My Sect Is Down to Seven People

Chapter 9: A Table at the Town Gate

The folding table always stood behind the door, against the wall. One leg was half an inch short, propped up year-round with a broken tile shard. Xu Yan pulled the shard out, replaced it with a whittled wood chip, and pressed each leg against the blue brick floor one by one until nothing wobbled. Then he bound the legs together with hemp rope.

The cash box at the bottom of the cabinet was still tied shut with hemp rope. He untied it and poured the silver from the old cloth into his palm. Four taels. He tucked one into his chest, wrapped the remaining three back in the cloth, and tied the rope back in a dead knot. The salt in the kitchen had run out, the lamps needed oil, and he'd pick those up on the way back.

The wooden sign had been written the night before. Planed pine board, rough edges drinking ink, each stroke bleeding out a halo. By the time he reached the character for "recruit," the ink was nearly dry, so he thinned it with two drops of water. The bottom half came out lighter than the top; held up to the lamp, the pale strokes looked like a penciled draft.

The sky wasn't fully light yet. Clouds hung low, and a layer of damp covered the stone steps. Each step his shoes took made a sound.

Outside the east courtyard wall, there was noise from the sword training ground. Not the whistle of a blade cutting air, but the rasp of whetstone against steel. Jiang Wan crouched at the base of the wall, a whetstone pressed to the sword's edge. Her hand pushed out, drew back; water ran down the blade onto the stone.

"It's windy at the town gate." She didn't look up. "Put a rock on your sign."

"Mm."

"If a rock won't hold it, hold it in your arms."

Xu Yan stood and watched the whetstone complete another pass. "I'm heading down the mountain."

The whetstone paused, then slid again.

The kitchen fire was already going. Qian Duoduo wrapped two flatbreads in oiled paper and stuffed them into Xu Yan's chest. The bread was hot, even through the paper. Then he fished a small string of copper coins from his apron pocket, grabbed Xu Yan's hand, and slapped them into his palm.

"Tea in town is two wen a bowl. Don't stand at someone's doorway drinking plain water."

"Whose account?"

"The mountain's." Qian Duoduo corrected himself. "My kitchen's."

"Under the silver column."

"Put it under whatever column you want." Qian Duoduo wiped his hands on his apron. "Just don't come back with an empty stomach."

The mountain gate stood open. Nie Bo was sweeping, pushing the broom from this side of the threshold to that, water stains spreading across the blue brick.

"I'm heading down the mountain," Xu Yan said.

The broom didn't stop. Push out, pull back, rasping. Xu Yan walked past without looking back.

The mountain path sloped downward all the way. He carried the folding table on his back, its legs digging into his shoulder blades; every half hour he had to shift it to the other shoulder. Clouds split open, and sunlight spilled through the gap onto the Luoxia River, brightening a stretch of its surface.

By the time he reached the town gate, the sun had climbed to the treetops. There was a broken boundary stone at the gate, its carved words worn smooth by feet and hands. Beside it stood an old pagoda tree, and beneath the tree sat three low stools under an oilcloth canopy. A kettle on the stove was already muttering, and a small pot squatted beside the fire with its lid askew. Old Tao's tea stall.

Xu Yan set up his table outside the pagoda tree's reach. He buried the wooden sign two fingers deep in the dirt, stepped back to check it, found it crooked, straightened it. He unfolded the table and wiped down its surface. The weather wasn't cold, but he still tucked in the front of his robe when he sat.

There was decent foot traffic through the town gate. Woodcutters came down from the mountain, carrying poles bowing under the weight. A peddler out early hauled two boxes draped in blue cloth. A man led a mule with two sacks of grain on its back.

No one stopped at his table.

He counted. By the time the sun stood directly overhead, he'd counted forty-some people through the gate. Ten or so glanced at the sign. Three stopped to ask questions. The question was "Qingya?" He said "Yes," and they moved on.

He sat, then moved the sign into the tree's shadow. The sun moved faster than people; after a while he moved it again.

An old woman walked past carrying mushrooms in a basket, pine needles still stuck to them. She stopped in front of the sign and read it top to bottom.

"Qingya?" She hitched the basket higher. "Still not disbanded?"

"Not yet."

"I had kin on my mother's side who worked up on that mountain." she said. "Heard long ago it was going east."

She walked on, stumbled, and two mushrooms tumbled from her basket. Xu Yan stood up, picked them up, and caught up to hand them back. She turned, accepted them, said thanks, and went on her way with the basket swinging.

