Chapter 185: A New Seal Strip

At the beginning of the Chou hour, Xu Yan rose and stamped his feet twice.

He'd sat for two full shichen; his legs had gone numb and only now were coming back. He took out his fire starter, blew it alight, and raised it shoulder-high.

"Up."

The foot of the wall stirred faster than on any morning in the past month. Qian Duoduo sat up first, eyes still shut, and got out half a question: "Is there still flatbread this morning?"

"There is," Xu Yan said.

"He asked once already in the middle of the night," Qi Qi said from the darkness.

Qian Duoduo loosened the cloth bundle and spread it across his lap. Eleven pieces. He passed them down one by one. When he reached Shi Po, he added the broken half-piece on top. Shi Po didn't refuse; he broke off the other half and held it out to Bai Xiaoman. She was sitting with her head down, counting, but when the half-piece was pressed on her she looked up, took it.

She was counting formation banners and pebbles: four sheets of yellow silk spread across her knees, one overlapping the next; five pebbles passed one by one across her palm. She counted them through once, then counted them through a second time before putting them back in the cloth pouch, drawing the mouth shut, and tucking it into her robes.

Du Xiaochuan lit a torch and tucked a second one under his arm.

Shao Ming stood at the lowest step and counted heads, pointing at each person one by one. He reached ten and said, "Didn't miscount this time."

"You've never miscounted," Qi Qi said.

"That's because I don't trust myself."

Cheng Banshan was the last to rise. He lifted the oilcloth bundle from his knees and checked one corner first—the vermilion seal facing outward—then swung it onto his back, brought the two rope ends around his chest, and bit one end while he tied it tight. His medicine pouch hung at his waist; he tapped its position with the back of the same hand before turning around.

Bai Xiaoman was already up at the front. Jiang Wan slung her sword across her back and looked back down the stone steps. Below was dark, nothing there.

"Let's go," she said.

The ten of them started upward.

The lower stone steps climbed one after another, their surfaces polished bright by three hundred years of feet. Halfway up, the steps ended. Broken stone debris still lay where it had fallen, and the break point was half a zhang above their heads. Bai Xiaoman turned into a crevice in the rock face to the east and said without looking back: "This way."

The side path let in only a sliver of sky through a crack in the stone, falling on wet rock. At the third bend, Bai Xiaoman suddenly reached back to block them. "This one's loose. Don't step on it." Shi Po detoured around the spot she'd pointed at, setting his feet down lighter than usual. Qi Qi called from behind: "What happens if you step on it?"

"It makes a sound," Bai Xiaoman said.

"And after the sound?"

"After the sound, I don't know."

Past the side path, they rejoined the built-up section of stone steps. Stone walls rose on both sides. The torch lit only three chi ahead; beyond that, all was dark. Du Xiaochuan raised the torch higher. Qian Duoduo counted steps, lost count somewhere in the twenties, and turned to ask Shao Ming. Shao Ming said, "Don't count." Qian Duoduo said, "If you're the one climbing, not counting leaves you uneasy." Shao Ming said, "Counting leaves you more uneasy."

Farther up, the walls on both sides fell away, and skylight spilled down from above, spreading over step after step. First gray, then green, and finally white—so white it stung the eyes.

For the last dozen or so steps, Huo Qing came up from behind and walked beside Cheng Banshan, checking the bundle on his back, and only stepped aside once they reached level ground.

At the beginning of the Mao hour, the topmost step was behind them, and the flat ground before the gate lay underfoot.

The shed was still there. The table beneath it held nine name lists spread out, weighted at the corners with two bits of broken stone. One clerk was grinding ink; another rose holding a list and glanced toward the gate.

"Anyone still inside?"

"No one," Xu Yan said.

"Then I'll read this one only." The clerk pushed the other eight lists—other sects'—to the corner of the table. "Qingya. I'll read from the list. Answer when your name is called, and I make a mark."

He read flat and unhurried.

"Xu Yan."

"Here."

He made a mark after the name, flicking the brush tip upward—that counted as "out."

"Jiang Wan."

"Here."

"Cheng Banshan."

"Here."

"Shao Ming." "Huo Qing." "Du Xiaochuan." "Qian Duoduo." "Shi Po." "Qi Qi."

