My Sect Is Down to Seven People

Chapter 83: Frost Bone Grass

On October 30, the wind picked up at the market.

The pot lid came off and the white steam surged up, only to be torn apart by the wind and driven under the tiled eaves to the west. The stall still stood beneath the third pillar along the wall, but half the crowd from early October was gone. Back then, rogue cultivators had lined up, the people in front not even setting their bowls down before the ones behind were craning their necks to count what was left in the pot. Today, by late morning, half a pot still remained. Qian Duoduo banked the fire, lifting the lid every so often to let the heat drift out.

The last bowl sold as the sun hung low in the west. The buyer was a carpenter from town, who squatted by the pillar cradling the bowl and said this year had turned cold early; a bowl of this would steady his hands for planing boards. Qian Duoduo gave him an extra half-ladle of broth. "Come earlier next time. Late, and there's nothing but soup."

The carpenter finished, returned the bowl, laid two spirit stones on the board, and after two steps turned back to peer at the pot. "Will you have this tomorrow?"

"The fifth," Qian Duoduo said. "Every fifth and tenth."

"Then I'll wait five days." The carpenter tucked his hands into his sleeves and left.

A He squatted by the stall collecting bowls, stacking them one by one into the wooden basin. The breath he drew in now settled below his navel, and he could carry a pot of spirit stew from the kitchen to the market without stopping midway. He told Qian Duoduo, "I don't get tired hauling this anymore."

Qian Duoduo was counting copper coins, head down. "Wait till I'm done counting before you talk about tired. If I miss a single coin, you can haul for free all month."

A Sui washed bowls at the ditch. The water was so cold it bit; she spun each bowl once through the water, fished it out, and rinsed again. Qian Duoduo called from behind, "Rinse them twice more," so she did, then pressed her hands against her skirt. The backs of her hands shone with cold. She stacked the bowls and counted—nineteen—then looked up. "Qian Duoduo, one's missing."

"The chipped one. It's been in the kitchen since last month." He said, "You keep better track than the Accounts Room."

Shi Po had come down the mountain to haul rice. At closing, he stacked the three empty baskets, then went to the grain shop to replace the two pots of spirit rice used that market day: ten spirit stones. Then November's rations: two sacks of spirit rice and one of coarse grain, fifty stones. The shop hand measured out the rice with a dipper and tied each sack, then looked up at him. "Carrying this alone?"

"I can manage it," Shi Po said.

A He ran over and grabbed the lightest sack, took five or six steps with it, then his waist gave and his legs wouldn't move. Shi Po didn't laugh. He lifted the sack from the boy's arms onto his own load, knotted the rope across his chest, and when he stood, his knee cracked once, but he didn't sway. The shop hand watched, then turned and said something to the man behind the counter.

They got back to the Mountain Gate at dusk. Shi Po set the three sacks down by the kitchen door. A layer of white frost covered them; his hand wiped a clean streak across one. In the courtyard, Jiang Wan sat with her sword laid across her knees. She tilted her chin at him. "One sack too many."

"Rations," Xu Yan said, coming down the steps from the Main Hall. "For November."

At the Dog hour, the Accounts Room lamp was lit. Qian Duoduo tipped the copper coins into the cash box—eighty, thirty—and counted twice before speaking. "Two pots, eighty stones. Ten bottles, thirty. The spirit rice came to ten, rations fifty."

Xu Yan wrote each entry into the daily ledger, finishing with the balance on hand: 915 spirit stones. He set the brush on the inkstone and asked, "What time did the last bowl sell today?"

"Sun's already slanting." Qian Duoduo squatted on the threshold and pushed up his sleeves. "Winter's here; the rogue cultivators have all crawled back to their holes. One pot, twenty bowls. Early October, we were packed up before Horse hour. Today I stood there till the afternoon and no one even asked. One pot's enough."

Xu Yan didn't answer right away. He flipped back two pages in the ledger. All through October, two pots had sold out before Horse hour. He turned back to today's entry: income still eighty, but it had taken until the sun hung low.

"One fewer pot means thirty-five less income per market day," he said.

"It sold out today, yes, but there's no telling next market." Qian Duoduo counted on his fingers. "One pot of spirit rice costs five stones, plus half a day of tending the fire. Wind picks up and that bit of heat can't hold—stew goes cold, cultivators sniff it, and put it down. The first pot sells hot, the second sits cold. Ruins the first pot's reputation along with it."

"From November on, one pot per market. Ten bottles of Qi-Gathering Powder as before."

"Should've been set this way long ago." Qian Duoduo stood and brushed his knees. "Making an extra pot that doesn't sell means it's spoiled by the next day. What spoils isn't spirit rice. It's money."

At the courtyard door, he turned back. "Those two stoves—I only need to rise once at the Yin hour. The time saved I'll spend keeping an eye on the medicine furnace for you."

Xu Yan acknowledged, then added a line beneath the ledger: October 30, from November, one pot per market.

Three days passed.

On the evening of November 3, the lamp in the Medicine Hall was lit. The new window paper from September bulged and caved with each gust, its surface marked with several lines that Cheng Banshan himself had scored—no one could tell what they meant. The clay pot sat on the small stove, a fine white vapor seeping from under the lid, the scent of medicine threading out through the crack in the door and fading by the time it reached the courtyard. Cheng Banshan crouched before the stove, one hand working the furnace hook to pull the ash aside, baring a red glow underneath. His empty sleeve was tucked into his sash, tight.

Shao Ming came over from the West Wing and stood at the Medicine Hall door without going in.

"Another quarter-hour," Cheng Banshan said, without turning.

Shao Ming acknowledged and waited outside the threshold, standing straight, feet unmoving.

