My Sect Is Down to Seven People

Chapter 82: A Single Breath Before the Ancestral Hall

October 27. The frost in front of the Ancestral Hall had thickened another layer. It crunched underfoot.

A He crouched on the stone steps, the yellow paper spread across his knees. He reached the closing line of the formula, and the breath he'd drawn in broke apart before it could travel the full path. He opened his eyes. "Uncle Shao, it ran off again."

"Ran where?" Shao Ming sat cross-legged below the steps, eyes still closed.

"Down to the bottom of my belly." A He pressed a hand against his stomach. "I press here—gone."

"Scattered, not run. Scatter means it didn't settle." Shao Ming said. "Only what settles is called qi."

A Sui sat at the other end of the steps, hands on her knees, drawing in a breath with each phrase she listened to. Her breath hadn't even warmed her palms.

"Uncle Shao, why does it keep scattering?"

"You're breathing too fast. Fast breath rises." Shao Ming opened his eyes. "The more you chase it, the more it hides under your ribs. Stop chasing, and it sinks on its own."

"What do you mean, stop chasing?"

"Just breathe. When you finish, sit still. Don't think about where it's gone."

A He folded the yellow paper and tucked it into his sleeve, then sat up straight and breathed again. This time it was slow—his shoulders didn't lift, his chest swelled first, and only later did it fall. When he finished he made no sound, just sat for a while before opening his eyes.

"This time when I press, there's something left."

"Tomorrow, again." Shao Ming stood, tucked the straw mat under his arm, and headed up the west slope. At Dragon hour he had to take Du Xiaochuan and Huo Qing out to cut firewood.

At the end of Mao hour, A He pressed his hands against his trousers and asked A Sui, "Where did your breath get to?"

"My throat."

"If it reached your throat, you swallowed it."

"Swallowing still counts as going down."

"It doesn't. Uncle Shao says it doesn't."

A Sui ignored him and breathed in again. When she finished, she turned her hands over and looked. There was nothing in her palms.

A He tried again too. Mid-breath, his shoulders went up first. He set the yellow paper down on the steps. "I'm done."

Shao Ming had already reached the mouth of the slope. He heard, but didn't turn back. "Done breathing? Then sit. Sitting counts as today's lesson."

A He sat on the steps for a while. Wind came from the Back Mountain. He gathered his sleeves together, picked the yellow paper back up, and read it through from the beginning.

The twenty-eighth, Mao hour. The sky was still dark. From the Mountain Gate came the sound of a broom moving across blue stone, in slow, steady strokes.

Three people stood before the Ancestral Hall. The lamp inside was still burning, its flame reaching an inch past the threshold.

First attempt: A He's shoulders lifted halfway through, and the breath never completed its path. Second attempt: he breathed slowly, but the qi scattered halfway down.

He exhaled, wiped his nose, and glanced down the steps. Shao Ming wasn't looking at him, and said nothing.

"Again," A He said himself.

Third attempt. He laid the yellow paper on his knees, opened his hands, fingers loose. The air entered through his nose, rose, then turned downward—past his chest, past his navel, settling into that small space below the dantian. Like setting a bowl of water onto a table: it landed steady.

He sat there, air leaving through his nose, but the dantian still full.

He opened his eyes.

"Uncle Shao, it's not leaving."

Shao Ming opened his eyes, studied him for a long moment, then rose from below the steps, came forward, and crouched down. Two fingers settled on A He's right wrist.

And stayed there.

Frost still clung to the brick ground. With those two fingers pressing down on him, A He didn't dare move his arm. A Sui swallowed her own breath and stared at Shao Ming's hand.

Shao Ming didn't look up, didn't lift his fingers. After a while he withdrew his hand, stood, and scratched at his knee.

"It's entered."

"Entered?" A He said. "It's entered, just like that?"

"Qi settled in the dantian without scattering—that's entered." Shao Ming said. "From today, you're at Qi Condensation First Layer."

