Chapter 136: The Night Before the Founding

On the nineteenth, as the lamps were lit, the Medicine Hall's window paper had already been patched twice, but the night wind of the Fourth Month still crept through the window frames, making the lamplight tremble against the wall. Cheng Banshan sat on the low stool in front of the furnace, one hand holding the furnace hook, pushing a collapsed section of firewood inward. The furnace door stood half open; the smell of medicine and the smell of wine each claimed half the room.

A He squatted just outside the threshold, knees propping up his arms. "Grandpa Cheng, that gate on the Back Mountain—is it also from three hundred years ago?"

"Most of what's on this mountain is from three hundred years ago." Cheng Banshan set the furnace hook down on the furnace rim.

"The gate too?"

"The stone is. What the gate actually is, I've never been inside."

A line of fire probed out through the furnace door's gap. He laid the hook across the opening to block it. "The fire in this furnace can't be allowed to die. One furnace, five days. If it goes out, a whole furnace of medicine becomes a whole furnace of ash."

"Then just light another furnace."

"Lighting another is a different furnace." He set the hook back on the rim, untied the gourd from his waist, pulled the stopper with his teeth and took a sip, bit the stopper back in, and set it by his foot. "Three hundred years ago, Qingya vanished overnight."

The lamp wick popped. No one moved to trim it.

"The Alliance records say it was a Beast Tide that came down from the north. That night was the night before the Founding. Everyone in Dongzhou says so."

The lamp beyond the threshold stopped moving. Xu Yan had come over from the Accounts Room, carrying a lantern, standing outside the door, not stepping over the threshold.

A Sui set down the unfinished bamboo tallies on her lap. "What is a Beast Tide?"

"It's what the records say." Cheng Banshan closed the furnace door halfway; the fire rumbled, muffled, inside. "I've never seen one."

A He started to ask again, but Bai Xiaoman nudged his arm. Her charcoal stick had stopped mid-stroke on the paper—half a misdrawn diagram—and the charcoal dust fell onto the toe of her shoe. Du Xiaochuan was sorting herbs at the table, a root segment held up to his nose, forgotten.

"How did Qingya just vanish in one night?" A He asked anyway. "Where did everyone on the mountain go?"

Cheng Banshan stared into the furnace door crack. "That's the only line I know." He poked at the firewood inside with the hook and didn't say more.

"Where are those records?" Bai Xiaoman asked.

"In the Alliance's registers."

"The Alliance's registers aren't shown to anyone."

"The things shown to people are called notices." Cheng Banshan said.

Du Xiaochuan set the herb in his hand into a paper packet. "The records say that, and no one ever went to ask?"

"Ask who?" Cheng Banshan pried the furnace door open a sliver. "The year I came up the mountain, the people here said the same one line. Any further back, there's no one left to ask."

There was a sound at the door. Qian Duoduo came in carrying a wooden tray, a stack of bowls on it, steam rising from the soup. "Food."

He set the tray on the corner of the table and stood listening for a moment. "I heard this when I was a kid at the market."

"Everyone in Dongzhou says so." Cheng Banshan said.

"Hear it, and it passes. Back then, no one took it seriously." Qian Duoduo set the bowls out one by one. When he got to Xu Yan's, he added an extra half ladle. "Not taking it seriously, no one remembered who said it."

"Now it's still the same one line." Cheng Banshan picked up his bowl, smelled it first, then drank.

Qian Duoduo wiped his hands on his apron. "Then let's eat. If the food gets cold, it'll have to go back in the pot."

Xu Yan stepped through the door, set his lantern on the herb table, and pulled out the sheet of paper from the table corner. On it was Cheng Banshan's handwriting—crooked lines, one row separated from the next: two herbs purchased in town this month, which day, how many pieces, how many packets, followed by how many packets used; the herbs grown in the Back Mountain herb garden with no price written, just counts of plants.

"This month's." Xu Yan said.

"Check it yourself. It's all in the basket." Cheng Banshan pushed the herb basket onto the table; the paper packets rustled.

