Chapter 154: Same as the Sect Master's

The tenth day of the Fifth Month. Xu Yan laid a page across his knee, pressed a finger to its corner, and read line by line. The month and day were written at the top, followed by what had come in and what had gone out, with a balance at the end. The characters had been smoke-stained brown, several spots smudged beyond reading; he scraped at them twice with a fingernail, and when they wouldn't clear, skipped to the next line.

He'd been reading pages like this all morning. Most of what they'd pulled from the ash was the same: the eleventh day of the Third Month, two sacks of spirit rice in; nine tiles' worth of repair fees out. The nineteenth day of the Fourth Month, one sack of coarse grain in; two pieces for hemp rope out. Some pages had only a single entry, and the balance was still copied below it regardless. Some recorded two credits and one debit, the last line squeezed low, pressed against the paper's edge. When one page filled, the next continued without leaving a blank line between. Read front to back, not a single year could be found.

He set two pages side by side on his knees. The first ended with a balance; the next continued the tally, and the numbers matched—but a stretch was missing in between. The last line of the first page fell at a month's end, and the next page opened on the following month's days. The missing pages weren't underneath; they might be buried in the ash, or still pinned under the beams, or lost for good. He separated the two, handed one to Cheng Banshan, and set the other on the farthest stack.

Along the stretch from the east wall to the counter, cleared patches exposed the seams between stone slabs one by one; untouched areas were still ash. There were footprints in the ash—trampled by the Eight Sects' people coming and going—and some pressed into the papers themselves. The pages had been trodden into the ash and stuck; you had to blow from underneath to work them free.

Each page he finished, he passed along. Cheng Banshan sat on the second stone step at the storeroom door, took it with one hand, and laid it flat with the top edge facing out. For every stack he received, he asked first, "Where did this come up from?" Only after Xu Yan answered—"east wall base," or "under the counter"—would he press it down. Pages without vermilion seals got their own stack, set at the far edge.

"Reading page by page," Cheng Banshan said, "you'll still be at it after dark."

"It'll get done." Xu Yan turned to the next sheet. "Scorched writing—you can't recognize it on a second pass."

Shi Po climbed down from the beams once and moved the broken tiles pinning pages at the east wall base. He didn't scoop them to his chest; he set them at the wall's foot handful by handful, then crouched to study each page, only reaching for it after Xu Yan gave a nod. Shao Ming worked the southern section with Du Xiaochuan. Du Xiaochuan was slow—wiping ash from each page first, then pinching the edges—and Shao Ming waited a half-chi ahead of him until his hands emptied, then moved the whole row back.

Du Xiaochuan fished two copper coins from beneath the stack under the counter, burned black, stuck to the back of a page.

"Where from?"

"Pinned under the counter."

"Record it. Leave the coins for now."

Qian Duoduo craned his head over from behind. "Enough for one flatbread."

"Not enough," Xu Yan said. "Record it. Belongs to Qingya."

Qian Duoduo stuffed the two coins into his flatbread bundle—the cloth with two tight knots—muttering as he did, "I'll remember. Don't let it go short later." Qi Qi laughed from the east end and said they'd gained another accountant. "I don't keep books," Qian Duoduo said. "I count flatbread."

In the Snake hour, Bai Xiaoman picked up a page at the east wall base, turned it over and back, studied it for a long while, then looked up. "This method's different from Huichun Hall's."

Xu Yan didn't raise his head.

"Huichun Hall's ledgers run two columns— credit and debit, written across from each other. When a page fills, they start a new one and write the year and month at the top." She raised the page in her hand slightly. "This one just runs line after line downward, and keeps going when the page is full. No year, no month."

She held it out. "Same as the Sect Master's."

Xu Yan took it, read from top to bottom, reached the final line's balance, and let his finger rest there a moment. He handed the page to Cheng Banshan without a word.

"How many years does one book cover?" Bai Xiaoman asked. "Huichun Hall replaces theirs every year."

"They don't replace it," Xu Yan said. "It fills until there's no room."

Bai Xiaoman looked the page over once more, then passed it on.

Cheng Banshan took it and pressed it onto the stack. "Every accountant in the world keeps books that way. Saves paper."

"Huichun Hall doesn't save paper," Bai Xiaoman said.

"Huichun Hall's books are thick," Qian Duoduo said. "I used to run errands for them—a whole cabinet full of ledgers."

Cheng Banshan squared the stack and crouched to check the edges. "Three hundred years of books, and once they're picked out of the rubble, all it comes to is this—comings and goings."

At the counter, Huo Qing had finished emptying every drawer and was now working his left hand into the crack between counter and wall, pulling out nothing but ash and charred fragments. He worked slowly, section by section, pushing each drawer back exactly as it had been when done. Jiang Wan was at the innermost row along the east wall base, knees on the stone slabs, lifting pages toward herself one by one; where they stuck, she followed Xu Yan's method and blew from underneath. When a row was cleared, she moved the whole line southward. Cheng Banshan called to her twice, saying she'd been crouching too long and should stand and walk a bit. The second time she stood, made a loop at the courtyard gate, came back, and crouched down again.

"These papers—do we carry them out when we leave the Hidden Realm?" she asked after finishing a row.

"Carry them out," Xu Yan said.

Jiang Wan glanced at the stack by the storeroom door and said nothing more.

At the Horse hour, all ten sat in the courtyard and divided flatbreads—half each. Qian Duoduo went round checking water flasks; he said six were still full, and the rest could be refilled at the stone trough. He untied and retied the flatbread bundle, saying that at this rate it would last until the gate was sealed. Xu Yan called Qi Qi to the threshold. "Go up and walk the route. From here to the collapsed section—time it, and remember it yourself."

