Chapter 133: The Wind Through the Crack Has Eased

The oil lamp on the inn counter had burned down to its last dregs, and the wick sputtered. The shopkeeper pushed his abacus toward the wall, opened his ledger, and pressed a finger to the line marked "11."

"Two nights, four stones."

Xu Yan counted out four low-grade pieces from his coin pouch, setting them down one by one on the black lacquer of the counter. The abacus beads clicked to the bottom, and the brush made two marks in the book.

"Leaving the city at this hour?" The shopkeeper looked up.

"The cart's outside the city."

"You'll make it. The gate just opened."

It took the better part of an hour to get out of the city. The gate archway still held the night's dust. Ahead of them, a firewood cart and a man herding two goats were all making an early start. The carriage yard was just an open lot with a few rows of wooden stakes for tethering horses and mules. The yard manager squatted in front of the mud-brick hut repairing an old rein; the mark for the 13th still showed on the wooden sign. The carter, around forty, squatted on the cart shaft smoking a pipe. Seeing them coming, he knocked the ash from his pipe bowl: "Any more business in the city? No? Then we're off."

"None," Xu Yan said.

Before boarding, he once more spread the coins out in his palm and counted. Twenty stones brought down the mountain. On the 11th, he'd paid four at the Luoxia Carriage House for the round trip. Today, two nights at four stones. Twelve remained. Those twelve would go back into the cash box when he got home, to be matched against the ledger.

Qi Qi jumped onto the cart's side rail, his legs dangling over the edge, and unwrapped his cloth bundle for a look. "Six flatbreads left."

"Three each. We'll eat on the road," Xu Yan said. "There'll be food when we get home."

"Won't be home till the You hour."

"Then we eat at the You hour."

Eighty li of official road, five shichen. The Fourth Month sun rose fast. The rice shoots in the fields had already been thinned once, a fresh green floating on the water's surface. Villages sat every few li along the road, their cooking smoke rising earlier than the travelers in the cart. After noon the sun pressed against their backs, the mule slowed, and the carter didn't hurry it. Midway, they stopped a quarter-hour at a tea stall to water the mule and get two bowls of hot water, breaking the remaining flatbreads into pieces and soaking them soft.

"Wu hour's passed," Qi Qi said, eyeing the sun leaning west. "We'll make it by Shen hour."

The carter laughed. "Your eyes are sharper than my legs."

"Trained them on the ridge," Qi Qi said.

The flatbread finished, he licked the bowl clean and suddenly said, "One hugging a document box, one sitting under the window with a brush."

"Hm?"

"Those two clerks at the Branch. I saw them on the 12th when the curtain lifted. She's bringing two clerks up the mountain—probably these two."

"You've got a good memory," Xu Yan said.

"What I don't get—" Qi Qi leaned back against the cart boards. "Does it take three people to look at a crack?"

"It wasn't my call. It was hers."

"Then what's she calculating?"

The cart crossed a small stone bridge, the water beneath running east, carrying a few leaves. Xu Yan said, "She's not looking at the crack. She's looking at whose land this gate sits on, who's guarded it, and whether anyone's touched it. Those three things—she has to see them herself. She can't take my word for it."

Qi Qi thought for a moment. "If she sees them, can she make the call?"

"Whether she does is her business," Xu Yan said. "Holding the watch these last few days—that's ours."

At the Shen hour, the mule cart rolled into Luoxia Town, cutting through from the east end. The market fair was still two days off, so the grounds stood empty. Beneath the third pillar along the wall, nothing but a swept strip of ground, not a soul around. Qi Qi helped the carter lead the mule back to the carriage house. Xu Yan said next time they'd send word the day before if they needed a cart again, and the carter waved a hand: "I know. You say that every time."

Ten li of mountain road, one shichen. By the You hour, the tile eaves of the Mountain Gate were pressing against the western light. Nie Bo was sweeping, drawing his broom aside to leave half a step clear.

"We're back," Xu Yan said.

Nie Bo gave a single nod and pushed the broom forward, sweeping on with a soft rasp.

In the front courtyard, A He came running from the kitchen carrying half a load of firewood, shouting, "The Sect Master's back!"—which brought Qian Duoduo out too. Qian Duoduo wiped his hands on his apron and said there was still food in the pot, hot. The meal was spirit rice mixed with coarse grain, with pickled vegetables on the side. A He stood by holding a bowl, watching Xu Yan eat, and asked once, "Not too much water?" then answered himself: "Tomorrow I'll use half a ladle less."

At the Xu hour, the lamps in the Main Hall were lit. The You-to-Hai watch was on the Back Mountain; Huo Qing and Shi Po weren't there.

