Chapter 104: A Box and Two Sentences

On the eighth day of the Second Month, at the hour of the dragon, the gate at the mouth of the alley opened.

Qi Qi was crouched at the far end of the alley. He had been there for half a shichen, his knees gone so stiff they locked straight. He pressed his back against the wall and kept one hand on his kneecap just to stop his leg from trembling. The dew had soaked through his shoes, and his feet were cold all the way through.

A man came out the gate, dressed in Branch clothing, gray-blue with a dark trim at the cuffs. Both hands were tucked into his sleeves. He walked at an unhurried pace, his left shoulder sitting lower than the right, a thin patch of beard on his chin.

Qi Qi did not move. He tilted his face behind his sleeve and peered out over the cuff.

The man headed west, stopping at the Branch entrance. A clerk at the door tucked a register under his armpit and called out, "Steward Meng."

The man nodded once and went in.

Plenty of people came and went through the Branch gate, but Qi Qi followed none of them. He stayed crouched by the wall for another quarter hour. When he stood, his legs were numb. He braced against the wall, waiting for the tingling to pass, then fixed the face in his mind: left shoulder low, short beard, hands never leaving his sleeves.

On the ninth day, at the hour of the mao, he went upstairs and checked out of his room. The innkeeper flipped through his register and said the room fee had been paid through the eighth, and there was no refund for leaving early. Qi Qi slung his bundle over his shoulder, left the city, and circled around the carriage yard without going in.

Eighty li of official road on his own two legs. He walked some, ran some, ran until the soles of his feet burned, and still he did not rest—only scooped two handfuls of water from a roadside ditch and kept going. He reached Luoxia Town in the hour of the wei. The old man selling flatbread at the town gate was already packing up his stall; Qi Qi did not stop, turning north onto the ten-li mountain road.

Shen hour. The Mountain Gate.

Nie Bo was sweeping the last stretch of stone steps, the broom moving slower than usual.

Qi Qi ran past him, and only when he burst into the front courtyard did he shout, "Sect Master."

The door of the Accounts Room closed.

Qi Qi stood before the desk. He pushed the abacus back a little, clearing a space on the tabletop, then began to speak. He reported one thing at a time, eyes fixed on the desk.

"On the fifth and sixth, I crouched at the base of the wall diagonally across from the shop. Cao Hu went out early in the morning, came back at midday carrying a sack over his shoulder, went out again with two men in the afternoon, and returned empty-handed in the shen hour. On the sixth, the wind was strong, so I moved to the other side, sitting behind an overturned broken basket. Cui Guang stood on the threshold and looked this way once."

"On the seventh, in the you hour, the shop door opened from inside. Cao Hu came out holding a box, wrapped in cloth, the corners tied in a knot. He did not head toward the Market, nor toward the city gate. He turned east, into the alley."

"I followed at ten paces. The alley narrowed, narrower still, until he stopped at a house with a lantern by the door. Painted on the lantern was the character Meng."

"He knocked three times, paused, then knocked twice. The door opened a crack, he went in, and the door closed behind him."

"I circled around from the other end of the alley into an adjoining passage and crouched beneath the back window. One pane of the window paper was torn, no bigger than a fingernail, letting out a thread of yellow light."

"Inside, a chair leg scraped the floor, cloth brushed against cloth. Then something on the table gave a muffled thud—the sound of something being set down. The tabletop wasn't level, and the lid of the box clicked once more."

"Cao Hu said: 'For the finals lot, the sect wants Qingya.'"

"No one answered from inside. Only the crackle of charcoal."

"He spoke again: 'For the body inspection, I ask Steward Meng to let it pass a little slack.'"

"Silence for a while. A chair creaked, someone stood, footsteps moved toward the door, the door pivot groaned, it shut, and the footsteps went off toward the alley mouth."

"I counted to fifty before I stood up. I backed out of the passage and saw his silhouette turn into the Market. His arms were empty."

Xu Yan had not interrupted once. When Qi Qi finished, he asked, "Did you go through the door?"

"No."

"Did you reach out a hand?"

"No."

"Did you touch anything?"

"No."

"What was in the box?"

