Chapter 124: The Fourth Flag

Bai Xiaoman stopped at the edge of the ring, the four flags rolled under her arm, the cinnabar-marked side facing inward. Her fingers still bore cinnabar, red, impossible to wash off.

Lei Yuan stood at the other end of the lime line, a full head taller than her, both hands hanging at his sides, palms down. On the day of the preliminary round, he'd stood behind the Chixiao bench and watched the Qingya versus Ink Pool Gate match, and he remembered that someone from Qingya used pebbles—pressed a hand to the ground, and a person couldn't find their way out of the ring. The moment the lots were read, he'd made up his mind: he wouldn't let her finish pressing.

"Wrists," Meng Ting said.

The two of them pushed their sleeves to their elbows and extended their wrists. Meng Ting pressed two fingers to Lei Yuan's wrist, studied his face, his neck, said "Pass." Then he turned to Bai Xiaoman and pressed just as firmly, studying her face and neck the same way. "Pass."

The clerk crouched down, worked the fire starter, and set an incense stick into the bronze holder at the ring's edge. The tip glowed red, smoke rising, bent sideways by the wind slanting in from the east.

Xu Yan stayed seated on the bench. He only said, "Every flag planted counts as one."

"Plant one, step back one." Bai Xiaoman answered, counting the flags in her hand again—four, the last one north.

She took two steps into the lime ring and glanced back at the combatants' bench: Qi Qi sat with his right shoulder tilted, Shi Po's hands resting on his knees, watching her. She turned her head and entered the ring.

She didn't head for the center. She walked east along the inside of the lime line, stopped half a step from the line, crouched, and pressed the corner of the first flag into the soil. This was the one she'd drawn slightly off-angle during Mao Hour—she remembered it. Both hands pressed down on the corner, deeper than anywhere else.

East Wood, South Fire, West Metal, North Water—she'd practiced the order four times on the mountain. Plant one wrong, and the other three were just three pieces of cloth.

Lei Yuan came from the ring's center, each step deliberate, taking the straight path.

She straightened and walked south to plant the second. The southern soil was loose; the flag went in crooked. She pulled it out, shifted it a hand's width over, pressed it back down, and packed the soil down with her palm.

The third went in the west. She'd gotten it halfway down when Lei Yuan's shadow fell across her hands. She drove the pole all the way in, turned, and ran north, clutching the last flag to her chest.

Don't stand at the ring's center—plant while retreating. Jiang Wan had said that earlier this morning while drawing the flags under lamplight, and Bai Xiaoman had followed it every step of the way.

North was the farthest line in the ring. She ran two steps before something hit her shoulder—his forearm, ramming across her body. She pitched forward, face down, the last flag still gripped in her arms.

She stretched her arm toward the line, her elbow scraping across the dirt for two paces, the flag's corner landing inside the lime boundary. She pressed the wooden shaft into the earth, needing two tries to seat it.

The four flags' corners reddened in unison.

Lei Yuan's palm came down in the same instant, aimed at the left side of her back. The blow landed, but the force skewed, slid off her spine, and discharged westward. His leg followed through with the step, his sole scraping a white mark in the dirt. He swayed, then steadied.

Bai Xiaoman rolled out from under his palm, two rolls, then pushed herself up to one knee with one hand braced on the ground, the other hand on her knee. Her left shoulder wouldn't lift.

The formation activated.

Lei Yuan looked down at his feet, then up at the flag in the west. He charged toward it—two steps, then his feet twisted and the ground turned him in a curve, and he was standing in the same place. He crouched and slapped the dirt with his hand, twice. The ground was solid.

Someone in the stands laughed: "What's he slapping the ground for? The ground's not hers." The laughter hadn't spread far before Lei Yuan stood, ground his sole into the dirt, carving half a circle of white.

He said nothing, brows knitted. He turned and grabbed at the nearest flag with both hands. The pole didn't budge; soil squeezed out around the shaft. The moment his hands left the ground, something shoved him from the side and he stumbled back two steps.

Bai Xiaoman knelt in the north, not watching his hands—her eyes were on his feet. Every time he exerted force, his right foot moved first.

This time he changed tactics and went straight for Bai Xiaoman. As he closed in, something pushed his chest from the side, and he slid half a step sideways, then slid back toward the ring's center. Ma Ping half-rose from the Chixiao bench, then sat back down. Ge Song didn't turn around, just raised one hand, and Ma Ping settled.

From the judging stand, Wen Su spoke, not loudly, but audible both in and out of the ring: "Formation banners as formation anchors. Four sides. Enter into the file record."

The clerk acknowledged, brush moving across the paper.

Bai Xiaoman knelt there. On her supporting arm, a tendon bulged out from her sleeve, her wrist trembling, the dirt clinging to the flag cloth falling away grain by grain. Her face had gone white, her lips pressed tight. Her throat worked once, and what she swallowed tasted of rust. She counted the incense. The red tip burned slowly—slower than any she'd counted on the mountain. The anchors were four flags, but what held the formation was that single breath of her own; the moment it slipped, the four flags were just four pieces of cloth stuck in dirt.

Someone in the stands said, "She can't hold."

Another said, "If she can't hold, the formation breaks."

The incense burned in its bronze holder, a small length of ash already fallen.

Lei Yuan stood in the ring's center, panting, sweat running down from his brow ridge, his eyes moving from flag to flag, finally settling on the north.

One more time. Lei Yuan backed up two steps, lowered his stance, and charged north. The north flag was the one she'd pressed into the ground while lying facedown—that was exactly the one he aimed for. Halfway into the charge, his force wrenched entirely to one side, his body spinning half a turn with it. Two steps, three—his foot crossed the lime line and he was standing outside it.

