Chapter 172: Words by the Pool

Huo Qing ate the flatbread from the You hour standing at the edge of the stone plaza. He took a drink from the water flask, set the flask back on the stone, and went to sit by the pool.

The stone chamber gradually fell quiet. Qian Duoduo tied up the flatbread bundle and set it by his head. Du Xiaochuan mumbled something about "I'll take the Hai hour shift," and no one answered. Cheng Banshan turned over, his empty sleeve folding beneath him, the cloth rustling.

Jiang Wan sat at the base of the stone wall, her sword leaning against the rock, untouched. She had gone to the edge of the stone plaza and stood there for a while during the day, and after returning to the stone chamber she hadn't spoken. Now she glanced toward the doorway. What she could see was a figure by the water, back turned to her, shoulders level, sword lying across his knees. She lay down beside her sword.

The daylight withdrew from the stone plaza, withdrew to the water's surface, until even the stones along the bank lost their edges.

Huo Qing was on the You-Xu watch. His left hand rested at the scabbard mouth, thumb pressing the worn-white ring there. After a full day of striking stone, the skin at the web of his hand was hot, throbbing. The wrist that had been pressed on the twenty-eighth no longer felt numb.

His fingers ran down the sword spine, found the crack sealed with oil, traced it twice, then drew back.

All day he'd been on the stone plaza, stabbing that stone. The Heavenly Sword Sect people on the far side of the plaza had all gone inside before the Shen hour, the doors closing one after another. Once the plaza was empty, the wind-sound that had come in bursts through the day also stopped. Shi Po stayed crouched until the light thinned, and as he left he said, "Flatbread's inside the door." Huo Qing grunted in acknowledgment.

That door didn't open all day.

While practicing the sword in daylight he hadn't looked that way, and when he sheathed the sword he hadn't either.

There was no wind over the water. The water was a layer of black; you couldn't see what was beneath it, or how deep it ran. The stones near the bank had soaked all day and felt cool at night. He sat, listening to the breaths in the stone chamber slow one by one, listening to Qian Duoduo's teeth-grinding start and stop.

There were two sounds from the far side of the stone plaza—once like something toppled over, once heavier. He didn't look up.

After the light was fully gone, that door sounded.

The door sounded, and footsteps rose. They didn't come straight across the middle of the stone plaza; they came around to the water's edge, stepping on the stones near the water, one step, one sound, unhurried, unbroken.

He counted the steps into the forties before he raised his head. His hand didn't move; it still rested at the scabbard mouth.

A figure stood in the darkness. He could make out the build, the shoulders, not the face. The sword was still on the back, the sword-wrapping cloth tied in two knots, untouched.

"Huo Shidi."

Huo Qing didn't answer. He neither rose nor moved his hand toward the hilt.

Wei Changge stopped a few paces away, and as he stopped, his sole shifted on the wet stone with a faint sound of water. The stones under his feet were the wettest ones at the water's edge—the very place where, on the twenty-eighth, Huo Qing's heels had retreated until there was only water behind them.

"That strike—an elder of the sect told me to make it."

The voice wasn't loud, but it wasn't held down either. He paused, as if waiting for Huo Qing to speak. Huo Qing didn't. Through those few paces he could hear the man's breathing, steady, unhurried.

"Before the match, he told me to go for your right arm. I did as I was told."

Huo Qing's thumb stayed on the white ring of the scabbard mouth, moving no further down. He didn't look at that face again. In the dark he couldn't see it clearly anyway; and even if he could, it would still be the same one—the one at the wharf, the one in the middle of the stone plaza on the twenty-eighth.

"Why, he didn't say. And I didn't ask at the time."

Water seeped through beneath the stones, so faint it was nearly inaudible. No one else emerged from the darkness at the far side of the stone plaza.

"I only learned later: what he wanted was for you to leave the sect. I was kept in the dark too."

At the words "leave the sect," Huo Qing's thumb at the scabbard mouth pressed down—pressed until the nail went white—then eased off.

After that sentence, Wei Changge fell silent. He raised one hand to adjust his collar, then let it fall again. The right sleeve of his robe still had a slash in it, opened on the twenty-eighth, unsewn, the edge hanging loose. Both hands stayed at his sides; he didn't reach toward his back, nor did he step any closer.

The match on the twenty-eighth replayed before Huo Qing's eyes. A disciple from Heavenly Sword Sect called out "Right side!"—urgent, sharp. The call finished, Wei Changge's sword went for his hanging right arm. He hadn't defended—his right hand couldn't lift, defending would've been useless anyway. He dropped his left shoulder, shifted half a step, let the strike pass outside his shoulder, and it flicked his sleeve open.

After that strike, Wei Changge never went there again.

Before stepping into the match, the man had said, "No ring. No incense. Say when you can't stand," and only then untied the two knots from the sword-wrapping cloth, one by one.

The wharf had been the same: the scabbard tip tipped over his charcoal basket, and as he picked the charcoal up piece by piece, the man stood over him and said, "Draw, and I won't fight back." He'd been certain at the time—that strike, those words, were aimed at the person he was.

Now someone stood a few paces off saying that before the match, the target had already been decided; the one who'd shouted had been someone following orders.

All these years he'd turned over only one thing in his mind: why that strike had been meant for his right arm. Now there was an explanation, and the explanation offered no reason—only a message: he was meant to leave.

