Chapter 125: Shi Po's Step

"Pass."

Meng Ting's two fingers withdrew from Shi Po's wrist. His eyes slid from Shi Po's face to his neck, then lifted. Ding Zhao offered up his wrist; Meng Ting pressed, looked at the face, looked at the neck, and said the second "Pass."

The clerk pressed an incense stick into the bronze holder at the edge of the ring and blew on his fire starter. The tip flared for a moment, then thin smoke leaned sideways and climbed.

The stands were already tallying this round. Chixiao led two to one. One more round and it was over. Qingya's bench had sent five people out: one lost, one forfeited, and the names remaining didn't bear much scrutiny. On the east side, someone spread both hands: "Three to one. Pack it in." The man next to him asked what layer Ding Zhao had reached. The man who answered held up some fingers and laughed.

The soil inside the ring had been loosened by the four previous rounds. A layer of loose dirt lay along the inside of the lime line, footprints overlapping footprints. Shi Po walked to a spot half a step south of center and stopped. His feet were set apart, knees slightly bent, hands hanging at his sides. He had stood like this on the green bricks of Qingya's courtyard for half a year, until the bricks wore a pale ring into the ground. At the Ninth-Rank Trial on the ninth day of the Ninth Month of Alliance Year 300, he had stood the same way until the incense burned out. Someone in the stands recognized him: "The one who hauls stone." "Came out of the quarry. No Spirit Root when they tested him." "No Spirit Root and still up on the platform." "Body Cultivator. A shell of iron."

Ding Zhao didn't rush in. He circled Shi Po, half a step at a time, looking at Shi Po's feet, then half a step more, looking at his shoulders. On the third step he stopped and jutted his chin at Shi Po. "If you can't take it, lie down early. Save me some effort."

The east side broke into laughter.

Shi Po didn't answer. He kept both hands hanging at his sides, palms inward, and stood there waiting.

Ding Zhao's hand went to his waist. The blade left the sheath.

No warning. One chop landed on Shi Po's shoulder.

Shi Po didn't dodge, and he didn't raise a hand. The blade came down, splitting fabric open. Beneath it was a white line. No blood. Ding Zhao pressed the edge down harder. It wouldn't go. He lifted it and hacked at the left ribs. The sound was wrong—a blade entering flesh didn't make that sound. That was a blade hitting rammed earth.

The laughing on the east side died.

Ding Zhao pulled the knife back and checked the edge. A trace of red on it, faint as if rubbed on. He handed it past the lime line, and a hand reached out from the Chixiao bench to take it. He himself came back into the ring empty-handed.

"Push!" someone in the stands shouted. "If you can't cut him, shove him out!"

Ding Zhao brought both palms together, paused a beat, then drove one palm into Shi Po's chest.

Shi Po's upper body swayed back half a chi. His heels didn't move.

The second palm landed on the left shoulder, the third struck the right ribs, the fourth went back to the chest. Shi Po's feet might as well have been driven into the ground. His shoulders gave and came back, his clothes gaining a few new creases. A counting started up in the stands, from one to over a dozen. Past thirty it fell apart: one section counted forty, another twenty-five, and someone yelled, "That one doesn't count, he dodged."

Shi Po hadn't dodged. Inside the circle of lime, the only thing he gave away was his upper body. He was counting too, but stopped somewhere past twenty—the number was like the cartloads of stone they used to press for at the quarry. Once the count went bad, it lost all meaning. Just keep standing.

When the fifth palm struck below the ribs, the breath in his chest scattered. Half a grunt came out of his throat, his vision blacking for a moment. He clamped his teeth shut, sank his breath back down from the waist, and pressed the soles of his feet harder into the dirt. On the ninth day of the Ninth Month, Zhou Kui's staff had been far heavier. He had stood through that whole incense stick too.

In the front row of the west stands, closest to the ring, Jiang Wan leaned forward half a body length. She was looking at Shi Po's feet, at the circle of earth beneath them. She watched three palms land, then sat back and pressed her hands to her knees.

The incense had burned past the halfway mark. Ding Zhao had thrown seven or eight palms in a row, each landing duller than the last. Sweat ran from his temples, and his breathing had gone audible. He drove one palm into Shi Po's chest, then stumbled back half a step himself and shook his hand out—the palm was bright red, the fingers trembling. His half-step landed in a footprint he'd left earlier. The sole slipped, and he caught himself.

"He can't hit anymore." Qi Qi kept his voice low on the bench. Bai Xiaoman said nothing. Her two hands were clenched into knots on her knees.

Xu Yan said nothing either. His eyes were on Shi Po's left foot. When he'd written out that slip at the Dragon hour, he had told Shi Po one thing: when he ran out of strength, if you take one step forward, he has to take one step back.

Shi Po pulled his left foot out of the dirt and stepped forward.

The step was only half a chi. The small patch of earth under his foot had been packed solid by his weight; when the foot lifted, a clod of hard soil came with it. Ding Zhao retreated half a step and threw another palm. It landed on Shi Po's shoulder, but the sound was light, like a slap against a sack of wet sand. Shi Po's shoulder didn't give. His feet didn't stop.

Shi Po took another step.

His head was down, his shoulder aimed at Ding Zhao's chest, both hands still hanging at his sides, still never raised. The earth sounded under his feet—step, step, not fast, not stopping. Someone in the stands got to his feet and was yanked back down by the person behind him. On the Chixiao bench, Lei Yuan turned his face away. Ma Ping's hands were locked on his own knees.

Ding Zhao put both hands against Shi Po's chest and shoved. The palms pressed in, Shi Po's body jolted once, then moved forward again, carrying Ding Zhao—hands, body, and all—back with it.

No one was counting anymore.

