Chapter 158

Chapter 158: Three Fingers

On the fifteenth day of the Fifth Month, by Snake hour, the outer room had already been worked on for half a shichen.

Huo Qing stood at the counter, pulling the pages out one by one with his left hand from where they were wedged under the counter feet. Shao Ming and Du Xiaochuan came out of the inner room carrying the half-section of a burned-through rafter, a tile still hanging from its end. Jiang Wan crouched by the storeroom door, gathering the scattered pages on the floor into a stack.

Xu Yan stood in the middle of the outer room, studying the five empty sockets.

Bai Xiaoman sat down beside the earth socket, tucking her skirt hem beneath her knees. She had not touched any of the five sockets. They were still empty.

"I'm seated," she said.

"Sit," Xu Yan said.

She closed her eyes and moved her qi according to the first chapter of the Five Elements Formation Manual. East rose first, Wood; South followed, Fire; West was Metal, North Water; last it settled on center Earth.

The first four she had worked on for nearly a year. She knew them well. This time she wanted all five to reach the center line at once.

Shi Po sat three paces away.

First attempt: Fire arrived, the other four still halfway. She began again. Second attempt: Water dispersed halfway. Third attempt—

All five arrived together.

Her shoulders lifted slightly.

And just like that, the breath at her chest failed to hold. Fire was the fiercest; the moment it entered her chest it surged upward and burst from her throat. She choked, coughed so hard she doubled over, one hand braced against the stone slab.

"Cough—cough—"

Shi Po stood, but his feet did not move. Setting foot outside the circle was forbidden under the rule set on the thirteenth.

Jiang Wan straightened at the storeroom door.

Cheng Banshan came over from the east wall, the medicine pouch swinging at his hip. He stopped outside the tile ring and glanced at Bai Xiaoman: face flushed, one finger pointing at her throat, unable to speak.

"Let her catch her breath," he said.

Xu Yan gave a slight nod.

Bai Xiaoman coughed for a while, slowly straightened, wiped her eyes, still panting.

"I'm fine," she said, voice hoarse. "Fire came up. I couldn't stop it."

"Don't rush," Cheng Banshan said.

"I'll go again."

"Not yet." Cheng Banshan crouched outside the tile ring, the sleeve on his empty side draping onto the stone slab. "Your hand."

Bai Xiaoman extended her hand beyond the tile ring. Cheng Banshan placed three fingers against the inside of her wrist. His fingers were cool. He simply held them there, saying nothing.

The courtyard fell quiet. Daylight slanted in through the broken gap in the courtyard wall and fell across the five sockets in the outer room. Du Xiaochuan still stood at the door holding the half rafter, not daring to move; the tile on the rafter had not once fallen off.

Xu Yan stood by the threshold. Waiting.

Cheng Banshan's fingers relaxed for a moment, then pressed again. Only after a while did he withdraw them.

"Nothing to worry about," he said. "The qi dispersed; nothing's blocked. Don't rush."

Bai Xiaoman nodded and drew her hand back inside the tile ring.

Cheng Banshan stood and walked to the threshold. Xu Yan walked over too, and the two of them stood in the shadow of the outer room's doorway.

"The girl's about to break through," Cheng Banshan said, keeping his voice low. "Don't push her."

"How many days?" Xu Yan asked.

"I don't know. That part's not mine." Cheng Banshan said, "Fire is the hardest. She found that out herself. Don't let her try a third time today. Rest half a day. Tomorrow."

"Rest how long?"

"Up to her. If she can sit still, let her sit. If she can't, let her sleep." Cheng Banshan glanced at the ground. "First layer to second is a minor bottleneck. If you rush a minor bottleneck, the road after won't hold steady."

"Keep sorting pages?"

"Keep sorting." Cheng Banshan tilted his head toward the storeroom. "There are plenty of pages. They won't wait."

He said this, pressed the medicine pouch against his side, and went back to stacking pages.

Shi Po was still standing. Once Cheng Banshan had gone some distance, he crouched down and asked Bai Xiaoman, "What does breaking through mean?"

Bai Xiaoman wiped her nose and thought for a moment.

