My Sect Is Down to Seven People

Chapter 93: The Poison Is Cleared

Tenth day of the Twelfth Month, Dragon hour.

The square table from the Main Hall had been moved to the center of the room, its top covered with a washed-out old cloth, the four corners folded over the edges. The lamp at the table's corner was burning, though daylight couldn't brighten the room. The flame stood perfectly straight, throwing a patch's shadow across the cloth.

Everyone was there. Jiang Wan stood by the threshold, the snow in the courtyard at her back. Qian Duoduo had rolled his apron up two folds and stood farthest out, A He and A Sui pressed against his legs. Huo Qing leaned against a veranda pillar, both hands tucked into his sleeves. Bai Xiaoman and Du Xiaochuan stood beneath the west window. Qi Qi crouched on the windowsill, tapping his heels against the wall. Shi Po stood against the back wall, shoulders braced.

Shao Ming sat on the stool before the table, sleeves rolled to his elbows, both hands resting on the cloth. At Mao hour he had already gone to the Medicine Hall to receive the final dose, swallowing it with warm water while Cheng Banshan watched until he set the bowl down.

Cheng Banshan stood beside him, his empty sleeve tucked into his belt.

"Raise a breath."

"To where."

"To where you usually do. Not too much."

Shao Ming's shoulders shifted, his chest slowly rising until it stopped at the halfway point. The room was quiet enough to hear that breath moving against the tablecloth.

Cheng Banshan pressed three fingers to his left wrist. He held for half an incense stick, then moved to the right wrist and pressed again. When he finished, he withdrew his hand, then pressed it down—three inches above Shao Ming's navel.

This time, Shao Ming's body did not curl forward.

Cheng Banshan's hand stayed there, motionless. Jiang Wan took two steps in from the threshold. Qian Duoduo's hand, gripping the apron hem, clenched into a ball. Qi Qi's heels went still.

"Can you feel it," Cheng Banshan asked.

"I can."

"Where is it going."

Shao Ming sat with his eyes half shut, and only after a long pause answered: "Upward."

Cheng Banshan withdrew his hand and let it hang at his side, wiping his fingers once against the seam of his trousers.

"The poison is cleared," he said. "The year was given to the poison. Now that it's cleared, anything that disperses is only qi, not poison. The ban ends today."

No one in the room spoke. A Sui squeezed out from beside Qian Duoduo's leg, tilted her head up at Cheng Banshan, then looked over at Shao Ming. Qian Duoduo let out a breath, remembering halfway through to shut his mouth. Bai Xiaoman's hand grabbed at the windowsill and found nothing.

Outside the threshold, Xu Yan turned that sentence over in his mind: banned on the seventeenth day of the Eighth Month—less than four months ago.

"Inside your dantian—does it feel empty right now," Cheng Banshan asked.

"A little."

"Good that it's empty." He lowered his hand. "Only when it's empty is it truly yours."

He unfastened the celadon bottle from his waist, thumbed out the stopper, and tipped the mouth downward over the table, giving it a shake. Nothing fell out. Still empty. He set the bottle on the table.

"Empty."

Shao Ming reached over and took the bottle, weighing it in his hand.

"This one's mine."

"Why keep the bottle."

"Keeping it."

Cheng Banshan looked at him but said nothing more, smoothing the old cloth flat against the table's edge.

Jiang Wan spoke: "When."

Shao Ming didn't answer right away. He raised his eyes toward the threshold. Xu Yan had been standing there the whole time, not entering, hands hanging at his sides.

"You set the day," Xu Yan said.

"Day after tomorrow, Dragon hour," Shao Ming said. "In front of the Ancestral Hall."

"Why there," Cheng Banshan asked.

"Before the ancestral tablets."

Cheng Banshan grunted, pulled his empty sleeve free of his belt, and shook it out twice.

"Day after tomorrow, Dragon hour. Protectors decided tomorrow." He turned toward the door, then stopped at the threshold. "No raising qi today. Sit. Rest."

Before Snake hour, the pot from the Kitchen was already on Qian Duoduo's shoulder. The stew had been made at Monkey hour the day before, yet after ten li of mountain road it was still warm. Shi Po carried ten bottles of Qi-Gathering Powder, A He carried the water bucket, and A Sui held the hemp rope strung through the bowls. The four of them reached the Town Gate as the sun was already climbing over the tile eaves.

Under the third pillar along the market wall, beneath the stretch of old roof tiles, by the time the stall was set up there were already people crouching at the base of the wall waiting.

About halfway through selling, a rogue cultivator circled over with his bowl: "That Shao Ming up on your mountain—is he making the attempt again this time?"

Qian Duoduo was scraping the bottom of the pot with a wooden ladle and didn't look up: "Yes. Day after tomorrow, Dragon hour, in front of the Ancestral Hall."

The man let out an "oh" and grinned: "Again? What attempt is that, anyway."

"Ten," said another man from town, crouched at the wall base. "First time I heard people betting on his attempts, I was still running errands for a living."

Qian Duoduo handed over a bowl and added: "This time's different. The poison's cleared. Today at Dragon hour, Elder Cheng took his pulse in front of everyone."

A He tugged at the hem of his jacket from behind.

Qian Duoduo caught himself mid-sentence, swallowed the rest of it, and glanced back at A He. A He shook his head.

The rogue cultivator hadn't left, his eyes brightening: "The poison's cleared? Then it really is different." He pulled two spirit stones from his sleeve and flipped them in his palm. "I'll go up and see."

Market Chief Lu Shoutian walked past the stall with his hands behind his back, glancing at the pot resting by the roadside: "Move the pot half a foot inward. People need to pass."

Qian Duoduo hurriedly bent to shift the pot.

