Chapter 157: Lines of Equal Length

A soft scrape sounded across the ash-covered floor as a charred stick dragged through the dust, leaving a pale white streak behind.

Bai Xiaoman lay sprawled on the cleared section of stone slab at the west end of the outer room. The stick was a piece she'd fished out of the ash pile—one end burnt black, which she used as a pencil. She'd draw a stroke, look up at the floor, then draw another. Her hair hung down and swept through the ash; she didn't bother pushing it back.

Shi Po squatted three paces away. Today wasn't his turn to push ash—the floor of the outer room had been swept down to bare stone, leaving only the counter area and the scattered torn pages in the courtyard. Xu Yan had redistributed the work: Shao Ming and Huo Qing scraped the residue from under the counter and sifted it; Du Xiaochuan hauled pages to the storeroom door; Cheng Banshan sat on the stone steps stacking them; and Xu Yan himself examined each page before passing it along.

Qi Qi wasn't in the courtyard. Before dawn he'd gone up the stone steps for a look around and still hadn't returned.

Wind slipped through the courtyard gate, lifting a layer of ash and dusting it across Bai Xiaoman's back. She didn't move.

She began with the first chapter.

Three chapters in the Formation Manual. What she'd memorized was the shapes, not the words. Chapter One, the Five-Element Breathing Method: five circles, one in the center, five lines connecting into it. She drew one circle in the west of the ash, then one to the east, then north, then south, and finally the center one. When she finished, she looked up and compared it to the lines carved into the floor: five shallow grooves—Metal west, Wood east, Water north, Fire south, Earth center. The layout matched the formation eye on the mountain exactly, just much smaller.

Shi Po spoke. "The eastern one's crooked."

"Where?"

"Higher. About a finger's width."

Bai Xiaoman wiped out the eastern circle and redrew it. When she finished, it still looked off to her, so she wiped it again. The third try satisfied her. She wiped the ash from her fingers onto her clothes.

"You can't even read," she said.

"Can't read. But I can see whether what you draw comes out straight."

"What does straight matter?"

"A crooked circle means the lines won't connect," Shi Po said.

Bai Xiaoman had nothing to say to that. She lowered her head and connected the five lines.

Qian Duoduo came over holding the flatbread bundle. The flatbread got counted every day—one cake per person per day—and he did the counting when he handed them out. He stopped by Bai Xiaoman's knee and set one down.

"It'll go hard if you leave it there."

"Then I'll soak it in water."

"It's still hard after soaking," Qian Duoduo said. "You didn't eat yesterday's either."

"Yesterday's is next to my water flask." She didn't look up. "I'll eat it in a bit."

Qian Duoduo stood there watching her draw. Lines crisscrossing the ash, one after another, meaning nothing to him. He asked, "Can that thing wipe out the footprints from last night?"

"What footprints?"

"The ones I made getting up," Qian Duoduo said. "I stepped in the ash once, right into a groove. I wiped it with my sleeve."

Bai Xiaoman glanced up at him.

"Did you get it clean?"

"Clean. I wiped it with my sleeve. Even blew on it."

"From now on, don't put your feet inside the circles."

Qian Duoduo carried the flatbread bundle off. Two steps later he turned back. "The broom's gone."

"Use a shard of tile to push it."

The five lines connected, and she looked at them. Uneven lengths.

She stared, then understood: the Formation Manual was drawn on silk, by hand, so the five lines were never even to begin with. But this—this was carved in stone. What looked even on silk showed its true measure on stone.

She repeated that thought twice to herself, afraid she'd forget it. The pages were all stacked on the oilcloth, pile after pile, and she wouldn't touch them—Elder Cheng had leveled each stack, and disturbing them would throw off his order.

Chapter Two was the Small Formation. This was the one she knew best. In the martial arena at Linchuan City, she'd used four formation banners tuned from this very chapter to beat Lei Yuan. She drew four corners in the ash, but stopped halfway through: on the Formation Map, the four corners were also connected by lines to the one in the center.