He stood beyond the line and looked back at the four flags inside the ring. His feet were right at the lime line; he glanced down, then back up at the flags, as if he couldn't believe he'd walked himself out.

Meng Ting: "Out of the ring. Qingya wins."

The incense hadn't even burned halfway.

A half-shout of a cheer started in the stands, cut off after the first syllable. No one mentioned the earlier "Three clean rounds for Chixiao." The man who'd wagered two spirit stones turned around and tossed his handful of melon seed shells to the ground.

Bai Xiaoman released her grip. The four flags hadn't fallen—they stood straight in the dirt, the cinnabar at all four corners still red. She raised a hand to wipe her nose and it came away red. That hand was already stained with cinnabar; now you couldn't tell which was cinnabar and which was blood.

Shi Po came over from the bench, crouched, and pressed a gray cloth into her hand. "Head down."

She held the cloth under her nose and lowered her head. Blood dripped onto the soil, seeping in drop by drop. From beneath the cloth came: "Four flags. Not one missing."

Qi Qi sat up a little straighter on the bench, right shoulder still tilted. "One formation to trade for a fifth-layer Qi Condensation."

Xu Yan didn't respond to that. He looked toward Chixiao. Lei Yuan stood outside the lime line, face flushed, as Ma Ping pulled him back to the bench. He sat down and kept staring at his hands. Ge Song sat in the middle of the bench, one hand resting on its edge, unmoving, silent. Zhou Kui stood in front of the Chixiao bench, his iron staff planted at his feet, the cloth still wrapped around the tip.

The clerk came over, pulled the four flags from the soil, shook them clean, rolled them into a bundle, and placed them in Bai Xiaoman's hands. She carried them back in both arms and sat down in her seat, her legs going weak as she lowered herself.

One to one.

Meng Ting turned a page in the record and read: "Third match. Qingya, Jiang Wan."

No one on the combatants' bench moved. Bai Xiaoman still held the cloth to her nose. Qi Qi's shoulder twitched, then settled. Huo Qing sat with both hands on his knees, eyes on the lime line in the ring.

Xu Yan didn't stand immediately. First he laid out the rules in his mind: the five names submitted could not be changed, no substitutions allowed, no replacements. Whoever's match sat empty, their name still went on the sheet, and that match was forfeit. He'd already written this down on a separate line in the ledger back on the thirtieth day of the Second Month: Jiang Wan's match, forfeit, no number following. Today just meant saying it aloud in front of the four sects.

Then he stood and looked toward the west stands for Jiang Wan. She sat in the row closest to the ring, sword resting across her knees, still in its sheath, right hand at the scabbard's mouth. The medicine cloth on her shoulder was hidden under her clothes. She didn't nod, didn't raise a hand. Her eyes held his, her knuckles white where she gripped the scabbard.

Xu Yan spoke: "This match, Qingya forfeits."

His voice wasn't loud, but everyone at the ring's edge heard it clearly. The stands went quiet for a beat, as if no one understood, then someone leaned forward to ask the person beside them: "Forfeit?"

Meng Ting read from the sheet: "Qingya forfeits. Chixiao, Yi Tuo wins."

The clerk wrote the entry in the record, then set the brush on the inkstone and looked up at the empty patch of earth in the ring.

Yi Tuo stood and walked to the ring's edge. No one asked for his wrist; Meng Ting didn't call for inspection. He entered the ring, stood on the center spot, put his hands behind his back, then let them fall. He stood there a while, turned, and walked out. Back at the Chixiao bench, he didn't look toward Qingya. He sat down and rubbed his hands together. He'd never touched anyone, and no one had touched him, and Chixiao had gained a match.

From the west stands someone said loudly, "The Foundation Establishment one doesn't dare come up."

Someone beside him added, "Came and sat down—suppose that counts as showing up."

Another laughed: "This Qingya match, a free gift."

Qi Qi lowered his voice: "They're shouting."

"Remember it," Xu Yan said. He said it very quietly, his eyes never going to the stands. Qi Qi lowered his head, pressed his right shoulder, and said nothing more.

Jiang Wan sat unmoving. Her hand never left the scabbard's mouth, her eyes fixed on the four holes in the ring where the flags had stood. She didn't look toward the stands. In the second round of the preliminaries, when she'd driven the first-seat of Willow Bank Gate step by step out of the ring, those people had cheered. No one mentioned that now. The wind blew in from the east, pressing her old jacket against the medicine cloth, and she didn't raise a hand to pull it free.

One to two.

The Cloud Terrace Sect people stood below the judging stand. They were scheduled to face today's winner for first place in the Wei Hour, and right now they all craned their necks at the ring, no one saying a word.

Xu Yan replayed the day's accounting in his mind: first match, Qi Qi out of the ring; second match, Bai Xiaoman traded four flags for a win; third match, forfeit. Two matches remained. They couldn't lose a single one.

Bai Xiaoman's spiritual power was spent, her face pale. Jiang Wan couldn't lift a sword. Of the five names submitted, only Shi Po and Huo Qing remained.

Since the fifth day of the Eleventh Month, Huo Qing had practiced that single thrust and withdrawal before dawn, facing the wooden target under the veranda, every day through today. The fifth match's staff, and that moment in the incense's burning when the force would break—he'd worked those out too.

But working them out was one thing. Those two steps in the ring, no one could take for him.

Meng Ting closed the record and read: "Fourth match. Qingya, Shi Po. Chixiao, Ding Zhao."

Shi Po stood. He walked with perfect steadiness to the ring's edge and extended both wrists.