A half-grown boy came down from the mountain with a bundle of firewood wider than his shoulders and stopped in front of the table.

"Recruiting?"

"Yes."

"Do you feed people?"

"Yes. Three meals a day on the mountain."

The boy studied the sign for a while, hitched the firewood higher on his back, and said, "My ma says Qingya's dissolving." Then he left, walking fast, the firewood bumping behind him.

Old Tao came over carrying a pot of tea and poured a bowlful into the empty bowl on Xu Yan's table. Then he headed back with the pot.

"Setting up like this won't work."

"Why not?"

"Every six-year-old in town gets sent for Spirit Testing every year." Old Tao set the pot back by the stove and draped his rag over his shoulder. "Those who test positive, the east side comes to collect them. Rice, cloth, spirit stones—every item accounted for. Those who don't—" He straightened a low stool by the stove. "No family keeps raising them as cultivators."

"Those who test negative, I'll take too."

Old Tao glanced at him, didn't respond to that, and went back to straightening another stool.

The sun climbed higher. The pagoda tree's shadow shrank into a tight circle, no longer covering the table. Xu Yan pulled the sign out of the dirt, moved half a foot toward the canopy, reburied it, and tamped the soil twice.

At noon he ate the flatbread. It was still warm, the oiled paper marked with two yellow streaks—pickled vegetables. Old Tao came over with the pot and filled the bowl on his table again.

Xu Yan counted out six wen and tucked them under the bowl. When Old Tao picked up the bowl, he saw the coins. "You drank tea and you're paying?"

"Your water's boiled with firewood," Xu Yan said. "Three bowls. There's still one coming."

Old Tao tapped the spout against the bowl's rim, pocketed the six wen in his apron, and went back to add two sticks to the fire.

The bowl was taken away. The boundary stone baked pale in the sun. No one came through the gate. Old Tao lifted the lid of his small pot, and steam surged up, carrying the smell of salted broth past the pagoda tree. Xu Yan stood, walked over, and counted out fourteen wen. "A bowl of noodles."

Old Tao took the money and threw a handful of noodles into the pot. "Salted-vegetable broth. I won't charge extra."

"Charge."

"The pickled vegetables are my wife's. Not for sale."

The noodles arrived beside the sign. He ate with his head down, and when he finished, he drank the broth at the bottom of the bowl too.

A full stomach makes a man want to sit still. He straightened the sign. It was already straight, but he straightened it anyway. There was nothing on the tabletop, and his two hands had nowhere to rest, so they settled back on his knees.

The man in the old long gown arrived before the afternoon hour of the Monkey. The gown was washed pale, his cloth shoes caked with mud, a rough cloth pouch hanging at his waist. He stopped in front of the table.

"A Qingya sign."

"Yes."

"What rank?"

"Ninth Rank."

The man laughed. "A Ninth Rank sect recruiting. Recruiting for what?"

"Cultivation."

"Cultivation needs spirit stones." He patted the pouch at his waist. "How many years has your mountain gate been mortgaged to the Branch?"

"Twenty years."

The man's laugh died. He looked at Xu Yan for a while, then let his hand fall from the pouch. "You remember clearly."

"The pledge slip is in my Accounts Room."

He nodded and walked on.

A young man came out of town with a jacket slung over one shoulder. He stopped at the table and read the sign.

"What's the price?"

"No money involved," Xu Yan said. "I'm recruiting people."

The young man switched his jacket to the other shoulder. "Qingya Sect." He read the name aloud. "Qingya Sect's still around?"

"It is."

"I thought it was some newly opened shop."

He headed off toward the market.

On the tabletop, old ink stains in the wood grain showed faintly. Xu Yan pressed a finger to the surface and ran through the numbers again: ten names needed for the roster, had one, short nine. There were still three on the mountain he could ask—Qian Duoduo said he'd think about it, A He had raised his own name, and A Sui could barely write hers, but she counted. Six more. They'd have to come from in front of this table.

Before the Monkey hour, Old Tao came over again with the pot and filled the third bowl. Then he took the pot and left.

The sun angled westward, and the road thinned out. A woman came out of town holding a child, the child asleep on her shoulder with its face squashed flat. She passed the table, slowed for a step, her eyes resting on the sign, then noticed the only person behind the table was a young man in worn clothes. She lowered her head, hitched the child higher, and left.

By the Monkey hour, the sun pressed down on the pagoda tree's crown, the light slanting in and yellowing the sign.