Xu Yan kept his words short: "The Rank Evaluator arrives at the Mountain Gate at the Chen hour on the 16th, with two clerks. First she'll look at the gate, and only after looking will she talk. 'We'll talk when we're at the gate'—that's what she said at the Branch. The gate stays under guard as before, four watches in rotation, not a single day changed. No one touches it, and no one from Qingya is allowed to either."

"Will she come inside?" Jiang Wan asked.

"She's coming to look at the gate."

"Should we prepare food on the mountain?" Qian Duoduo asked.

"The Rank Evaluator doesn't eat anything from the mountain," Xu Yan said.

Qian Duoduo's hands paused on his apron. "What about water, then?"

"Water isn't food," Xu Yan said. "If she won't drink it, bring it back."

Cheng Banshan set his wine gourd on the edge of the table with one hand. "Bringing two clerks means she means to put things down on paper. What's written on paper holds steadier than a man's mouth." With that, he lifted the gourd and headed off toward the Medicine Hall.

After everyone dispersed, the lamp in the Accounts Room burned a while longer. Xu Yan turned the ledger to a blank page and wrote, stroke by stroke:

"The eleventh to thirteenth days of the Fourth Month: cart fare out, four stones; inn two nights, four stones. Balance on hand: 2,605 stones."

He finished, tipped the twelve stones out of the pouch, and counted them into the cash box one by one. The box clicked shut and went back beneath the cabinet. The four-watch sheet lay right under the cash box, its corners curling. He pulled it out and looked it over, struck out the line reading "These three nights: Shao Ming, Cheng Banshan," and added nothing beneath it.

On the 14th, before dawn, the sound of a sword came from the East Courtyard.

At the Mao hour, Jiang Wan and Bai Xiaoman went up, each carrying a lamp, turning onto the path behind the Ancestral Hall. Xu Yan stood in the doorway of the Accounts Room, watching those two lamps sway down the slope, then turned back, spread out the four-watch sheet, and added a line at the end: "16th, Chen hour: Rank Evaluator arrives. She will first look at the gate." He tucked it back under the box.

At the end of the Si hour, Bai Xiaoman came down from the Back Mountain, grass seeds clinging to her cuffs. She didn't return to the West Wing but came into the Accounts Room, pulled the abacus over, and opened the daily ledger. This was the old rule, set down in the Ninth Month of Alliance Year 300: she copied the daily ledger, and Xu Yan checked it.

She'd copied two lines when she looked up. "Sect Master, what's she going to measure at the gate on the 16th?"

"I don't know," Xu Yan said. "The ratings register says 'not yet measured.' Most likely she'll measure it herself."

"Should I help?"

"You stand three paces back and don't reach out. If she asks you to hand her something, you hand it over. If she doesn't ask, you don't go over."

"Oh." Bai Xiaoman lowered her head and copied another two lines, then her brush tip paused. "A finger's width—I was the one who compared it. I used my hand, never measured it."

"This time she'll measure."

"What if it measures wider?"

"Record it truthfully," Xu Yan said. "A ledger doesn't fear ugly numbers. It fears false ones."

Bai Xiaoman chewed on that for a moment, nodded, and went back to copying. The abacus beads clicked softly; outside in the yard, chicks scratched at the dirt. When she reached the last line, she suddenly remembered something: "What if she stays on the mountain till the Wu hour?"

"Then she stays till the Wu hour."

"Then I'll go up at the Mao hour with a flask of water."

"As you like."

She made a small sound of acknowledgment, laid the brush on the inkstone's edge, and let the ink dry.

At the Wu hour, Shao Ming and Du Xiaochuan took over the watch; at the You hour, Huo Qing and Shi Po did. As the sun sank behind the western slope, stirrings rose from the Kitchen: Qian Duoduo soaked two pots of spirit rice, and A Sui crouched on the threshold sorting bamboo tallies—forty of them, examined one by one, the splinters worn smooth against the stone of the doorstep.

"Tomorrow's no war. Why smooth them so neat?" A He asked.

"They're for the market fair," A Sui said. "If they're not smooth, they'll prick people's hands."

"Whose hands?"

"The hands of the people buying spirit meals," A Sui said. "If they're smooth, people can hold them comfortably, and they'll come back next time."

At the Yin hour on the 15th, the Qi-Gathering Powder furnace yielded ten bottles. Cheng Banshan sealed the bottles one by one with one hand, setting them in a bamboo basket, muttering about the furnace heat as if scolding someone. At the Mao hour, Qian Duoduo, Shi Po, A He, and A Sui toted two pots of spirit meals and ten bottles of Qi-Gathering Powder down the mountain—one shichen of mountain road, reaching town at the Chen hour, setting the stall back up beneath the third pillar along the wall.

That market day the sun was vicious. Rogue cultivators came early; half a row of them already sat against the wall. Qian Duoduo's voice carried louder than the pots: "First pot's out—easy, easy, the bowls come back!" A He took the money, A Sui handed out the tallies—one tally per bowl, forty tallies, no mix-ups. Shi Po stood behind the stall, lifting the two pots off the carrying pole and setting them on a makeshift table of two low stools—twenty bowls to a pot, steady as anything.