A He turned his hands over, looked at them, turned them back.

"Why isn't it hot?"

"Yesterday the heat was in your palms. Today it settled in the dantian." Shao Ming said. "Hot or not, you'll know from now on. Drawing qi in is easy. Holding it is the hard part."

"So can I start pillar training now?"

"For pillar training, find Shi Po. First, guard this one breath every day."

"Should I tell people?"

"Tell them." Shao Ming said. "And when you're done telling, come back and keep practicing."

A Sui stood on the steps, pressed her hands flat against the front of her clothes. "Uncle Shao, let me try again."

"Go ahead."

She breathed in again. From the breath entering her nose to its release, she sat straighter than her brother ever had. When she finished, she turned her palms over, looked at them herself, and said nothing.

At that same moment, in the Accounts Room.

Xu Yan was copying the daily ledger from the twenty-fifth's market into the main page. Each entry transcribed, each cross-checked: two-pot batch, eighty; ten bottles at three apiece, thirty; spirit rice for this market day restocked, ten spirit stones; net, one hundred.

Just as the brush tip paused at the end of a line, the ledger inside his robe went warm.

He drew it out and laid it open on the table.

[Credit: A He, Qi Condensation First Layer.]

[Balance: Sect Master, Qi Condensation Eighth Layer.]

The characters appeared line by line, the ink heavier than usual. Xu Yan sat motionless at the desk, his eyes drifting toward the door—the Ancestral Hall lay north of the Mountain Gate, beyond the Main Hall. He couldn't see it from here.

That warmth rose from his chest, traveled down to his dantian, then rose again from the dantian, climbing along his spine. Halfway up, it struck the place above the seventh layer. That spot had been blocked for over two months, like a wad of old cotton stuffed in there—silent when idle, but a dull constriction the moment he circulated his qi.

This time, it pushed open a little.

The narrow opening widened, inch by inch. Qi squeezed through. Xu Yan braced both hands on the edge of the desk, sitting straight, letting the current run its course. Sweat beaded at his temples. The lamp flame on the table wavered.

When the qi returned to his dantian, he released the desk, wiped his hands dry on the front of his robe, and sat counting his breath three times.

On the third count he tested it: qi rose from the dantian, reached that spot, passed over and up, settled at his chest, then descended back to the dantian. As it passed through—no more constriction.

That layer had not been cultivated by his own effort.

Xu Yan had kept the books in the Accounts Room for ten years. In the old days he recorded other people's income, other people's debts. Now every layer in his body was laid down, one by one, by these children up on the mountain. A He sat on those steps this morning and breathed three times before that single breath settled. And Xu Yan, sitting here, gained another layer.

He picked up the brush again. Beneath today's line, stroke by stroke, he added: October 28, A He, Qi Condensation First Layer, entered before the Ancestral Hall.

When he finished, he stepped back half a pace and studied that line. In the months before, this page had recorded carriage fares, inns, petitions, judgments. Today it recorded one breath before the Ancestral Hall.

He flipped the ledger to the roster page. A He's line was farther down; the horizontal stroke was slightly crooked—A He had written it himself that day.

Dragon hour, in the kitchen.

The pot lid was off, white steam surging upward. Qian Duoduo stood at the stove stirring the porridge; Shi Po was setting three bowls on the counter; Du Xiaochuan fed wood into the firebox.

The door banged open. A He stood with one foot over the threshold and one foot still outside: "I entered!"

The ladle in Qian Duoduo's hand clattered into the pot. Hot porridge splashed up. He yelped, rubbed at the burned spot, and then stopped caring: "Say that again?"

"I entered. Qi Condensation First Layer." A He squeezed toward the counter as he talked. "Uncle Shao felt my wrist. He said it's entered."

"Someone feels your wrist and that counts as entered?" Qian Duoduo fished the ladle out of the pot and shook it. "Then let me feel yours—you'll be double entered."

"The one feeling it has to be Uncle Shao."