One by one they answered, one by one he marked.

"Bai Xiaoman."

"Here."

The clerk set down his brush and counted through the marked names, start to finish. "Ten from Qingya. All out."

The clerk holding the wooden box drew the Qingya list free, stacked it with the other eight lists, pressed them flat, and placed them inside.

Xu Yan stood by the gate, watching the nine of them pass beneath the shed one after another. Everyone who had come out had come out through this gate. He could count them clearly.

He glanced at the table again. The eight lists from the other sects were all fully marked—every line checked, not a single space left blank. Since yesterday afternoon, he'd been keeping a running tally in his mind, and by the end of the Shen hour it had still fallen short. Now the tally needed no more adding.

Cheng Banshan walked over to Shi Po and took the bundle from his back.

"Catch."

"Caught." Shi Po held it in both hands, steadying it before shifting it onto his shoulder.

"Carry it all the way up the mountain. You don't set it down on the way."

"Alright."

Cheng Banshan straightened his medicine pouch. Inside were twelve stalks of Dewdrop Grass and the wild Spirit Herbs gathered on the third.

"I'm going back," he said.

"Not waiting for the gate to be sealed?" Shao Ming asked.

"If the furnace isn't lit at the Chen hour today, there'll be no Qi-Gathering Powder for the tenth's market," Cheng Banshan said. "That furnace in the Medicine Hall has been cold for a month. I need to check on it first."

He started down. Qi Qi called after him: "Elder Cheng—the wine!"

"We'll talk about wine once the furnace is lit." Cheng Banshan didn't look back; he took the hem of his robe in one hand and descended the slope.

Nine people remained at the gate.

Jiang Wan stood outside the gate, looking up at the sky for a long time. Bai Xiaoman looked up too, seeing nothing. "Senior Sister, what's in the sky?"

"Nothing," Jiang Wan said.

"Then why are you looking?"

"Because there's nothing." She turned and walked away.

Qi Qi crouched at the cliff's edge and looked down. Luoxia Town sat below, small as a patch of cloth; the Luoxia River was a white thread.

"Haven't seen this in a month," he said.

"Seeing it doesn't fill your belly," Qian Duoduo said. "When I get back, I'm scraping the pot first."

At the Chen hour, someone came up from the mountain road.

Wen Su was in front, with eight team leaders behind her: Wei Changge, Lin Lian, Pang Ce, Xiong Dai, Tan Shuo, Ke Wujiu, Qin Ruo, and Gan Ren. The two clerks rose from beneath the shed.

Wen Su walked to the table and spread the nine lists one by one, her finger tracing line by line down each. When she'd finished the last one, she drew her hand back.

"Ninety in, ninety out," she said.

"Close the gate."

The two clerks went to the gate, one to each leaf, and pushed the stone slabs toward the middle. The stone was heavy. In the final half-chi, the two leaves met, the seam aligned, and something thudded dully inside. No other sound followed.

Wen Su took a new seal strip from her sleeve and laid it on the table. She wrote the date in brush: the fifth day of the Sixth Month, Alliance Year 301. Then she pressed the strip across the gate seam—half on the left leaf, half on the right—and produced the small bronze seal from her sleeve. She stamped it across the seam.

"Rule Six of the regulations: anyone still inside when the gate is sealed is not let out." She took half a step back and looked at the strip. "Today, no one is inside."

Xiong Dai stood at the back, his voice louder than anyone's: "Rank Evaluator, are you staying in Luoxia?"

"I am," Wen Su said.

That one word. Xiong Dai asked nothing more; he turned and looked the other seven over one by one. Wei Changge stood at the very edge, hadn't said a word since coming up, and hadn't glanced toward the Qingya side either.

At the Si hour, Wen Su gathered the lists from the table and handed them to the clerk with the wooden box, then led the eight sects down the mountain. The nine Qingya people walked at the very rear, past the formation eye, around behind the Ancestral Hall, and step by step to the Mountain Gate.

A He and A Sui stood inside the gate. A Sui saw them first and ran out two steps, then stopped halfway, hiding her hands behind her back. Only after she'd stopped did she remember that the thing in her hand was for them, and she brought it out again—two Spirit Cakes, wrapped in paper, a little squashed.

