Chapter 101: A Hand in the Office

The threshold of the Branch office was higher than the one at the Qingya Ancestral Hall. A Sui didn't lift her foot high enough when she stepped over it; her toe caught on the wood and she pitched forward. A He caught her from behind, and only then did the two of them get themselves upright.

Before they went in, Xu Yan stopped them under the eaves. It was a two-street walk from the inn, and the flatbread was still pressed against their chests, uneaten, gone cold and hard. Qi Qi had run ahead to check whether the office door panels were down. He came back and said they were, and that people were inside. Xu Yan went over the instructions with A Sui once more: recite from memory, then sit down, then do breathing exercises, and not worry about anything else. Then he asked A He if he would hold out his hand. A He said he would. Xu Yan said: hold it out, and wait until they tell you to pull it back. A He nodded again. Beside him, A Sui nodded along, and the first character of the formula slipped out of her mouth. She heard it herself and quickly pressed her lips shut, jamming both hands up into her sleeves until they disappeared entirely.

Du Xiaochuan was at the back, rubbing his hands back and forth across the front of his jacket. Qi Qi clapped him on the arm, then went in first himself.

The room was already full.

Wen Su sat behind the table. A Ratings Register lay open in front of her, weighted down with a blue stone paperweight. To her left, a clerk held a book; to her right, another clerk had spread out a fresh sheet of paper, brush tip waiting in the ink, his wrist suspended in the air and refusing to descend. Three stewards stood by the window—Jade Spring Sect, Azure Brook Sect, Ink Pool Gate—all in identical gray-green robes, none of them speaking, every eye fixed on the table. Back in the Tenth Month, a boundary map had been spread out on this same table; a ring of tea stains still marked one corner, and no one had wiped it away.

Ge Song stood at the side of the table, the accusation document already spread flat. The moment his voice rose, Du Xiaochuan over by the east wall dropped his head. He'd been hearing that voice for years, and the second he heard it, he knew exactly where the next sentence was going to turn. Cao Hu stood half a step behind Ge Song, both hands hanging in front of him, eyes never lifted from the moment he'd walked in. Qi Qi was by the door, heel resting on the threshold.

"The third day of the Second Month, Snake hour." Wen Su said. "Chixiao has filed a complaint, with the three sects jointly attesting. First item. Read it."

"Sect Master Xu." Ge Song inclined his head toward Xu Yan, then his eyes returned to the paper. "First item. Qingya Registered Disciple A Sui, entered into the roster on the twenty-first day of the Eighth Month, Alliance Year 300. At the Autumn Evaluation on the ninth day of the Ninth Month that same year, the Rank Evaluator stated: eighteen days in the sect and unable to draw out qi—she does not count as nominally enrolled." He paused, raised his eyes. "It has now been five months and more."

Wen Su's hand rested on the register and did not move.

"Five months and more," Ge Song said. "Has she drawn out a single breath of qi?"

Out in the courtyard someone threw a basin of water; the sound of it splashed all the way into the cracks between the flagstones.

"Ten people on the roster." Ge Song pressed the petition down. "If she doesn't count, Qingya is left with nine. And the petition contains one further sentence: the Qingya roster does not in fact hold ten people. Nine people cannot hold the Ninth Rank. If the Autumn Evaluation this year comes out the same, then on this point Qingya—"

"Steward Ge," Wen Su said. "What is being heard today is the registration. The Autumn Evaluation is a matter for the ninth day of the Ninth Month."

Ge Song's mouth twitched, and he drew the petition slightly back toward himself. "Then on this item, I ask the Rank Evaluator to rule."

"Sect Master Xu," Wen Su said.

Xu Yan took half a step forward.

"The two of them were taught together," he said. "They paid their respects at the mountain on the same day, memorized the formula the same day, from the same sheet of yellow paper. The twenty-eighth day of the Tenth Month: the elder brother drew it out."

"The younger sister did not," Ge Song said.

"The younger sister did not," Xu Yan said.

"One counts, one doesn't. What kind of roster is that?"

"Chixiao has children who can't draw out qi either," Xu Yan said. "The roster doesn't care about that."

"Qingya's roster cannot have it."

"What your petition charges is that she cannot draw out qi," Wen Su said. "Then we will speak of drawing out qi. Leave the rest unread for now."

Ge Song pinched the corner of the page and said nothing more.

"A He," Wen Su said.

A He walked over from the wall and stopped three paces from the table. He wiped both hands on his clothes, then turned over his right hand, palm up, fingers spread, arm held straight—so straight it trembled.

Everyone in the room looked at that hand. The palm was not large. Two red marks from the back-basket rope were pressed across the base of his fingers. Holding his breath, A He's neck reddened first, the color running up to his ears. A thin layer of white mist slowly rose from his palm, hugging the lines of it, turning once in a small circle, then dissipating.

A He did not pull his hand back. He kept it extended, eyes on Wen Su. By the wall, A Sui's right hand twitched on her knee, turning over to copy her brother, then she quickly pressed it back down.

"Withdraw it," Wen Su said. "Return to where you were."

A He tucked his hand into his clothes and retreated to the wall, stopping a little farther in than before.

Brush hit paper. "Recorded: A He, Qi Condensation First Layer."

"First-layer qi—a breath of wind and it's gone," Ge Song said.

"First layer is first layer," Wen Su said. "It is in his hand. That is enough." She raised her eyes. "Which day."

"The twenty-eighth day of the Tenth Month," Xu Yan said.

"A He. I am asking you."

"The twenty-eighth day of the Tenth Month," A He said. "In front of the Ancestral Hall. Uncle Shao held my wrist and said it had entered."