When Xu Yan arrived, the lamp flame inside the hall swayed with the wind, then righted itself. He stopped by the door. "It's freezing. Last time you said wait till it froze."

"I meant the charcoal." Cheng Banshan hung the hook at his waist, lifted the lid with his one hand to glance inside, then covered it again. "Today we aren't talking about charcoal."

He took the clay pot off the stove, strained the decoction through cloth into a bowl with one hand, only half a bowl, the dregs remaining at the bottom of the pot.

"Shao Ming, come in."

Shao Ming stepped inside. Cheng Banshan held out the bowl, but didn't let go. He spoke first:

"This poison has been sitting in your dantian for over twenty years. I've been suppressing it for more than two months. In all that time, I've only adjusted one ingredient at a time. Every night, which part hurt—I asked Xiaochuan about it the next day. Now I know where it nests, which way it hides, when it rises."

Shao Ming's hand stopped in midair.

"It nests along the path where your qi scatters." Cheng Banshan said, "When you try to break through, your qi disperses toward both sides under the ribs, and the poison follows that channel, creeping an inch deeper. That's why I stopped you in August. Then I didn't even know where it hid. All I could do was block you."

A piece of firewood collapsed in the stove and the flames dropped a notch. He pressed the bowl into Shao Ming's hand, bent down to add another branch, and the fire slowly climbed back up.

"In August, young Xu asked me. I said there was no main medicine. I wasn't hiding anything. There truly wasn't." He straightened and looked up. "Now there is. One ingredient only. Frost Bone Grass."

Shao Ming held the bowl without drinking.

"The north slope of Back Mountain, the shaded side. It doesn't emerge until the first snow falls, then it's gone in a dozen days or so. Dig it up with the root whole; snapped root hairs don't count." Cheng Banshan hung the hook back on his waist. "Can't buy it in town. Huichun Hall doesn't have it, and Linchuan might not either. It isn't a matter of money."

"When?" Shao Ming asked.

"Wait for snow. Once it falls, I'll go up and look."

The hall went quiet for a spell. The embers lit one side of Cheng Banshan's face. His empty sleeve lay flat and neat, not letting in the slightest draft.

"Tell me before you go up," Shao Ming said.

"I'm steadier on my feet than you." Cheng Banshan said. "Keep a hold on your qi. Don't have the grass ready and the man ruined."

Xu Yan spoke. "What fire does it take to brew?"

"Charcoal."

"Not wood?"

"Wood fires surge and fall." Cheng Banshan said. "The moment my back turns, it's down. Brewing this furnace takes seven days and seven nights without a break in the fire. One pause and the whole batch is wasted. Charcoal burns straight through, even."

"How much?"

"Two loads." Cheng Banshan held out his one hand, palm down. "A load and a half for the brew, half a load against a fire dying. No one can calculate which night the wind will be strong."

Xu Yan tallied in his head: charcoal in town ran about ten stones a load, twenty for two; nine hundred fifteen on the books, with fifty set aside for December rations—affordable. Anything affordable wasn't the problem. The problem was the grass. The grass wasn't in the ledger.

Shao Ming raised the bowl and drank, sip by sip. The decoction was still hot; he paused between swallows, his Adam's apple moving with each one. At the bottom, a black ring lined the rim. He wiped it with his finger, put that in his mouth too, then set the empty bowl on the table. "Slow doesn't matter."

Cheng Banshan took the bowl back and set it down. "The grass hasn't even sprouted. What are you so pleased about."

"I'm not rushing you." Shao Ming said. "I've waited twenty years. One more winter's nothing."

Cheng Banshan didn't answer. He returned the clay pot to the stove, added half a ladle of water, lowered the flame, and let it murmur.

Du Xiaochuan came in from the veranda carrying an old clay basin, crouched by the stove, and began gathering the dregs. Cheng Banshan didn't turn around. "Don't throw those out. Spread them to dry. Under the west wall of the kitchen—that spot's dry."

"Why dry them?" Du Xiaochuan asked.

"Ask a smarter question and I'll tell you."

"When do we start the furnace?" Xu Yan asked.

"Once the grass is in hand and the charcoal's bought, then we can talk about the rest." Cheng Banshan said. "Talk now, it's all empty."

"I'll go buy charcoal tomorrow," Xu Yan said.

A voice joined from the courtyard: "Wharf."

Qi Qi leaned halfway in the door, a firewood-carrying rope over his shoulder. "The charcoal boats dock every few days. People in town say one's due tomorrow."

"You've been?" Cheng Banshan asked.

"I've been to the wharf." Qi Qi said. "The boats come up the Luoxia River, unload only after they dock—unload a load, weigh it, the next load after. The porters line up along the stone steps. The charcoal carriers aren't at the same end as the salt carriers."

"Then you go," Xu Yan said.

"I'll go." Qi Qi answered quickly, then asked, "What about baskets?"

"There are two old baskets behind the kitchen, pole's there too." Xu Yan said. "Leave at Horse hour tomorrow. Two baskets, and bring a reed mat. Stack the charcoal under the back wall of the Medicine Hall—"

"—and don't let the snowmelt soak it." Cheng Banshan finished. "Shield it on three sides, cover the top tight. Once this stuff draws damp, it throws nothing but smoke. The fire burns weak. Then the medicine's ruined."

Xu Yan nodded and noted it down.

Afterward he returned to the Accounts Room, turned the lamp brighter, opened the ledger, and paged back—back to August 17.

That line was written in his own hand: Asked Elder Cheng: old poison in Shao Ming's dantian, suppressible, not curable. Main medicine, none.

He did not strike it out.

Below it he began a new line: November 3, main medicine, Frost Bone Grass, awaiting snow.

When he set the brush down, the ink hadn't dried. He had written this line very slowly.