She set the stick down and looked back at the stone slab.

Four corners, one center. Same layout as the formation eye on the mountain. Same as this room. All three were one and the same thing, just different in scale—one spread across a stone platform on the slope, one occupying a few strides of a room.

Chapter Three was Raising the Formation. She'd done this once before: on the day of the Autumn Evaluation in Alliance Year 300, when the Sect-Protecting Formation rose to full strength, five formation stones sat in the five grooves, and she'd lit them one groove at a time. Only after all five were lit did the energies return to the center.

She read the floor against Chapter Three: the five grooves were the formation anchors. The grooves to the center were the paths that channeled the qi.

Following the lines eastward, she stopped. That one carved line ran beneath the collapsed half of the roof frame and broke off—the break point buried under the beam, out of sight.

She lay flat, chin nearly touching the slab, and peered under the beam. It was dark in there. Only a sliver of light.

Her hand reached out and stopped just short of that sliver.

"Don't touch."

Shi Po, three paces away, voice low.

"I'm just looking."

"Looking or not. Don't touch."

She pulled her hand back and sat up.

At the counter, Huo Qing dragged out the last drawer, flipped it over, and dumped the contents into a clay jar. Standing up, he said to Xu Yan, "The residue under the counter's been sifted twice. Everything that came through was just ash."

"The pages?"

"The three rows against the east wall are cleared. Under the counter, two compartments cleared, half of one left."

"Finish and rest," Xu Yan said. "Once the afternoon light passes, the writing won't be legible anymore."

At noon they distributed flatbread. The one by Bai Xiaoman's knee still sat there, hard as a roof tile. Qian Duoduo came to collect it, but she put her hand over it. "Mine." He gathered the bundle back and said, "Then remember to eat it."

"Qian Duoduo." Xu Yan called to him from the doorway. "How many days of flatbread are left?"

"If we ration it, enough to see us out," Qian Duoduo said. "But it gets harder every day."

"Then soak one a day."

Qian Duoduo acknowledged and left.

Xu Yan called again from the doorway: "Xiaoman."

"Yeah?"

"See anything?"

"Half of something," she said. "I'll measure more this afternoon."

"The pages aren't all sorted yet," Xu Yan said. "If you can't see it, that's fine."

"I can see it," she said.

After noon, she redrew the three chapters' diagrams in the ash, tracing each stroke again. When she finished, she sat with both hands braced on her knees. Shao Ming crawled out from under the counter with a cut on his finger. She glanced at it and said, "Uncle Shao, your hand."

"Bit of broken porcelain in the ash," Shao Ming said. "It's nothing."

She pulled a small roll of cloth bandage from inside her clothes and passed it to him, then lay herself back down on the ash floor.

At Shen hour, the daylight slanted in and fell across the stone slab. The grooves had been cleaned of ash, and the five lines showed clearly now—clearer than yesterday.

She first tried the stick.

One end of the stick touched the rim of the western groove; the other end reached the center with a good length to spare. She shifted the surplus end to the east, held it up, and found the stick too short. She tried to score it with her thumbnail, but halfway through, the wood was too soft to hold a mark.

The stick went into the corner.

New method: she'd measure with her fingers.

Starting from the western groove's rim, she inched one knuckle toward the center, moving slowly, counting silently, until she reached the center groove, where she pressed down. With her other hand she drew a mark in the ash beside her. Then she measured back from the eastern groove to the center and pressed again.

The two marks were off by a small gap.

She sat staring at the two marks for a while, then wiped her fingers clean on her clothes and started over from scratch. This time she measured from the north, working south, then west—measuring all five paths. Toward the end, she had to hold her fingers upright to keep the measurement accurate—the groove rims were rounded, and sliding a flat finger across made it slip.

Halfway through measuring the southern line, she pulled a length of thread from her breast pocket. She pinned one end on the groove rim and stretched the other to the center, using the thread to press two small marks in the ash. The thread was short; she didn't get angry. She put it away and went back to using her fingers.