"Didn't see."

"What did Steward Meng say?"

"Not one word."

Xu Yan set down his brush. It did not land squarely; it rolled half a turn on the inkstone and stopped.

"Saw a box go through a door, but not what was inside it. Heard two sentences, but have no proof." He paused. "We don't go to report it."

Qi Qi lifted his head. "I saw it."

"You saw it. What the Branch will ask is: who else saw it."

Qi Qi's fingers pressed against the edge of the desk, then withdrew.

"You crouched by a wall alone for three days," Xu Yan said. "If you walk in there and talk, all the Branch can put down is one line: a Qingya disciple says a box went into Steward Meng's door. The box was never opened, and those two sentences were heard through window paper. Meng Ting doesn't have to admit a single word."

Qi Qi's breath came rough. "Then write down that one line. Write it down—it's still a mark on the record."

"Write it down, and he knows," Xu Yan said. "If he stops taking things, we'll never catch him at anything. If he changes his methods, we'll see even less."

"What about going to the Rank Evaluator?"

"And say what? That I saw a man carrying a box through a door? The Rank Evaluator needs things he can lay on a table: whose hands the box passed through, what was in it, who heard it, who's willing to testify. I don't have a single one of those."

Qi Qi stood there, staring at the cleared space on the desk for a long while. "I can still go. I'll give up that room. Crouching by a wall is fine."

"No. The room's already given up." Xu Yan met his eyes. "What's left happens on the platform."

"On the platform." Qi Qi's voice sharpened. "He controls the lot. He controls the body inspection too."

Xu Yan pulled out the registration rules from the desk, unfolded them, and pressed his fingertip to a line near the bottom: "The Ring Judge shall conduct face-to-face body inspection before a bout; should the Chief Evaluator observe anything suspect on the platform, he may descend to inspect personally, and the Chief Evaluator's inspection shall be final."

He slid the paper over for Qi Qi to read.

"I'll stand close when they inspect you," he said. "If he wants to let it pass slack, let him do it in front of every sect in Dongzhou. That's his business. I won't shout. I won't make a scene."

"And if he does loosen up?"

"The Ring Judge, the clerk, the Chief Evaluator on the judging stand—all of them watching." Xu Yan said. "Only what lands on paper counts. That sentence on your lips means nothing the moment you step out this door."

Qi Qi stared at that line of text for a long time, then pushed the rules back. His finger left a gray smudge on the paper.

"Tell no one," Xu Yan said, folding the rules away. "Not even Du Xiaochuan."

"Why him?"

"He's crossed paths with Chixiao people, and his face can't keep a secret. If anyone so much as glances at him, he looks down."

Qi Qi nodded once, took two steps toward the door, then turned back. "This time it's my own incompetence. Three days of tailing, and all I got was two sentences."

"Not wasted," Xu Yan said. "I know one more thing today, and that's another entry in the ledger. Go to the Medicine Hall first. Have Elder Cheng look at your feet."

"Just blisters."

"Blisters get looked at too."

Qi Qi pulled the door shut behind him. After it closed, the only sound in the Accounts Room was the hiss of the lamp wick. Xu Yan unfolded the rules again, pressed his fingertip on that line, held it there for a while, then tucked the paper into the account book.

In the xu hour, after the lamps were lit, Jiang Wan came.

She stood outside the threshold without entering. "Qi Qi came back, ate half a bowl of rice, and shut himself in his room. Won't say a word."

Xu Yan moved the stool aside. She stepped in and closed the door behind her.

He recounted the events of the seventh night, briefly: a box, taken to the house in the east of town with the Meng lantern by the door; two sentences, one about the lot, one about the body inspection; no response from inside; Cao Hu came out with empty arms.

When he finished, Jiang Wan's hand went to her sword hilt, fingers tightening once.

"You're not going to report it?"

"Report what? A box and two sentences."

"Then on the third day of the Third Month—"

"We follow the rules."

She took her hand off the sword hilt, walked to the desk, and glanced at the regulations in the account book. "If the rules are held in someone else's hand, following them is just delivering people into his palm."

