Chapter 103: The Alley East of the City

The innkeeper laid twelve spirit stones on the counter and slid them aside one by one, counting twice.

"The guest in that room came down and paid himself last night," the innkeeper said, looking up. "Four nights."

"Four nights," Xu Yan said.

"He's not leaving with you?"

"No."

The sky wasn't fully light yet. Someone carried water past the mouth of the alley, steam rising from the bucket rims. A He came downstairs with his pack on, A Sui behind him, one hand gripping A He's sleeve. Du Xiaochuan came down last, pushing both room doors open to glance inside before following them out.

The road out of the city was glazed with thin ice. The four of them walked to the carriage yard. The mule cart was already waiting, its shaft-lantern still lit. The carter lifted the straw curtain: "Four."

"Four," Xu Yan said.

Before climbing up, A Sui looked back at the city gate. "Qi Qi-ge isn't coming out."

"He has business," Xu Yan said.

"He's alone. How long is the room paid for?"

"Through the night of the eighth. Checkout at Mao hour on the ninth."

A Sui turned that over in her mind once before stepping onto the board. The cart started moving, and the lamps inside the city gate fell away one by one until they were gone.

Eighty li of official road, five shichen by mule cart. They reached Luoxia Town at Shen hour, just as the market was breaking up. The pot under the third pillar against the wall was already scraped clean. Qian Duoduo squatted scrubbing it. Shi Po hefted a sack of spirit rice onto his shoulder. Bai Xiaoman crouched nearby counting spirit stones, flicking them one by one from her left palm to her right, and when she'd finished, starting over from the beginning.

"Sect Master!" A He ran over first.

Qian Duoduo stood up, wiping his hands on his apron. "Nothing went wrong?"

"Nothing went wrong," Xu Yan said. "Stall all packed up?"

"Mostly." Qian Duoduo clapped the pot lid on. "A Sui, there's half a spirit cake left. It's cold. Want it?"

A Sui nodded, took it, broke half off for A He, and bit into the rest, holding it in her mouth to soften before swallowing. Shi Po carried the spirit rice up the slope, Xu Yan steadying the sack from behind. Bai Xiaoman tipped the counted stones into a cloth pouch, walked a few steps, crouched to knock a pebble out of her shoe, and caught up.

Ten li of mountain path. A Sui walked in the middle and asked about the judgment document three times along the way: "The judgment says I'm studying breath cultivation. Can I post it on the door?"

"No."

"Then I'll remember it."

"Remembering is enough."

When they rested halfway up the slope, Du Xiaochuan fell back a few paces and came up beside Xu Yan. "Sect Master. Those Chixiao people—I know them. Ding Zhao uses a saber. Ma Ping has fast hands." He stopped there, swallowed whatever came next, and hurried to catch up with the ones ahead.

You hour, up the mountain. Nie Bo was sweeping the last stretch of stone steps inside the mountain gate, the broom pressed over the wet traces of melting snow with a soft shush. A He ran past him. A Sui stopped to look, then ran too.

The Accounts Room lamp was lit. Xu Yan opened the account book, mixed water into the inkstone, and ground the ink twice. In the square for the fifth day of the Second Month he wrote first: Luoxia Town market, one pot, ten bottles of Qi-Gathering Powder, income seventy spirit stones. Then a new line: spirit rice, five; carriage fare from the second, four. The brush paused at the edge of the inkstone, then continued: Linchuan inn, two rooms for three nights, twelve; Qi Qi, four nights, eight.

Balance on hand: 1,818 spirit stones.

When he finished, he added a note in the margin: Fifth day, four returned to the mountain, Qi Qi remained in Linchuan.

The Main Hall was full. Xu Yan took the judgment document from inside his robe—the paper edge had gone soft from sweat—and spread it on the table. "Both counts dismissed. The nominal-enrollment charge asks whether the person is present and whether they cultivate. The waist tablet came first, the person left after, and the encounter happened later. The five names we submitted—the Branch approved them and entered them into the base ledger."

