Chapter 128: The Promotion Document

At the Monkey hour, the sun pressed down on the west end of the judging stand, shadows slanting into the ring.

The lime line around the trial circle had been trampled to nothing by morning. The Branch people came through at noon with buckets, sprinkled water over it, packed the dirt down; only a few stretches of white still showed. The patch of earth north of the ring's center was dark — where Zhou Kui had knelt that morning they'd thrown water over it, and it still hadn't dried out.

The viewing stands were fuller than they'd been at the Snake hour. The ones who'd retreated to the stone steps along the sides had come back, sleeves rolled to the elbow.

Wen Su rose from the judging stand. The ratings register lay open on the wooden desk, two clerks flanking it — one holding the pages flat, the other sliding the box holding the Branch seal to the corner of the desk and prying open the lid of the seal paste box.

She spoke slowly, setting each sentence down on the field: "Alliance Year 301, Dongzhou Minor Sect Grand Contest. First place: Cloud Terrace Sect. Second: Qingya Sect. Third: Azure Brook Sect."

She turned a page, looked up. "Chixiao Sect's ranking is struck off. Filed on record."

The field went quiet for a moment. From the back of the east stands someone read the three names over again, and when they got to Qingya their voice dropped, and the person beside them drove an elbow into their ribs, and they stopped.

"The top three are promoted one rank without trial." Wen Su picked up her brush. "Promotion documents are written here and now, sealed with the Branch seal, and entered into the ratings register."

The clerk smoothed the paper flat on the desk and set a paperweight on it. She bowed her head and wrote, stroke by stroke, wrist steady; when one was finished she laid the brush down to let the ink settle, and the clerk lifted it by the edges with both hands and set it aside to dry while another sheet was laid down. Three documents finished, the other clerk raised the box, she lifted the seal and pressed it down onto each — lifted it away, and each sheet bore a square of red. No one in the stands spoke while she stamped all three.

"Cloud Terrace Sect." She raised a hand.

The Cloud Terrace team leader climbed onto the judging stand, stumbled on the steps, steadied himself before reaching for the paper, cupped his hands to her, and withdrew. Back among his own people, the document passed from hand to hand; one of them reached out a finger to touch the seal and got his hand slapped by the man next to him.

"Qingya Sect."

Xu Yan stood. He circled around the edge of the trial ring to the foot of the judging stand and climbed the three steps — the middle one had half caved in, and he took a half-step around it.

Wen Su held out the drying sheet: "Sect Master Xu. Qingya Sect, Eighth Rank."

The paper was thin, a red border line down one edge, the Branch seal pressed into one corner, the ink still damp. Xu Yan took it in both hands, holding it flat, without folding it.

A line appeared before his eyes:

[Balance: Eighth Rank. Registered Disciples: ten.]

"My thanks to the Rank Evaluator." He cupped his hands.

"Keep the document safe." Wen Su was already looking at the next one. "The Eighth Rank grade fee is due at the Autumn Evaluation on the ninth day of the Ninth Month, per regulation."

"Noted."

He stepped down and walked back. Halfway there, someone in the stands shouted over to his neighbor, "Qingya Sect, Eighth Rank!" and a whole patch of the crowd went to murmuring, heads turning to get a look at him. The old rogue cultivator in the front row slapped his knee: "I wagered on Chixiao three rounds clean." The man beside him asked how much he'd bet, and he pulled his hand back and said he wasn't telling.

The Azure Brook team leader went up for his document, and as he took it he glanced over at the Chixiao bench. The bench was empty, the trampled footprints around its legs still there. The ranking had dropped into their laps from someone else's hands; the hand holding the paper didn't know where to go for a moment. Someone over in the Azure Brook camp muttered "Third" under his breath, and then shut his own mouth.

Xu Yan returned to the combatants' bench and laid the paper flat on the bench, corners squared.