"That's why we make that hand open in front of everyone," Xu Yan said. "The rules say the Chief Evaluator, if he sees anything suspect on the platform, may descend and inspect personally. The suspicion won't be on my lips. It'll be on the platform."

"That box was delivered to buy a lot and one slack inspection," Jiang Wan said. "If half of that purchase goes through, it's enough to send the rest of us swinging at empty air in the ring."

"Whether the ring is empty depends on where the fist lands," Xu Yan said. "What he bought was the lot and the body inspection. Not Huo Qing's thrust."

Jiang Wan studied him for a moment before speaking. "At the inspection, where do I stand?"

"You're a competitor."

"Competitors have eyes too," she said.

Xu Yan did not respond. She opened the door, walked out two steps, then looked back. "Before the preliminaries, don't let Qi Qi go down the mountain alone."

"Mm."

The tenth day of the Second Month. A tens day. Market day. Qian Duoduo set up his pot beneath the third pillar along the wall before dawn—twenty bowls per pot, ten bottles of Qi-Gathering Powder. Sold out by mid-afternoon. Training on the mountain continued as usual. The three-zhang lime circle in the front courtyard had been trodden faint with footprints. Jiang Wan used her scabbard to feed Shi Po moves; Shi Po only absorbed, never returned. Huo Qing practiced that one thrust at the edge of the ring—thrust, retract, thrust, retract. Bai Xiaoman crouched by the wall, tipped the five pebbles out of her handkerchief, tapped each one, then wrapped them back up.

Qi Qi ran in the circle. He ran around the arc of Jiang Wan's scabbard, toe touching the ground and gone, never slowing on the turns. He stepped out of the ring twice. The third time, he skimmed past the lime line and stopped, looked back at that white mark, and kept running.

After Huo Qing finished his thrust practice, he slung his sword back over his back and stood outside the ring watching Qi Qi for a while without speaking. Around lamplight time, Shi Po set a bowl of water on a stone at the ring's edge, said nothing, and turned back to his room. Qi Qi ran to that bowl, drained it, set it down, and went back into the ring.

The fifteenth day of the Second Month. A fives day. Market. The fair broke up in the wei hour. Qian Duoduo went to the grain shop to buy the Third Month rations—two sacks of spirit rice, one sack of coarse grain, fifty spirit stones. He also took care of the second errand the Sect Master had assigned him before he'd gone down the mountain that morning: he booked a mule cart at the Luoxia Carriage House for the eighteenth, at the mao hour. He reported both to Xu Yan: rations, fifty spirit stones; the carter asked how many people, and he'd answered six.

In the xu hour, entries went into the ledger. The tenth-day market: seventy spirit stones in, five out for spirit rice. The fifteenth-day market: seventy in, five out. Third Month rations: fifty. Balance on hand: one thousand eight hundred ninety-eight spirit stones.

Xu Yan closed the account book and went to the Main Hall. Both lamps were lit, and all five of them were there.

"We leave the Mountain Gate in the yin hour on the eighteenth," he said. "We board the cart in Luoxia Town at the mao hour."

Cheng Banshan stood by the door, gourd in hand. "I'll keep an eye on the mountain with Shao Ming."

Qi Qi was the first out the door. He crossed the front courtyard, stepped into that lime circle, and began to run.

The lamp in the front courtyard hung low, and the ring line showed a blur of white in the lamplight. He ran one lap, then another. The dust kicked up by his feet hung in the light, settled, rose again. A Sui stood on the steps clutching A He's sleeve, watching for two laps before asking quietly, "Sect Master, is Linchuan far?"

"Eighty li," Xu Yan said.

"Can Qi Qi run there?"

"We're going by cart."

Qi Qi was still running. The lamp wick had burned shorter; the ring line blurred into a white smear. He ran until he could no longer make out the line at all, then stopped, hands braced on his knees, shoulders heaving.

Xu Yan stood on the Main Hall threshold, counting along in his head. After ten, he lost count—each time Qi Qi reached a turn, his toe touched the lime line and he was already gone. Xu Yan counted twice, and lost it twice.

The third time he stopped counting. He turned and went back into the Accounts Room, smoothed out that page of the ledger, and laid a paperweight on it.