Xu Yan counted item by item. The herb bought in town—the paper said three packets used, two left in the basket. He moved the remaining two to the outer edge of the basket, right where Cheng Banshan could reach them. Counting the third item, the basket had one more packet than the paper listed.

"What's this?"

"Mint. From the herb garden, first cutting."

"It's not on the paper."

"Not counted in silver."

Xu Yan lowered his head and added a line on the paper, then pushed it back. "Don't write the silver, write the count. If the count matches, we know which herb is running low. At this rate, next month we'll still need to buy those two from town."

"Then buy them, just don't buy damp ones." Cheng Banshan took the basket back, straightening the packets one by one. "Last time there was a packet pressed at the bottom of the basket for half a month. It was mold all over my hand by the time I found it. Threw it out."

Bai Xiaoman folded up the misdrawn diagram and tucked it into her sleeve. "Sect Master, does the Accounts Room have any scrap paper? I want to copy a larger version."

"Yes. Help yourself."

"Grandpa Cheng, what's behind that gate..." A He started again.

"Eat." Cheng Banshan said.

A He lowered his head and ate. A Sui lined up the sharpened bamboo tallies one by one and bound them with cord.

"You were standing outside the door." Cheng Banshan said suddenly, not looking up.

"Yes."

"You heard it?"

"I heard it."

"The Old Sect Master said that same line too, back in his day." Cheng Banshan drained the last of the soup from his bowl. "And after he said it, it passed."

Xu Yan tucked the ledger into his robes and picked up his lantern. A He chased after him to the threshold. "Sect Master, what Grandpa Cheng said—is it true?"

"It's what the records say." Xu Yan raised the lantern.

A He made an "oh" sound and shrank back inside. The wind picked up in the courtyard, and the flame leaned to one side.

The twentieth was a Tens day. The Kitchen door was open before dawn. Qian Duoduo hauled two pots of Spirit Meals off the stove during the Yin hour—twenty bowls per pot—and covered the mouths with cloth. The Qi-Gathering Powder also came out in the Yin hour, ten bottles; A He wrapped cloth strips tight around each bottle mouth and loaded them into a bamboo basket.

Shi Po shouldered the two pots on a carrying pole, A He carried a bundle of bamboo tallies and a stack of bowls, A Sui carried the cloth sack. They left through the Mountain Gate at the Mao hour; it was an hour's mountain road to town, arriving at the Dragon hour. The stall was set up beneath the third pillar along the wall, two boards resting on stone footings.

The sun was still low; rogue cultivators came early. The three long benches filled up, and latecomers stood eating from their bowls. The cloth over the pots, lifted each time, sent up a burst of white steam. The first buyer was a man with a carrying pole. One bowl of Spirit Meal for two spirit stones; he stood under the pillar to eat, then handed the bowl back. "A bit salty."

Qian Duoduo took the bowl. "Less salt next time."

Before he'd even finished speaking, the group in front of the stall had already started talking about the gate on the mountain.

"There's a Hidden Realm opened behind Qingya's back mountain."

"Late night of the ninth day of the Fourth Month, there was a sound from the mountain. I live close. I heard it."

"The gate opens on the fifth day of the Fifth Month."

"All the Eight Great Sects are coming. Ten people per sect—just the crate carriers alone could fill half the street."

Someone scraped the bottom of his bowl twice with the bowl turned up. "No telling what's inside a Hidden Realm."

"Even if there is something, none of it's for us." Another one said. "It belongs to the Eight Great Sects."

"Qingya guards the gate, the Eight Great Sects go in and take the goods. In that deal, what does Qingya even get out of it?"

"Gets the excitement at the front gate."

A few of them laughed. Qian Duoduo's soup ladle never stopped, passing out bowls one after another.

"Hey, kitchen boy." A rogue cultivator looked up. "How many is Qingya sending in?"

Qian Duoduo's hand paused. "Don't know."

"Ten at least, right?"

"Don't know." He scooped another ladle and pushed the bowl across.