"It's when all five arrive together," she said. "Today they did. Once."

"Does once count?"

"No." She shook her head. "The day I entered the first layer, the five elements came one after the other—finish one, start the next. It worked, but none of them waited for the others. The formation manual says five qi arrive as one. Today they came together, but the moment they arrived they scattered. I couldn't hold them."

"Can't hold them, so go again."

"Again," she said.

At Horse hour, Qian Duoduo divided the flatbread. He unwrapped the bundle, went through it, and picked out the piece that looked softest, placing it on the flat stone by the socket. He also left half a water flask.

"This one's soft today," he said.

Bai Xiaoman drank the water, broke the flatbread in half and ate one half, tucking the other half inside her front placket.

"Qian Duoduo," she said.

"Hm?"

"Save me a soft one tomorrow too."

"The soft ones are getting scarce," Qian Duoduo said. "From here on they'll be hard. You'll have to soak them."

"Then I'll soak it."

Shao Ming came out of the inner room carrying a small stack of pages, skirted the tile ring, and set the pages on the stone steps by the storeroom. On his way back he stopped and said to Bai Xiaoman, "Take your time. When I pushed for Foundation Establishment, I pushed for twenty years."

Bai Xiaoman looked up. "Uncle Shao, did you cough too?"

"Coughed." Shao Ming said, "The first time I tried, the qi reached three inches above my navel and scattered to both sides under my ribs. I coughed in my room for half the day."

"And after that?"

"After that I didn't make it. This time I did, because Elder Cheng drew out the poison. Not like you, grinding it out on your own." Shao Ming said, "You're earlier than I was."

He walked off after that, back to carrying pages.

By late Horse hour, daylight fell straight down from above the courtyard, turning all the dust in the yard gray-white. Du Xiaochuan took the tile off the rafter and set it by the wall, then crouched back down beside Bai Xiaoman. "If the attempt fails, aren't you just wasting your strength?"

"Not a waste," Bai Xiaoman said. "Today I learned Fire arrives first."

"What use is knowing Fire arrives first?"

"Tomorrow I'll know to wait for it." She drew a line in the dust with her finger. "It comes fastest. I keep wanting to follow it. If I follow it, the others scatter."

Shi Po said from three paces away, "Wait for it."

"Wait for it," Bai Xiaoman said.

In the afternoon she sat again, but halfway through she got up on her own and did not force it. She walked out to the dust floor and traced over the few marks she'd drawn on the fourteenth, then measured with her fingers from the west socket toward the center. Once she'd gone over it, she sat in a daze.

Shi Po waited until she stood, then set back a broken tile that the wind had nudged out of place at the edge of the tile ring.

"Sitting tomorrow?" he asked.

"Sitting tomorrow."

On the sixteenth day of the Fifth Month, she was up as soon as the sky turned gray. She crouched on the dust floor and measured the five lines from socket to center, end to end—once, then again—before going back to sit by the socket.

Qian Duoduo set half a flatbread on the flat stone. "Can you do it today?"

"Don't know," she said. "Yesterday I learned Fire arrives first. Today I'll wait for it."

At Snake hour, she sat down inside the ring.

This time she did not force it. She followed the pattern of yesterday's third attempt: let the east rise slower, wait for the south to come up, then the west, then the north, and only at the end ease that central breath into place.

When the five reached the center, she felt the stone slab beneath her feet sink slightly.

No coughing.

She sat on that single point, counting. Counted to seven. It scattered.

It scattered, but not chaotically. This time she had loosened it with her own hand.

"They arrived," she opened her eyes. "They arrived. It just didn't last."

Qi Qi turned back from the courtyard gate. "How long?"

"Yesterday it was one instant," Bai Xiaoman said. "Today it was a good while."

A good while still wasn't long. She shook her head at herself and stood, taking two steps on numb legs.

Cheng Banshan came over and placed his three fingers on her wrist again. This time he held for less. He withdrew his hand, said nothing, and left.

Jiang Wan stood in the doorway of the inner room, polishing the sword sheath with a cloth in her hand. She wiped twice, folded the cloth, and tucked it into her sleeve.