A Sui came in behind her brother, walked around him, and took a place at the other side of the stove, wiping up the porridge that had splashed the stovetop.

"Wait, wait, wait." Qian Duoduo ladled out a bowl and handed it over, then added another half-ladle on top. "Entered means eat more."

Shi Po pushed a bowl toward him. "Pillar training. Tomorrow morning."

"Uncle Shao said to find you."

"Find me. Before first light, in front of the Mountain Gate."

"How long do I stand?"

"Until your legs shake."

Du Xiaochuan pushed his wood halfway into the firebox and looked up. "Qi Condensation First Layer—what can you do?"

"Stand in pillar training," A He said.

"Besides that."

"You can settle qi in your dantian." A He pressed a hand to his belly. "Here. It stays and doesn't scatter."

Du Xiaochuan pressed his own stomach, said nothing, and pushed the wood in the rest of the way.

Cheng Banshan came over from the Medicine Hall and stopped on the threshold, one hand braced against the doorframe.

The kitchen went quiet.

He walked in, crouched down in front of A He, and lifted the boy's wrist with one hand, his thumb pressing on the pulse. He held it for a while, looked up at A He's face, then back down at the pulse.

"The qi doesn't scatter." He released the wrist and stood.

Then he turned toward the counter and looked at Xu Yan.

Xu Yan stood in the shadows by the door, not yet seated.

Cheng Banshan looked at him for a long moment. The corner of his mouth twitched.

"You too..."

The rest never came out. He let the hand drop, tucked at the empty sleeve on the other side, and turned to go back to the Medicine Hall.

Qian Duoduo stood there dumbfounded. "Too what?"

No one answered. Only the pot still sounded in the kitchen. Xu Yan walked to the counter, sat down, and picked up his bowl.

Jiang Wan came over from the East Courtyard and asked A He first thing at the door: "Entered?"

"Entered." A He stood up, then sat back down.

"Guard it." Jiang Wan said. "Someone who enters and can't hold it is more trouble than someone who never entered at all."

She ladled half a bowl of porridge, ate it standing by the stove, and returned to the East Courtyard.

The meal was loud. A He told the story three times—how Shao Ming had felt his wrist, how the qi had settled into the dantian. By the third telling, Qian Duoduo was just adding more to his bowl, nearly to the brim. Shi Po finished first and left, going to stand in front of the Mountain Gate. A Sui gathered the bowls and took them to the ditch to wash them. She said nothing the whole way.

Near the end of Dragon hour, no one stood before the Ancestral Hall.

A Sui came back alone. She stood below the stone steps, opened her hands, and drew a deep breath. The air entered through her nose, reached her chest, and scattered.

She breathed in again. This time she pushed downward with everything she had, but it faded above her navel.

The third time she sat down to breathe, fingers loose, shoulders level, doing exactly as Shao Ming had said: just breathe, don't think about where it's gone. She breathed until sweat stood on her forehead, and still it wouldn't settle.

She opened her eyes and turned her hands over. Nothing in her palms.

Afraid she'd gotten the words wrong, she recited the formula silently from the beginning. Not a single phrase missing. Uncle Shao had said: knowing the words by heart doesn't do the work.

From inside her clothes she pulled out the little cloth pouch. It was crumpled. She undid it and looked. Empty—the stitches at the bottom crooked. On Double Ninth, the spirit stone inside had gone onto the pile of rank silver, and the pouch had been empty ever since.

She pinched the mouth of it shut and held it in her fist.

The Ancestral Hall's door stood open. Inside, the lamp before the ancestral tablets still burned. The broom by the Mountain Gate had gone quiet.

The brick ground sounded.

Shao Ming came over from the Mountain Gate, sat down beside her at the stone steps. The straw mat was still under his arm.

A Sui shifted over, drawing the pouch back into her palm.

Shao Ming didn't look at her. He was looking at the door of the Ancestral Hall.

"You are not the slow one."