"That's all it says?" Cheng Banshan nudged his wine gourd aside on the table.

"That's all it says."

"Will they come again?" Shao Ming asked.

"They will," Xu Yan said. "Before the third day of the Third Month, no one can say they won't."

Shao Ming sat on a stool by the threshold, both hands flat on his knees, back straight. Cheng Banshan glanced sideways at him and pushed the gourd half an inch toward his hand. Shao Ming didn't take it.

Huo Qing pressed his thumb against the worn-white spot on the mouth of his scabbard. Bai Xiaoman asked if the judgment should be stored with the entry slips. Xu Yan said yes, pressed into the account book. Du Xiaochuan stood by the threshold, head down the whole time.

People started filing out. Jiang Wan stayed. She stood outside the threshold and looked back. "Qi Qi?"

"In the city, watching."

"Watching what?"

"Cao Hu didn't leave with Ge Song. Ge Song went out the east gate alone. Cao Hu went into the market shop." Xu Yan closed the account book. "As long as he's there, someone has to watch who goes in and out."

"Four nights."

"If there's no movement by the night of the eighth, he checks out at Mao hour on the ninth."

Jiang Wan's hand rested on her sword hilt for a while. "If something happens, he's fast."

"That's what I'm counting on."

She let her hand drop, walked two steps, then turned back. "The Accounts Room is windy at night. Close the door before you sleep."

From Si hour on the fifth, Qi Qi was in the market. The Chixiao shop sat diagonally across, its storefront wider than Qingya's stall. Two waist-high water vats flanked the door, a white ring of ice around each rim. Shelves held bottles; a wooden sign read Chixiao in freshly touched-up characters. Diagonally opposite there was a low wall. Firewood had been stacked at its base all winter, the ash marks still there. The bricks were cold, and after squatting long enough the chill climbed up through his knees.

He carried a coarse grain flatbread against his chest and gnawed one a day. Crumbs fell into his sleeve; he picked them out bit by bit and ate them.

Abacus clicks sounded from the shop all day, a stretch of rattling, then a pause, then more. Plenty of people went in and out: an old woman with a back basket, a rogue cultivator with a saber at his hip, shop hands in gray robes. Cao Hu went out early in the morning and came back when the sun was overhead, a sack across his shoulder, heading straight through the door into the back room. In the afternoon he went out with two men and returned at Shen hour, empty-handed.

Cui Guang stood in the doorway, hands behind his back, his eyes following the market lane in Qi Qi's direction. Once his gaze paused at the low wall. Qi Qi buried his face in his sleeve and slowly turned his head away, counting the seams between the bricks on the ground. When he looked back, Cui Guang had already turned and gone inside.

After dark Qi Qi went back to the inn. He begged a bowl of hot water from the water stove in the courtyard and gnawed half the flatbread with it. The door to the empty room upstairs stood open, wind passing through it, the panel knocking against the wall—once, then again. He went up and pulled it shut, then returned to his own room and lay down.

On the sixth the wind picked up, the sky hanging low, dust running along the ground through the market. Qi Qi moved to the base of a wall at the other end of the diagonal, ten-some paces farther from the shop, sitting behind an overturned broken basket—someone had left it outside their door; he didn't touch it, just used it for cover. When his legs went numb he stretched one out, pressed it, pulled it back.

In the afternoon a man in Branch robes came from the far end of the market, walking slowly, looking around as he came. Qi Qi pressed his back to the wall and turned his face aside. The man stopped at the shop door, paused a step, didn't go in, and walked on. After a dozen paces he looked back at the shop once more before turning down another street.

At dusk the lamps went on inside the shop. Cui Guang stood at the door looking out for a while, pulled it nearly shut, and went in. Cao Hu didn't come out.