After the second round of measurements, she still wasn't satisfied. She started from the center groove and worked outward, one line at a time, until she reached the break in the eastern line.

Then she knelt up and looked around.

Xu Yan still held half a page in his hand, not having passed it on for some time. Cheng Banshan waited beside him, ready to receive it.

"Sect Master," she said. "They're the same length."

Xu Yan handed the half-page to Cheng Banshan and walked over. He stopped just outside the tile ring, not stepping in.

"How long?"

"Same length," she repeated. "From the five grooves to the center—all five are the same length. I measured twice."

Xu Yan looked down at the five lines. Length differences like that, he could see each one with his own eyes.

"And the eastern section?"

"It's under the beam. Can't see it," she said. "I measured the four unbroken lines and the center segment. The eastern one—it runs from the groove toward the center and disappears under the beam."

"Then how do you know it's the same length?"

"Because only that small section under the beam is broken. The Founding Patriarch drew it. He wouldn't leave one out."

"The Founding Patriarch wouldn't draw it wrong, and it truly being the same length—those are two different things," Xu Yan said.

Bai Xiaoman pressed her lips together and turned the words over in her mind. After a while, she said, "Then I'll test it out myself."

That was when she said the line from the Formation Manual out loud: "The manual says, 'Five Elements each return to their place; five qi converge as one.'"

Xu Yan didn't reply.

"The day I entered the first layer, I only achieved the returning-to-place part," she said. "The five elements came in turns. Fire rose up past my heart and scattered, and only after it fully dispersed did Water get its turn. After Water finished, then the others. One incense stick could cycle through them once. A second cycle was beyond me."

"And if they came together?"

"If they came together, they'd arrive all at once." She pointed at the floor. "Five lines of equal length—they'd reach the center at the same moment."

Xu Yan studied the five lines from west to east, then from east to west, then looked at the broken section under the eastern beam.

"Formations are inert," he said. "Without formation stones, they don't rise."

"I don't need it to rise," Bai Xiaoman said. "I'll follow Chapter One's breathing method. Sit in the center and let it run. See if the five elements can be drawn upward together. If they scatter, I'll know exactly where the problem lies."

A very soft sound came from the doorway. Jiang Wan stood by the door, her back against the frame, sword resting at an angle beside her. Today she hadn't worked the floor or touched the blade. She'd heard the last two sentences. She made no sound, didn't come over.

Cheng Banshan smoothed a stack on the stone steps and lifted his head. "You can try. Just don't touch that eastern beam. If it comes down, half the house goes with it."

"I won't," Bai Xiaoman said.

Qi Qi returned at the end of Shen hour. Coming through the courtyard gate and seeing carved lines covering the floor, he took a wide detour to the doorway and said quietly to Xu Yan, "The head of the steps is quiet. A group went by to the south, heading toward the second level's path. Moving slow. Didn't look like the Wanshou Mountain crew."

"Which sect?"

"Couldn't see clearly. The one in front was short, carrying something on his back."

"Don't follow them," Xu Yan said.

"I didn't. I watched them turn east and head down, then came back."

The day's light shifted west, and the Accounts Room dimmed. A few torn pages still lay scattered in the courtyard, lifted by the wind. Du Xiaochuan stomped one under his foot, bent to pick it up, and looked up to ask, "Do the ones I stepped on still count?"

"They count," Xu Yan said. "Pick them up."

Bai Xiaoman scratched the stick through the ash twice. The tip had gone blunt. She tossed it back into the ash pile.

Shi Po stood and brushed the ash from his legs. "You sit in the center. I'll sit three paces out."

"Three paces out won't let you see much."

"Can't see much. I'll sit anyway."

Qian Duoduo came by to collect the flatbread. She picked up the day-old cake by her knee and bit into it.

"Tomorrow I'll sit in the center and try," she said.