"Remembering paths is my work."

"Turn back once you pass the cave-in."

"Got it." Qi Qi took his half flatbread, didn't eat it, tucked it into his chest. He borrowed a fire starter from Du Xiaochuan, picked a torch from the wall base, and headed south.

In the Monkey hour, Qi Qi returned from the south. Sweat on his face, a layer of ash on his shoulders, the torch burned to a stub—he leaned it against the wall first.

"Got it down," he said. "Going up I didn't need to search for the way. At the cave-in I take the fork's detour, the branch that only goes inward; no stops in between."

"On the way down?"

"Same branch coming back. I scratched three marks on the rock wall at the turns, eye height."

"How long to get past the cave-in?"

"Around one Shichen. At that pace, two Shichen to the stone gate." He remembered one more thing. "Some stretches of the fork have no daylight. The torch burned down by half."

Shi Po asked, "Can you pass through carrying a load?"

Qi Qi thought. "You can. But at two of the turns you have to go sideways, and the bundle has to be held against your chest—not on your shoulder. Shoulders go too high and hit the ceiling."

"Noted," Xu Yan said.

The night of the tenth followed the same three shifts. Xu Yan took the Chou-to-Yin watch, sitting on the threshold of the outer room, stacks of pages behind him, the courtyard gate open ahead, nothing visible. Before daylight returned, he went over in his mind everything he'd read that day: credits, debits, balances—every entry reconciled. No year, and not a single entry that didn't match.

On the eleventh, in the Dragon hour, Shi Po went up first to inspect the inner room's doorway.

Two beams pressed on the door frame. One had fallen—one end planted on the stone slab, the other resting against the frame. The other lay slanting across the top, its weight not fully settled. He tested the lower beam with his shoulder first, stepped back, then tested the upper one; three tries. Ash sifted down and settled in his hair and on his shoulders.

"Move the top one first, then the lower one loosens," he said. "After it's moved, there's a gap up here, and a sheet of tile still hanging over it. When wind comes it'll drop."

"How do we handle it?"

"Clear the tiles first. Once they're cleared, prop that rafter section against the top, then move the beam." He pointed to the wall base where the half rafter still lay.

Huo Qing set his sword against the wall, crouched, and began clearing tiles with only his left hand. The fire-crisped tiles shattered at a touch; whole ones he passed behind him, broken pieces he raked aside. He worked for over a Shichen without once lifting his shoulder. The intact tiles formed a long row at the wall base. Midway through, a tile came loose overhead. Shi Po spotted it first and shouted "Above!" Huo Qing shifted half a step aside; the tile smashed at his feet into three pieces. Xu Yan said, "Slower." Huo Qing brushed the shards aside and kept at it.

Shi Po stood the broken rafter upright, wedged a brick fragment under its foot, set its head against an unbroken rafter above, steadied it with both hands, then stood back and studied it awhile. "It'll hold."

Flatbread at the Horse hour; at the Wei hour they moved the upper beam. Shi Po crouched and tested the beam's end with his shoulder twice before finding a spot not burnt through, then set his shoulder firmly. Shao Ming and Du Xiaochuan lifted the other end; Du Xiaochuan's fingers hooked into a fire crack in the beam and slipped twice before finding purchase. Huo Qing stood by the door frame, left hand pinning the loosened rafter end atop the frame, waiting for the beam to pass.

"Lift," Shi Po said.

The two rose together; the beam left the door frame and inched eastward. Ash ran down its length and fell in sheets. Xu Yan walked alongside, saying only "slow." At the courtyard wall, Shi Po said "set," and the beam hit the ground with a thud, the pages at the wall base jumping from the tremor.

The lower beam, planted on the floor, was easier. Huo Qing worked loose the tile fragments caught at the frame, and Shi Po took the beam end as before, with Shao Ming and Du Xiaochuan lifting the other side. They moved faster, pausing only at the door frame. By the Monkey hour both beams lay stacked at the courtyard wall, one over the other. Shi Po crouched to inspect the undersides, slapped the beam's surface twice with his palm, watched a thin line of ash trickle from a crack, and said, "Fine where it is."

The door was exposed. The frame was charred black; inside and out, it was impossible to tell whether there had ever been a door panel. Xu Yan stood outside the threshold and peered in—dark at first. After standing a while he made out a layer of ash on the floor, but no sense of how deep the room ran.

"This corner will hold?" he asked.

"It'll hold. Just don't pile anything else on top," Shi Po said. "The inner half—I'll have another look tomorrow morning."

Jiang Wan came over from the east wall end and stood beside him.

"Can you go in?" she asked.

"Yes."

"Alone?"

"Alone. The ash is full of pages. Too many feet and they'll crumble."

Jiang Wan looked into the doorway again. "There's a lot of ash in there. Come out to breathe."

"Noted."

Cheng Banshan came over too, stood at the doorway a moment, fanned the air before his nose with his one hand. "Don't go in today. That door's been sealed for years—the moment it opened, the ash inside needs time to settle. Go in and you'll be drinking it. Wait until the Dragon hour tomorrow. Stand outside the threshold first; let the ash fall."

Shi Po dusted off his hands. "Two fewer beams means less weight above. Don't go jumping around in the inner room."

"I won't jump," Xu Yan said.

He gathered everyone. "The inner room is mine. Tomorrow you all work the storeroom."

Jiang Wan answered and divided the group: she'd take Shao Ming, Shi Po, and Qi Qi into the storeroom; Bai Xiaoman and Du Xiaochuan would finish clearing what remained in the outer room; Cheng Banshan would keep his place at the storeroom door stacking pages, the oilcloth bundle on the step, broken tile weighing down its outer corner.

Once assigned, everyone dispersed. The doorway was still black.