"Who watches you practice."

"Uncle Shao watches every morning."

"Where does he stand."

"Below the stone steps. He sits; we stand."

Wen Su finished writing, laid the brush on the edge of the inkstone, and glanced toward the door. "A Sui."

A Sui stepped out from behind A He. After two steps her feet went wrong, and she stopped, set her feet side by side, and started again. She walked to the front of the table and lifted her face.

"A He, step back three paces," Wen Su said.

A He backed up three paces to the base of the wall. His mouth opened once, but he saw Xu Yan's eyes and shut it again. Xu Yan made no sound, only lifted his chin at him.

"Recite the formula," Wen Su said. "From beginning to end. No prompting allowed."

A Sui stood there. She pressed a hand to the front of her jacket where a piece of cloth was underneath, smoothing it flat before she raised it again. No one in the room made a sound.

"The inhale must be slow." A Sui's first sentence had no voice; the second one came out, one word at a time, walking downward. "Exhale long. Qi enters through the nose, sinks downward, down to that spot below the navel." She paused, her eyelids lifting to look at Wen Su, then lowering. "When gathering it in, go slower than the inhale—half as slow. Don't pull at it."

She finished and straightened: "Done."

"Sit. Run through the breathing once. Right here," Wen Su said.

A Sui looked back toward the door. A He stood at the base of the wall, hands plastered against his trouser seams, not moving at all. She turned around, folded her legs on the blue brick floor of the office, placed her hands on her knees, and lifted her spine.

The room went quiet. Her breath entered through her nose, slow, but halfway down her chest bulged once and then smoothed out. She knew herself it was wrong, so she let the breath out—slower than it came in, half as slow—and at the end of the exhale she did not pull. The second time was the same. The third time she dropped her shoulders and inhaled again, and the qi reached the space just below her chest and stopped. No matter how she willed it downward, it would not pass.

The brick floor was cold. Her fingers went cold first, cold into the webbing between them. There was a small sound in her throat, and she heard it herself. Her face slowly reddened, all the way to her ears.

At the base of the wall, A He put his hands behind his back and bent his fingers back one at a time, stopping at the third, eyes fixed on a crack in the brick floor, not daring to look at her.

She opened her eyes and took her hands off her knees.

"I can't draw it out," she said.

No tears fell. She wiped a hand across her eyes; what came away was sweat, nothing else.

"I'll try again tomorrow," she added.

Qi Qi bit his lower lip at the door. Du Xiaochuan's hand froze on his jacket, forgetting to rub. Among the three stewards at the window, one lowered his head, then lifted it again. Ge Song shifted half a step forward, but Wen Su shot him a look and he returned to his spot.

"Let me try again," A Sui said.

"No need to try again," Wen Su said. "That is not what is being recorded."

"Rank Evaluator," Ge Song said. "Please press on her dantian. You can feel in a single touch what an empty one is like."

"The roster does not ask about cultivation level," Wen Su said. "On the ninth day of the Ninth Month, Alliance Year 300, I asked whether the people on the Qingya roster were in fact cultivating. Today I ask the same question."

Ge Song squeezed the edge of the petition once and said no more.

"A Sui," Wen Su said. "Who taught you the formula."

"Grandpa Cheng," A Sui said. "He wrote it on yellow paper."

"When do you memorize it every day."

"Mao Hour."

"Who is watching."

"Uncle Shao. He sits on the stone steps in front of the Ancestral Hall and listens."

"When you miss a line, does he correct you?"

"Yes." A Sui thought for a moment. "Sometimes he doesn't. Sometimes he just says, half as slow."

"Who corrects you."

"Brother."

"The meals on the mountain—how many a day?"

"Three," A Sui said.

"Which pot do you eat from."

"The one Qian Duoduo cooks." She hesitated and added, "He serves me too."

"Who washes the bowls."

"We take turns. Last time it was me."

Wen Su flipped the register back to the earlier page, read two lines, and raised her head.

"On the ninth day of the Ninth Month, Alliance Year 300, I said something," she said. "Nominal enrollment means a person is absent, not cultivating—just borrowing a name."

The steward at the window who had raised his head lowered it again.

"She is here. She is cultivating." Wen Su said, "Nominal enrollment asks whether a person is present and whether they are cultivating. It does not ask about speed. Record: A Sui, entered the roster on the twenty-first day of the Eighth Month, currently learning the breathing technique."

The brush traveled through the line. The clerk pressed the paper flat and lifted his wrist, letting the ink settle before he raised the brush.

Xu Yan watched that line. Five months and more, and it came down to this one sentence on paper.

"Where is it recorded?" he asked.

"In the Ratings Register," Wen Su said. "Bound in the same book as the page for the ninth day of the Ninth Month. It will be found at the Autumn Evaluation."

"Then it is enough," Xu Yan said.

Ge Song's jaw moved, but no sound came out. The steward nearest the window glanced at the man beside him; both looked away again.

When A Sui stood, her legs had gone numb, and her knee buckled. A He ran over from the wall to steady her, then walked her back, not letting go even at the wall. Wen Su did not stop them.

"Go back and stand," she said.

A He guided his sister a little farther in along the wall. A Sui rubbed her face once against his sleeve, then straightened, feet together, standing shoulder to shoulder with her brother, one on each side.

Ge Song turned a page of the petition. His finger pressed the edge of the paper; the corner lifted and settled back.

"Second item," he said. "On the night of the twenty-sixth day of the Eighth Month, Alliance Year 300—"

He did not look at Du Xiaochuan.

He was looking at the person by the door.

Qi Qi's foot came down off the threshold, and he stood up straight.