"Steady," she said.

"Steady." Bai Xiaoman repeated it after her.

"The day I broke through," Jiang Wan said, "nobody pushed me either."

Bai Xiaoman looked up at her. Jiang Wan had already turned and gone back inside.

Around Horse hour, footsteps sounded outside the courtyard wall.

Qi Qi heard them first. He poked his head out through the break in the east wall, then pulled it back. "Zhenyue Sect. Ten of them. Heading inward."

Xu Yan walked to the courtyard gate.

Gan Ren led the group, in a slate-blue short coat, a long narrow cloth bundle slung over his shoulder, both hands hanging at his sides. He passed three paces beyond the break in the courtyard wall, eyes forward, not so much as glancing into the yard.

The ones behind followed. One swept a look into the courtyard—a floor of dust, stacks of paper, a cluster of people—and didn't pause either, just quickened his pace and went on.

The group passed.

"They didn't look into the yard," Qi Qi said.

"They didn't," Xu Yan said.

"Heading to the second level."

"Heading inward."

Qi Qi pulled his neck back in and crouched on the threshold, fiddling with a bit of dust just beyond it. "This group's in a hurry. Like they're afraid of being late."

"Long road," Xu Yan said. "Leave early, arrive early."

"Their people pressed the ground in front of the gate before," Qi Qi said. "Said there's real depth under this gate."

"They did," Xu Yan said.

"Zhenyue Sect wants the earth vein. Nothing to do with the paper," Qi Qi said.

"Nothing to do with the paper." Xu Yan said, "Pages done?"

"Outer room's down to the patch under the counter. Senior Brother Huo's prying it out."

After Horse hour, that patch came out too. Huo Qing fished it out with his left hand. One corner was missing, and only half the square vermilion seal at the top of the page remained. Xu Yan took it and read it over, then read aloud: how much income, how much spending, how much balance. When he finished, he set it on the top of the stack.

Jiang Wan finished on the storeroom side as well. The shelves were empty, a layer of dust on the floor mixed with scorched wood shavings.

By Monkey hour, both sides were done.

Cheng Banshan spread the oilcloth flat on the stone steps by the storeroom and began stacking the bundles. He pressed with one hand, leveling each stack before adding the next, pressing the corners flat with his fingers when they curled.

Xu Yan crouched beside him and held one corner of the oilcloth down.

"Don't get the stacks turned around," Cheng Banshan said. "Page follows page. If they get shuffled, they won't match."

"Noted," Xu Yan said.

"Heavy," Cheng Banshan added.

"We can carry it out," Xu Yan said.

"We can carry it out." Cheng Banshan repeated it after him as if saying it to himself.

Once stacked, the four corners of the oilcloth were folded over into a neat square bundle, tied twice with a cloth strap—a slipknot, for if it needed to be opened on the road, a slipknot was easier.

Cheng Banshan lifted the bundle to his knee, then onto his back. He stood and took two steps. The shoulder on that side dipped.

"Heavy."

"Can't lighten it," Xu Yan said.

"We won't." Cheng Banshan said, "Not a single page less."

He took the bundle off, set it back on the stone steps, pulled the strap a notch tighter, and patted it after tying.

"Tomorrow I'll change the way it's tied," he said. "Like this, it'll rub the shoulder on mountain paths."

"Change it tomorrow."

"Change it." Cheng Banshan nodded and moved the bundle to the corner of the storeroom wall, setting it against the stone wall with half a board that hadn't burned through laid on top.

As the light dimmed, Qian Duoduo crouched by the storeroom door counting water flasks. Ten arranged in a row. He counted once, then counted again.

"Six full," he said. "Three half. One empty."

"Fill the empty one tonight," Qi Qi said.

"I'll fill it."

Cheng Banshan tucked the corner of the board into place and turned back. "Duoduo, set aside a flask of water for the girl tomorrow."

"Which one?"

"A full one. She'll want a drink as soon as she's up."

Qian Duoduo lifted one full flask out of the row and set it on the stone step by the storeroom door, beside tomorrow's share of flatbread.