. Du Xiaochuan picked up the nearly dead lamp, walked to the door, and pulled it half shut behind him, his footsteps fading down the veranda. Only one lamp remained in the Accounts Room, and every word on the page stood clear in its light.