Bai Xiaoman craned her neck to look — at the red border, at the seal — her fingers twitching inside her sleeve. "Can I touch it?"

"Touch it. Don't touch the seal."

She rubbed the edge of the paper with the pad of her finger and looked up. "This paper's better than the stuff we copy the ledgers on."

"Branch office document paper," Qi Qi said, leaning over her shoulder for a look. When he was done he said, "Eighth Rank. One full rank above Ninth." He turned the number over in his mouth. "When I get back I'll tell A Sui."

Shi Po sat at the far end of the bench, not crowding over, reading the paper from an arm's length away. "Eighth Rank — higher than Ninth?"

"One rank higher."

Shi Po let that number settle somewhere inside him, then said, "Good." He pressed a hand to his knee and sat back.

Huo Qing never got up. He sat at the very edge of the bench, his left hand wrapped in cloth at the web of the thumb, the red seeping through the bandage's end dried to brown. He glanced at the paper, lifted his left hand, pulled the five fingers toward each other — they made it halfway before going slack — and he set the hand back on his knee.

Bai Xiaoman drew the four formation banners from her sleeve and smoothed them one by one, rolling them into a small bundle. The cinnabar on the flag faces was smudged in several places, the edges curled.

"These four are done for," she said.

"Keep them," Xu Yan said. "Done for or not, they're the four that won."

When the crowd broke up, the gate of the martial arena was choked solid.

The stands on both sides emptied into the middle, shoulder rubbing shoulder. Someone rolled up the straw mat he'd been sitting on and carried it out under his arm; a corner of it swept across a man's face, and the man cursed, and then kept walking. Qi Qi guarded his right shoulder, got bumped twice, and flinched sideways each time.

Jiang Wan came down from the west stands. Two straw mats lay abandoned on the steps; she stepped around them, one step at a time, and at the last step put a hand on the stone railing.

She walked into the crush by the gate and stopped three paces from Xu Yan.

"Sect Master."

The words weren't loud. But the people pressed around them heard, and the talk nearby stalled, and a few heads turned to see who had spoken.

Xu Yan turned.

She stood with her left shoulder a little lower than her right, a half-finger's width of white bandage showing above her collar, her sword at her hip, not drawn all day.

"Keep the document safe," she said.

"Mm."

"Don't fold it." She added that, her eyes going to his chest. "If you fold it, the seal cracks."

Xu Yan pressed a hand to his front placket. "It's on the inner side, against the chest."

She nodded, moved forward, came up beside him, and the two of them worked their way out of the crowd together. Neither walked fast. Neither waited for the other.

Outside the gate, Qi Qi rolled up his sleeve. "I'll go to the carriage yard and let them know. Back by the Dog hour." And he was off along the wall, heading east.

Bai Xiaoman followed with the medicine pot tucked under her arm, Huo Qing last, left hand hanging at his side — and as he passed through the gate he did not look east. The front row of chairs on the east stands had already been mostly carried away, the observers' seats empty, the ground beneath strewn with melon seed shells.

Back at the guest quarters, the sun had dropped below the roof ridge.

The Dog hour, the west room. Light slanted through the window paper and lay across the communal bed, yellowed. Bai Xiaoman set Cheng Banshan's medicine pot on the table, poured a little of the decoction into a small bowl, and warmed it in hot water.

Jiang Wan sat on the bed's edge and peeled her outer robe down to her waist. The medicine cloth over her shoulder and back had stuck to the wound. Bai Xiaoman dipped a cotton swab in the decoction and worked along the edge of the cloth bit by bit, softening it before daring to lift.

"Say if it hurts."

"Just pull."

The cloth came away, and the wound beneath ran from the shoulder diagonally across her back — a fine layer of new skin at the edges, the middle still red. Bai Xiaoman soaked a fresh cloth in the medicine, pressed it on, wrapped it over the shoulder and down twice, and tied it under the ribs, the knot loose.

"Elder Cheng said not to wrap it tight."