No one had seen him off the day he left, and no one had blocked his way. Sword on his back, right hand hanging, he'd walked down the Heavenly Sword Sect stone steps alone. In Luoxia Town, he did odd jobs for people, the sword still on his back.

After coming up to Qingya, he practiced with his left hand. One thrust, one retraction—how many times he'd practiced, no one knew; he hadn't counted either. He only remembered one thing: the direction that strike had come from.

He turned those sentences over in his mind: told to make the strike, aim for the right arm, no reason given, what they wanted was for him to leave. By the end, only one part wouldn't settle.

Huo Qing lifted his left hand from the scabbard mouth and set it on his knee.

"Which one."

He hadn't spoken all day; his voice came out rougher than usual.

"That, I won't say."

Wei Changge didn't sidestep it, and he didn't dress the words up as anything else. He just stood there and let them fall on the water.

Huo Qing didn't ask a second time. Asking once was his business; answering or not answering was the other man's.

There was a small patch of moss on the stone. He scraped it off with his thumb, then set the hand back on his knee.

The only things left here were the water, two men's breathing, and the rustle of someone turning in the stone chamber. He slowed his breath and counted, one by one. By the time he reached the teens, he realized a layer of sweat on his back had gone cold. He didn't wipe it. His back stayed straight.

The right hand hung against his thigh, hanging from shoulder to knee, the sleeve draped over his kneecap. The hand was still there, still inside the robe; it didn't obey him, and it hadn't started disobeying today.

He raised his left hand, lifted the right arm a little through the sleeve, then let go and let it fall back. It fell without a sound, the sleeve folding into a crease at the knee. He didn't smooth it out.

"I'm not telling you this so you'll thank me," Wei Changge said. "And I'm not taking back what I said at the wharf."

Huo Qing listened. He remembered the words from the wharf clearly. If the man said he wasn't taking them back, then he still stood by that day. He didn't respond.

After that, neither spoke. Inside the stone chamber Jiang Wan turned over, her scabbard tapping the stone wall—soft, faint. Wei Changge's breathing was slower than before; he didn't move, and showed no sign of leaving.

Huo Qing adjusted the sword on his knee. The scabbard tip knocked against stone with a small sound.

A long while passed. The darkness at the far side of the stone plaza gave no sound at all. The water along the bank lapped against the stones, pressed in, drew back. Wei Changge stayed standing, his soles still. Huo Qing looked at the sword on his knee, at the white ring of the scabbard mouth. He looked for a while before he raised his head.

"Go on, Wei Changge."

He didn't get up to see him off. He heard his own voice as the words left him—low, even flatter than when he'd asked the question.

Wei Changge stood a moment. He'd said what he came to say; there was nothing else. He turned and went back the way he'd come, stepping on the same stones, one step, one sound, unhurried, unbroken. The footsteps counted to the forties again, reached the darkness at the far side of the stone plaza; a door sounded, and he was gone.

Huo Qing sat where he was. The stones Wei Changge had stood on were wet, and in the dark you couldn't tell which ones he'd stepped on.

The words from just now still sat in his ears, one sentence after another. He didn't turn them over, didn't pick through them; he let them lie there, like the sword across his knee.

He lowered his left hand and pressed it down on the sword resting over his knees.

That thrust in daylight—from start to finish, his shoulder hadn't moved. Jiang Wan had stood at the edge of the stone plaza, watched, and said only, "Shoulder didn't move." She hadn't picked up her sword in days.

The spirit-herb patch at the water's edge was long empty; the soil in the bed was still loose, visible in daylight, invisible now.

He could count those nineteen strikes. On the fifteenth, he'd stepped forward half a pace.

He sat, and let the rest of his watch pass. The pool bottom sounded twice, both times like something rising to the surface, dissolving the moment it broke. Qian Duoduo's teeth-grinding started again—a stretch of grinding, a stretch of stillness. Huo Qing didn't move: back touching nothing, left hand pressed on the sword, eyes open, and everything in sight was black.

The sword had lain on his knee so long that spot had gone numb. He shifted the sword forward an inch, sat a while, then shifted it back.

The longer he looked into the water, the better he could make out the line of its edge.

The Hai hour arrived. He didn't turn to call back, didn't stand, just sat there waiting for someone inside to wake.

There was movement in the stone chamber. The door pushed open a little, and a figure came out, standing in the doorway, one side of the robe hanging open, hand wiping at his eyes. When he made out who was sitting outside, he stopped.

"Your turn," Huo Qing said.

Du Xiaochuan grunted in answer, walked to the flat stone by the door, and sat down. He pulled his front placket closed, wrapped both arms around his knees, and looked up at the water.

After settling, he didn't speak, and didn't ask about anything that had happened tonight.

Huo Qing lifted the sword from his knee, left hand gripping the sheath, the scabbard tip bracing against stone as he stood. Two hours of sitting straight had left his legs stiff. He stood a moment before moving. At the door, he glanced once toward the far side of the stone plaza, then went in. It was black inside. Sword in his left hand, he felt his way to his spot against the wall, sat, laid the sword across his knees, and leaned his back against the stone.

Inside the stone chamber, some breaths had evened out, some hadn't. Shi Po turned beside him, cloth rustling. On Cheng Banshan's side, the teeth-grinding had shifted into a longer exhale.

Huo Qing set the sword straight across his knees, straightened his back, and did not lie down.