An old man came over leaning on a wooden staff. He stopped at the table and looked at the sign, then at Xu Yan.

"Recruits need to read, don't they?"

"Not necessarily." Xu Yan said. "The roster requires writing. If you can't write, you trace it."

The old man thought it over. "My grandson can't read." He thought again. "Our family has no Spirit Root."

He left, leaning on his staff.

By the Monkey hour's end, the gate was nearly empty. Xu Yan drank the last cold mouthful of tea from the bowl, stood, and first pulled up the sign. He shook the dirt off, threaded a hemp rope through the two holes in its back, and slung it over one shoulder. He wiped down the table, folded the legs together, and bound it with the rope in its original knot.

Old Tao was packing up too. He stacked the low stools, collected the bowls into a wooden basin, and dumped the water into the ditch with one long splash.

"Anyone?" Old Tao asked.

"No."

"One day."

"One day."

Old Tao set the basin on a stool, picked up the top bowl, and wiped the tea stain from its base with his rag. "Market's on tomorrow." He set the bowl back. "Chixiao'll be recruiting too."

Xu Yan shifted the table on his back. "Where do they set up?"

"The Market Entrance." Old Tao said. "People claim their spots before dawn. My stools won't be here tomorrow either."

Xu Yan walked into town with the table on his back, down half a street. The grain shop's door was still half open, salt sacks and oil jars laid out above the rice and flour. He bought a packet of salt and three pots of lamp oil. The packet of paper beneath the counter had arrived last month and gone unsold, so the shopkeeper pushed it over too, and Xu Yan added half an ink stick. He handed over the tael. Exact amount. No change.

The road back was uphill. Ten li of mountain path, an hour's walk. Salt and oil against his chest, table and sign on his back. His shadow fell on the rocks ahead, long one step, short the next.

He reached the mountain gate before dark. The Medicine Hall's doorway leaked herbal smells; smoke rose from the kitchen chimney. He drank two mouthfuls of water at the well platform and headed for the Accounts Room. Passing the east courtyard, he heard the sound of sword strokes splitting air—one, then a pause, then another. As he reached the base of the wall, the sound stopped briefly, waited for him to pass, then resumed.

"Sect Master." Qian Duoduo poked his head out of the kitchen, the door curtain draped over his arm. "Find anyone?"

"No."

Xu Yan set the salt and oil down on the kitchen threshold one by one. Qian Duoduo crouched, picked up the salt packet and squeezed it, then eyeballed it against the salt jar.

"That'll do," he said. "Enough till month's end." He lifted the three oil pots, put two on the high shelf by the stove, and kept one at hand. "The kitchen lamp's got light now."

"Tomorrow's rations—"

"Already on the griddle." Qian Duoduo lowered the curtain halfway, then lifted it again. "Dry-baked. They'll keep."

He lit a lamp in the Accounts Room. He dissolved the new half ink stick in the inkstone; two turns and the water ran black. He opened the Qingya Sect daily ledger.

Under the "Expenditure" column he added a line: Copper coins, twenty wen—tea three bowls, six wen; noodles one bowl, fourteen wen.

When he'd finished, he noted the twenty wen separately in the margin, drew a circle around it, and wrote beside it: Less than one liang, saved for now.

Below that, another line: Silver one liang—salt one packet, lamp oil three pots, paper one packet, ink half stick. One liang was one liang. He didn't shift it elsewhere under another label.

Under "Income": nothing today.

Under "Balance": twenty-three spirit stones untouched; silver now three liang.

Under "Debt," as before: 2,100 spirit stones, due on the ninth day of the ninth month.

On a new line he wrote: Sixth month, fourth day. Town gate. Recruitment.

The brush stopped on the last character. He thought for a moment, then added after it: Zero.

He pulled out the thin account book from beneath the cabinet and flipped through it. The roster page still held one name, the rest mostly blank. The book made no sound. He closed it, put it back, and pressed his palm against its cover.

Returning to the ledger, he wrote smaller characters beneath that line: Leave for town half an hour earlier tomorrow.

He calculated: move before first light, an hour to town, claim a spot at the Market Entrance. Enough time.

The wooden sign stood behind the door, facing out. He brought a stone from the courtyard and set it against the sign's base, then stepped back to check. It didn't lean. The folding table stood beside it, still bound with rope, not yet untied.

The lamp wick burned low, the flame clinging to the wick, lighting the table leg that was half an inch short.

Tomorrow at the market, the east side would have a platform too.

He reached out and nudged the sign inward until it rested against the wall.