Lu Shoutian walked two steps, then looked back: "Someone just said that man from your mountain makes his breakthrough attempt the day after tomorrow."

"I heard it," said Lu Shoutian. "The whole market heard it." He continued on with his hands behind his back.

By afternoon, people came to the stall one after another with questions. Some asked if the poison was truly cleared, some asked where exactly the Ancestral Hall was on the mountain, some asked which path to take up. The ten bottles of Qi-Gathering Powder sold out, and the pot was scraped clean.

Qian Duoduo set down the ladle, sat on the stone behind the stall, and wiped his face with his apron. Shi Po packed the empty bottles one by one back into the wooden box without looking up.

"The words are out," he said.

"I know."

"They can't be taken back."

Qian Duoduo didn't answer. He scraped the last half-ladle into the bowl A Sui was holding out.

Back on the mountain at You hour, the wooden box was carried into the Accounts Room. Xu Yan recorded the day: Income sixty-five, balance thirteen hundred sixty-five. After writing, he started a new line: Tenth of the Twelfth Month, poison cleared, ban ends today.

Qian Duoduo stood in the doorway, not leaving.

"Sect Master, I let something slip."

"What slipped."

Qian Duoduo repeated the two lines from the market exactly as they'd happened, then lowered his head.

Xu Yan set the brush on the inkstone to dry slowly.

"When the town asks, you answered; when it concerns the mountain, you answered for the mountain," he said. "A day earlier or later, the market would have found out anyway. Next time someone asks, say first that 'the mountain is nurturing someone.' Don't report his day for him."

"What if they really come the day after tomorrow."

"If they come, let them into the Front Courtyard. They stand under the east eaves, and they don't pass the Main Hall." Xu Yan closed the ledger. "Qian Duoduo leads them. Shi Po backs him. Anyone who tries to push through, stop them—if you can't, call me."

"Let them watch?"

"Watch. Those who can't see are the ones who start guessing."

On the eleventh, Dragon hour, the snow before the Ancestral Hall had been swept clear.

Shi Po began before dawn, sweeping from the back door of the Main Hall to the stone steps of the Ancestral Hall. At the bottom step he stopped, piling the snow into two walls on either side. A thin layer of ice coated the cleared ground. He fetched a basket of stove ash from the Kitchen and sprinkled it handful by handful where the prayer cushion would go, spreading it evenly.

The prayer cushion had been brought out from inside the Ancestral Hall. He patted it with both hands, set it down directly facing the door, then crouched to check if it sat straight.

A Sui came running from the West Wing, hugging something in the front of her robe. She reached him and spread it out—an old felt mat, the edges pilled from wear. "Put this underneath," she said. "The ground's cold. He'll be sitting all day."

Cheng Banshan came over from the Medicine Hall, examined the felt mat, then considered the thickness of the cushion: "Put it down. But not too thick—he won't sit steady."

A Sui smoothed the felt flat, and Shi Po pressed the cushion on top, tugging the corners even.

Cheng Banshan walked to the stone steps and looked up at the door of the Ancestral Hall, then to both sides: "Tomorrow I sit here." He lifted his chin toward the right step.

"Then I'll take the left," Jiang Wan said.

"Bring your sword."

"I will."

"Just don't move."

Bai Xiaoman leaned close to Xu Yan, voice low: "I'll bury five pebbles in a circle before the steps."

"No need," Xu Yan said. "I'm the one letting people in."

"Those you let in can still wander."

"Then watch them wander," Xu Yan said. "The Front Courtyard and the Main Hall are separated by one gate. Tomorrow that gate stays open, but no one passes it."

Bai Xiaoman looked like she wanted to say more, swallowed it, and crouched down to help tuck one corner of the felt under the prayer cushion.

Shao Ming arrived last. He came out from the West Wing, walking slowly, and stopped before the prayer cushion in front of the Ancestral Hall.

"Who laid this out."

"Shi Po. The felt is A Sui's," Qian Duoduo said.

Shao Ming crouched, lifted the cushion to examine its base, set it back, and shifted it half an inch until its center lined up with the door.

"Tomorrow when you sit and the qi moves upward," Cheng Banshan said from the steps, "when it reaches three inches above your navel—don't push it."

"I won't."

"And don't stop and wait for it there. If it moves on its own, let it. If it scatters to the sides, draw it back in."

"What if it scatters anyway."

"If it scatters, wait for the next time." Cheng Banshan rested his hand on his knee. "No testing today."

"I won't."

"Sit. Rest—same as before."

At Monkey hour, Qi Qi returned from town, snow still dusting his hat. Walking in, he slapped his hands against the doorframe first to shake off the chill.

"Three people from Linchuan are staying at the Luoxia Inn. They say they've come for the market, but their luggage includes something for sitting on."

"Who sits," Qian Duoduo asked.

"A felt mat. And a jug of wine." Qi Qi added: "They've opened betting at the wine shop again. Wagering on whether he makes it this time."

The Main Hall went quiet.

Shao Ming sat on the long bench, hands resting on his knees. After a while, he asked: "How much are they betting."

"Two," Qi Qi said.

Shao Ming said nothing more.

Xu Yan folded the page in his hand and pressed it into the ledger: "When they come up tomorrow, Qian Duoduo receives them at the Mountain Gate and brings them under the east eaves of the Front Courtyard. Keep the front and back doors of the Main Hall open so they can see the Ancestral Hall."

He looked at Shao Ming: "Just sit. Don't speak, and don't look at them."

Shao Ming stood, walked out of the Main Hall, and continued all the way to the Ancestral Hall, stopping beside the prayer cushion.

The cleared ground was dry, and the felt mat had settled soft beneath the cushion. He reached into his robe and felt around—the empty bottle was still there.

The footprints he'd just made pressed into the ash, one line leading to the cushion, and stopped.