An old rogue cultivator with a familiar face drained the last half-bowl of soup and wiped his mouth. "Your mountain's been quiet this half month."

"Quiet's good," Qian Duoduo said.

"Good how?"

"Quiet means nothing's happened." Qian Duoduo stacked the empty bowls higher than his wrist. "If something had, the whole town would've known by the same day."

At the end of the Si hour, the second pot scraped bottom and the ten bottles of Qi-Gathering Powder sold out. The fair broke up. At the grain shop they weighed out two pots' worth of spirit rice—five stones a pot, ten total. Shi Po shouldered the rice sacks, and A Sui counted the tallies: not one missing. They were back on the mountain by the Wei hour.

At the Xu hour in the Accounts Room, Xu Yan made the entry:

"The fifteenth day of the Fourth Month: income 110 stones; spent 10 stones on two pots of spirit rice. Balance on hand: 2,705 stones."

He set the brush down and spread out tomorrow's sheet on the desk. It listed the four watch times, the three paces in front of the gate, and when the Rank Evaluator would arrive. At the end he thought about adding a line—"After the Wu hour, the Rank Evaluator descends the mountain"—but let the brush tip hover before scratching it out. When she came down was not something he could write.

At the Zi hour, he went up the Back Mountain. The path behind the Ancestral Hall was hard going at night; two lamps, one ahead and one behind, picked out the loose stones underfoot. Someone was waiting by the gate. Huo Qing raised his lamp and shone it on Xu Yan's face: "The gate hasn't moved."

"The wind?"

"Eased a little," Huo Qing said.

He and Shi Po went down, their lamps swaying twice down the slope before vanishing. Qi Qi hung the lantern on the same low branch as before, and the two of them took their place three paces from the gate.

The wind had indeed eased. On the night of the 9th, when Qi Qi had brought the lantern close to the crack, the flame had blown flat outward; tonight it only leaned to one side, now and then, and the paper wall didn't rustle. The crack was still a finger's width, black, depthless. The stone faces of the two slabs, the grass along the edges, the faint line worn into the ground—all the same as the day before.

"The wind's easing. Does that mean it'll stop?" Qi Qi said.

"Just record it," Xu Yan said.

"Record it where?"

"Record it in your mind. Tomorrow when she comes, I'll tell it straight."

Qi Qi squatted down, hands clasped over his knees, and stared at the crack for a long while. Suddenly he asked, "Sect Master, what's inside?"

"I don't know."

"Tomorrow when she comes, we'll know?"

"She's not going in either."

Qi Qi turned his head. "If she's not going in, then who will?"

Xu Yan didn't answer right away. He pushed up his sleeves and squatted down too, lowering his voice. "From the 9th of this month to today, no one from Qingya has touched it with so much as a finger. She'll come, take a look, measure it, write it in the register, put a seal strip over it, and the matter goes to the Sect Alliance. If she goes in, that's the Alliance's business. If she doesn't, that's still the Alliance's business. What we guard is the gate—whether it's still here, whether anyone's touched the crack. That's what we remember."

Qi Qi turned these words over in his mind. "If she asks whether anyone's touched it?"

"Answer no," Xu Yan said. "Because no one has."

Qi Qi smiled, moved the lantern forward a little, then back. The wind came through the crack, pressing the flame against the paper wall, now high, now low.

"Tomorrow at the Chen hour—is that this watch?" Qi Qi asked.

"The Mao-to-Si watch is Senior Sister and Bai Xiaoman."

"What about us?"

"After this watch, get some sleep," Xu Yan said. "Then wake up and look at her footprints."

At the end of the Yin hour, a bird called in the pine grove below the slope. Qi Qi went to take down the lantern and blew on the fire starter; the light wavered once and steadied. At the Mao hour, footsteps came up the mountain path—two sets. Jiang Wan in front, Bai Xiaoman behind, each carrying a lamp.

Three paces from the gate, Jiang Wan stopped and handed her lamp to Bai Xiaoman, standing there looking at the crack.

"The gate hasn't moved," Xu Yan said. "The wind's eased a little since the 9th."

Jiang Wan gave a small nod and stepped half a pace forward, her toe pressing the stone of the three-pace line, going no farther. One hand rested on the hilt of her sword, still at her waist, the sheath's tip an inch off the ground.

"Go back," she said. "Get some sleep."

Qi Qi yawned and started down the mountain. Xu Yan took a few steps, then looked back once: she was still standing there, the lamp in Bai Xiaoman's hands, shining on the black crack between the two stone slabs.

"She'll be here at the Chen hour," Jiang Wan said. "I'll wait for her here."