"He's right." Jiang Wan pulled her clothes back up, piece by piece, using only her right arm. "Your spiritual power — is it back?"

"Before the Monkey hour my hands were still shaking." Bai Xiaoman lifted the lid off the pot and checked the bottom; a layer remained. "This'll last until we're up the mountain. Elder Cheng will brew more."

Huo Qing held his left hand out onto the table. Bai Xiaoman unwrapped the three cloth bands from the web of his thumb — blood had crusted hard, cloth stuck to flesh, and she soaked it in warm water for a while before working it off. The wound gaped open, seeping whenever he moved.

"Looser this time?"

"Tighter," Huo Qing said.

"If it's tight you can't grip a sword."

"If I can't grip it, that's exactly why it needs to be tight."

Bai Xiaoman didn't answer. She bit the end of the cloth, tore it, wrapped three fresh turns, and tucked the end into the innermost layer.

The door pushed open and Qi Qi came in, sweating, and drained half a bowl of hot water at the table.

"Carriage yard's settled. There's a cart at dawn tomorrow." He wiped his mouth. "The carter asked how many people. I said six. He said six can squeeze in. No extra money — the round trip was already paid when we boarded on the second. He also said there'll be a lot of carts leaving the city tomorrow; earlier's better than later. We leave at the Mao hour."

Xu Yan sat down at the table and ran it through his mind. "Then we move out of the guest quarters at the end of the Yin hour. Gather at the East Gate, walk to the carriage yard — should get there right on time."

"End of the Yin hour." Qi Qi nodded. "I'll let them know. Tell everyone to get up early."

More than half the coarse grain cakes Qian Duoduo had griddled still remained. The six of them sat around the table, breaking the cakes into hot water, waiting until they softened before chewing. Shi Po broke off the biggest chunks, ate one half-soaked, then broke off another. Bai Xiaoman counted as she ate, and when she was done said, "The first thing Qian Duoduo asks when we're back — you know it'll be 'how many bowls did we sell.'"

"He'll ask if there were enough cakes," Qi Qi said.

"He'll ask both."

They all laughed a little. Jiang Wan's laugh was very soft, and when it was over she drank the water down to nothing, the dregs at the bottom too.

Xu Yan wrapped the remaining cakes back in the cloth, folded it neat, pressed it flat with his palm. "The rest is for the road tomorrow. We leave at the end of the Yin hour, reach Luoxia Town by the Monkey hour, then up the mountain path — we'll be at the Mountain Gate before dark."

"What do we do first when we get there?" Bai Xiaoman asked.

"First to the Medicine Hall," Xu Yan said. "This paper — we show it to Elder Cheng, then lock it in the Accounts Room."

At the Dog hour, one by one they lay down on the communal bed.

Shi Po slept by the door, and once he was down he didn't move. Qi Qi turned over twice, shifting his right shoulder to the top, and only then settled. Bai Xiaoman set the medicine pot at the corner of the table, the lid on. Huo Qing put his sword by the pillow, eyes still open; after a while they closed. Jiang Wan slept on the innermost berth, facing the wall, not putting weight on her left side.

Xu Yan sat at the end nearest the door. One oil lamp burned on the table, the wick turned low.

He spread the promotion document open under the light and read it line by line, down to the small print beside the square seal, and where it said "Eighth Rank" he held the corner down with a finger and looked at it for a while. Wind through the crack in the door bent the flame, and the red on the paper swayed with it.

He folded the paper — careful around the square seal — two folds, then pressed it flat with his palm. Then he took the entry slip from inside his robe and placed the two together, slipped them into the inner side against his chest, and pressed down so the paper lay against his under-robe. The Sect Master Token dug into the back of his hand.

He took the thin ledger from his robes and opened it to the last page.

The first line was still there:

[Debt: Qingya — 3,712 lives.]

And beneath the first line, a second appeared:

[Debtors: eight.]