"Saved them for three days," A He said.

"Saved them for a month," A Sui said.

"Three days," A He said. "The earlier ones got eaten long ago."

Qian Duoduo crouched to accept the Spirit Cakes and broke them into pieces—one small bite for each. Shi Po's bite was the largest.

"Wang Shuan came up on the fifth," A He said, walking beside them. "He stood at the Mountain Gate and looked toward the back mountain. Asked—the people not back yet?"

"What did you tell him?" Xu Yan asked.

"I said not yet," A He said. "He said he'd come back on the tenth, then."

Nie Bo was sweeping by the gate. At the threshold, he moved his broom aside to let the nine pass, then went on sweeping.

Over at the Medicine Hall, smoke was already rising from the chimney—thin and straight, going up.

Shi Po carried the bundle into the Accounts Room and set it on the counter.

"Leave it there," Xu Yan said. "I'll deal with it in a while."

In the Front Courtyard, Xu Yan stood at the door of the Main Hall and said: "The back-mountain watch is canceled, starting today."

"Not even at night?" Shao Ming asked.

"Not at all," Xu Yan said. "The gate is sealed. The Branch isn't sending people to guard it, and we won't either."

Shao Ming acknowledged. He'd grown used to arranging that watch over the past month; it felt like something had gone missing.

Jiang Wan took down her sword and set it against the door of the Main Hall. Huo Qing didn't go inside; he stood beyond the threshold, looked back at the back mountain once, then walked in.

In the kitchen, Qian Duoduo lifted the pot off the stove and turned it over. The bottom was thick with black soot. He held the rim with one hand and knocked at it with the back of a knife, swearing at A He with each strike. "Fire that fierce—how's the bottom supposed to stay thin?"

"I was afraid it wouldn't cook through," A He said.

"Not cooking through doesn't make it thick," A Sui said from the doorway. "That porridge he made once was raw."

"That time the water went in too late," A He said.

"Raw is raw," Qian Duoduo said. "From now on, the fire has to be even. Even is fire. Uneven is panic."

At the Xu hour, the daylight drained away.

Xu Yan first went to the Medicine Hall. The furnace was lit and the doorway was warm. Cheng Banshan crouched by the fire, prodding it with the furnace hook, a film of sweat across his nose. The medicine pouch on the worktable was emptied, the Dewdrop Grass laid out stalk by stalk on oiled paper, root hairs separated, soil unwashed.

"Elder Cheng, I'd like a piece of oilcloth."

"What size?"

"Big enough to wrap two sheets of paper."

Cheng Banshan glanced at him but didn't ask what papers. He laid the furnace hook across his knees, pulled a sheet of oilcloth from under the worktable, scored it with the iron tip of the hook, then held the cloth against his knee and tore along the line with one hand—clean and straight.

"The thicker piece is for wrapping pages." He passed the oilcloth over. "The thinner's for herbs. Don't mix them up."

"Understood."

Xu Yan returned to the Accounts Room and lit the lamp. A thin layer of dust covered the desk; no one had sat here for a month. He carried the bundle from the counter to the ledger rack and stacked the paper stack by stack up to the highest shelf. The paper corners were all singed brittle, so he worked slowly. When he'd finished, he turned the topmost sheet over so the vermilion seal at the head faced outward.

Then he sat down and drew two layers of paper from his robes: one was half a rubbing, the other was the ledger page with its burn-bitten edge. He aligned them along their original fold lines, pressed them together, and laid them in the oilcloth, folding all four corners toward the middle until it was a palm-sized packet. He slipped it back into his robes, against his chest, and smoothed the clothing flat from the outside.

He did not unfold those two sheets.

He moved the lamp to the end of the ledger rack and stood looking into that shelf. The vermilion seal was red—dark red under the lamplight. That stack of paper was older than anything else in this room.

He moved the lamp back to the desk and blew it out.

The back mountain was dark the whole time. The gate sat on the cliff, and across its seam was pressed a new seal strip.

He slept in the Accounts Room. The bedding he'd folded before leaving was exactly as he'd left it. He pressed a hand over the oilcloth packet on his chest, held it there a moment, and slept.