A He cut in. "There are seal strips on the gate. Someone's on watch every day."

A Sui tugged at his sleeve.

The rogue cultivator laughed. "The gate-watch kid talks a lot. What can watching a gate get you?"

Shi Po came around from behind the stove and stood half a step behind A He, saying nothing. The rogue cultivator glanced up at him, then lowered his head and went back to eating.

One pot hit bottom. A Sui counted the bamboo tallies one by one, bound them in bundles of twenty. The second pot opened; the steam dampened a corner of the old paper stuck to the pillar. An old rogue cultivator finished his bowl and didn't leave, asked when the next market was. Qian Duoduo said the twenty-fifth.

The market broke up at the end of the Snake hour. Both pots sold out, and the ten bottles were gone too. Qian Duoduo poured the spirit stones from the cloth sack into his palm and counted twice—one hundred ten—wrapped them in cloth and tucked them to his chest, pressing them once from the outside. Then he went to the grain shop and weighed out two pots' worth of Spirit Rice, five spirit stones per pot, ten in all; Shi Po shouldered it. A He stacked the bowls into the bamboo crate; A Sui put the two bundles of tallies into the cloth sack. They were back on the mountain by the Wei hour.

On the mountain road, A He reenacted everything he'd heard at the market, imitating the way that rogue cultivator scraped his bowl bottom. The imitation wasn't quite right; A Sui laughed so hard she had to crouch by the roadside. Shi Po walked behind and only said one thing: "Just guard it."

Qian Duoduo looked back at the bend ahead. "One market day, and the whole town knows."

Xu Yan met them in the Front Courtyard. "Someone asked how many we're sending in?"

"They asked." Qian Duoduo set down the empty pole. "I said I didn't know."

"Not knowing is not knowing." Xu Yan said.

Shi Po unloaded the two sacks of rice at the Kitchen door and said one thing as he came back. "Ten."

"Recorded." Xu Yan said.

Lamps were lit in the Accounts Room at the Dog hour. The ledger lay open on the table; the back pages were Bai Xiaoman's copies—smaller characters than his, straighter lines. The footsteps outside the window had passed not long ago; Huo Qing and Shi Po had gone up the Back Mountain with lanterns at the You hour. Xu Yan recorded the day's transactions: the twentieth day of the Fourth Month; income, one hundred ten; expenditure, two pots of Spirit Rice, ten. Balance on hand: two thousand eight hundred five.

After recording, he started a new line and wrote down what he'd heard at the market—all of Luoxia was talking about the gate on the Back Mountain, about the fifth day of the Fifth Month, about the Eight Great Sects. When he finished writing, he read it over. He added nothing, removed nothing.

The gate-watch paper lay under the money box; he pulled it out and glanced once at the four shifts' names, then pressed it back.

A Sui came in with a small dish of lamp oil, set it on the corner of the table, took away the empty lamp, glanced at his writing, then went out.

Xu Yan took the copy from inside his robes. He'd read it through once before. This time he looked first at the seal: a square of vermilion pressed into the corner of the paper. When it had been folded, they'd avoided the seal; the impression hadn't been smudged. He smoothed the paper flat and spread it under the lamp, reading from the top down.

Six rules, one after another. He reached the last one and stopped.

"Those still inside when the gate is sealed will not be let out."

He read it twice.

The window paper was pushed by the wind; the flame leaned, then straightened. He folded the copy twice, avoiding the seal, and slipped it into the ledger between the two pages where the land deed was kept—deed on top, copy underneath. He closed the ledger and pressed his palm once on the cover.

The window in the East Courtyard was still lit, burning until the moment he blew out his lamp.

The Zi hour. Xu Yan put the ledger into his robes, blew out the lamp, and picked up the lantern by the door.

Qi Qi was already standing below the Front Courtyard steps, a lantern in his hand too, the flame kept low. The two of them circled behind the Ancestral Hall and headed north. No words on the mountain path. Past the formation eye, up several more zhang.

Wind came through the crevice; the lantern swayed back, the flame tipping half an inch, then righting itself again.