Ding Zhao's right hand braced against Shi Po's shoulder, trying to push himself clear. His left foot scrambled, his heel came down on the lime line, and a layer of white dust rose. He glanced down. That foot was already outside.

Meng Ting raised a hand. "Out of the ring. Qingya wins."

Two to two.

A stub of incense remained. The clerk reached over and snuffed it, and a thread of gray smoke rose from the bronze holder. On the east side, someone scattered a handful of un-eaten melon seeds onto the ground. Farther east, the Chixiao section stayed quiet for a while before someone muttered, "That one should have been ours." The Cloud Terrace Sect's few members put their heads together, and one of them looked up toward the judging stand.

Ding Zhao stood outside the line, both hands still raised in the air, his face flushed scarlet, looking down at his feet, then at the lime line. He said nothing. He turned and walked back to the Chixiao bench. Someone on that side turned his head away.

Shi Po turned, stepped over the lime line, and walked back to the combatants' bench one step at a time. The gash on his right shoulder hung open, the torn edges going black-blue, and his chest was bruised along one side. He walked exactly the same way he'd walked in.

"Held it," he said as he sat down.

Qi Qi stood up. "He only cut twice."

"How deep's the cut?" Xu Yan asked.

Shi Po pressed the flap of torn cloth back over the gash. The bench creaked. "Two layers of cloth."

Bai Xiaoman shifted over from his other side and reached a hand toward his shoulder, then stopped. Her own face was still white, cloth stuffed up her nose. The spiritual power she'd burned in round two still hadn't come back. Shi Po tilted his head to let her look, then turned the left side toward her. "It's bruised."

"What about the ribs?" Qi Qi asked.

"The ribs are fine," Shi Po said. "There was still incense left."

Xu Yan looked at the bronze incense holder and answered, "That'll do."

He re-laid the day's accounts in his head: Qi Qi lost, Bai Xiaoman won, Jiang Wan's round was forfeited, Shi Po won—two to two, one round left. On the Ninth of the Ninth, Zhou Kui had hammered Shi Po with staff blow after staff blow for a full incense stick. When the incense ran out, he'd swung one more. Jiang Wan had caught it with her sword sheath, and Wen Su had written it into the Ratings Register. Xu Yan could still hear the sound of those two blows.

"Fifth round." Meng Ting picked up the slip and read, "Qingya, Huo Qing. Chixiao, Zhou Kui."

At the far end of the Chixiao bench, Zhou Kui got to his feet.

He'd been standing beside his bench this whole time, staff propped at his feet, the head wrapped in cloth, dust settled over the wrapping. Now he untied it and wound the cloth strip twice around his left hand. The iron staff came bare. The head tapped once against the rammed earth.

Someone in the stands shouted, "The favorite, this round. One incense stick."

The east side picked up the noise. In the middle of it, someone asked, "Can he put that kid down in one stick?" The answer came very loud: "One stick? Half a stick."

Zhou Kui didn't look back. He walked to the ring's edge and held out both wrists.

Meng Ting's two fingers pressed down, rested, and withdrew. He didn't raise his eyes, and he didn't look at Zhou Kui's neck. Chixiao's robes were crimson, the collar standing upright, the neck wrapped inside, with only half an inch of throat visible at the bulge of the Adam's apple.

Xu Yan saw it from his seat.

On the twentieth day of the Second Month, he'd gone to Ring Two to watch Chixiao against Jade Spring Sect. Meng Ting had done the body inspection: press the wrist, look at the face, look at the neck, same as every other ring judge, and the two fingers on the wrist had been real. Today those two fingers only rested on Zhou Kui's wrist for a moment.

He remembered what Qi Qi had said on the night of the Twenty-Seventh, back from the ridge, standing inside the accounts room threshold: the neck red to the ears. That night, Zhou Kui had trained with the staff until the Dog hour. Nothing had covered his neck.

Xu Yan said nothing. Meng Ting's hand had been light. That wasn't proof. Say it aloud, and Qingya would be calling the ring judge into question in front of four sects. And even to accuse, someone had to be willing to run the test. The someone who could was on the judging stand. And she hadn't spoken.

On the bench, Qi Qi leaned half an inch his way; his lips moved. Xu Yan's hand stayed still on his knee. He didn't turn to shake his head—this was not the lot-drawing at the Dragon hour. There was a whole crowd standing here, and the rules said the inspection belonged to the ring judge.

Qi Qi closed his mouth and pressed his right hand to his right shoulder. That shoulder was still bruised.

On the judging stand, Wen Su's hand rested on the Ratings Register, her eyes following Meng Ting's two fingers until they withdrew. The clerk beside her, the one who kept the register, looked up at her. She didn't move. He lowered his head again.

On the far end of the Chixiao bench, Ge Song sat with his hands on his knees, not moving, eyes resting on the tips of his shoes.

Meng Ting said, "Pass."

"Qingya." He went on. "Huo Qing."

Huo Qing stood. First he bent down and picked up the sword at his feet. Wooden sheath, the mouth worn pale, the cloth wrapped around it gone black. He brought the sword up before him, left hand gripping the sheath, right hand settling over it once, then letting go.

Xu Yan turned to him. "When he has his strength, don't take it."

"I won't."

"Before the incense burns out, he'll break once. You only get one chance."

Huo Qing nodded, sword in hand, and walked toward the ring. Passing in front of Xu Yan, he didn't stop.

Xu Yan watched his back. The old wooden target under the veranda, its bullseye stabbed out into a crater by punishing thrust after thrust, was visible under the lamplight.

Shi Po said from behind him, "Your feet have to get there first."

At the very front of the east stands, the man with the sword on his back sat without moving.

Inside the ring, Zhou Kui had set his iron staff upright. The head pressed a small pit into the rammed earth. The fifth round's incense had not yet been lit.