The morning of the seventh was the same. In the afternoon the market thinned out; only the two water vats stood before the shop. Qi Qi leaned against the wall, his eyelids sinking twice, biting his tongue both times. At You hour, the shop door opened from inside.

Cao Hu came out with a box in his arms.

The box was wrapped in cloth, a bit over a foot long, the corners tied in a knot at the top. He carried it with more care than usual, and when he came out he didn't go into the market proper or toward the city gate. He turned into the alley to the east.

Qi Qi's legs were numb when he stood. He braced against the wall for three steps until his feet steadied, then followed at ten paces.

The alley narrowed as it went. Walls on both sides, roof tiles capped along the tops, dry grass growing from the seams. After half a block, a house ahead had a lantern hanging by its door—paper, giving off a faint yellow glow, with a single ink character on it: Meng.

Cao Hu stopped at the door, looked up at the lantern, and knocked: three times, a pause, then twice more.

Someone came to open it. The door hinge was stiff and creaked once. Qi Qi heard no voices. The door opened a crack; Cao Hu slipped through sideways, and it closed behind him.

Qi Qi stopped in the middle of the alley and didn't move. After a moment he edged forward along the wall to the doorway. He made out the character on the lantern clearly, then looked at the doorframe—two name plaques had been nailed there before, the nail holes at the bottom still fresh. He didn't touch the door. He backed away and circled around from the other end of the alley.

Behind the house ran a narrow passage, just wide enough for one man sideways, with firewood and broken baskets piled along both walls. Midway down, the rear wall had a window. A corner of the paper was torn—a hole the size of a fingernail—and a thread of yellow light leaked through and fell on the facing wall.

He crouched, knees against the wall, and brought his ear within an inch of the tear.

Inside: the sound of chair legs scraping the floor, the rustle of cloth against cloth, then a thump on the table—the dull sound of a box being set down, wood on wood, the tabletop slightly uneven so one corner didn't settle, followed by a click as the lid shifted.

"For the finals draw, the sect wants Qingya."

Cao Hu's voice, lower than it was at the shop door during the day.

No answer from inside. Qi Qi heard the faint crackle of charcoal.

"For the body inspection—ask Steward Meng to be lenient."

Silence again. Qi Qi counted to twenty-something. Still no sound from inside.

A chair moved. Someone rose. Footsteps headed toward the door. Qi Qi pressed himself flat against the base of the wall, shoulder braced. The hinge creaked, the door shut, and footsteps passed down the alley—unhurried, heading for the alley mouth.

He counted to fifty before standing. His knees were too stiff to straighten; he rubbed the backs of them with both hands before easing out the way he'd come. At the alley mouth he caught Cao Hu's back turning into the market, both hands hanging at his sides, his arms empty.

Qi Qi stood at the mouth of the alley and looked back at that door. The lantern was still lit. One character: Meng.

By the time he got back to the inn, the sky was fully dark. The courtyard was empty; the door of the neighboring room upstairs was shut tight. He went into his own room, didn't light the lamp, bolted the door, and sat on the edge of the bed.

One flatbread left against his chest. He took it out, held it in his hand, held it for a while, then wrapped it back up.

In his head he laid out everything from the past few days, one piece at a time: a low wall, two vats, a cloth-wrapped box, a "Meng," two sentences.

Xu Yan's instructions had been: watch, don't go in, don't reach out. He hadn't gone in, hadn't reached out, hadn't touched a thing. But those two sentences—he couldn't pick either one up with a single finger.

He lay down, then sat back up and fished out the oiled paper from beneath his bundle—the one the flatbread had been wrapped in. He turned it over, holding it to the faint light that came through the crack in the window. The paper was blank—the regulations weren't in his hands, they were in the Sect Master's robe. But on the tenth day of the First Month, at You hour, he had been standing right below the Main Hall. He'd heard every word, clear as daylight.

He recited the line once in his mind.

The finals draw is to be presided over by Ring Judge Meng Ting.