Chapter 186: Signing and Sealing on the Spot

At the Mao hour on the sixth day of the Sixth Month, a thin layer of overnight dust lay on the stone steps before the mountain gate. Nie Bo's broom swept down from the top, reached the threshold, and pushed the dust into the grass beside the path. The chimney over at the Medicine Hall had been running straight up since early morning—Elder Cheng's batch of Qi-Gathering Powder would need to keep firing until the tenth. Xu Yan and Shi Po went out through the mountain gate. Shi Po carried three empty sacks, one tucked inside the other two, the loose ends slapping against his legs as he walked.

Ten li of mountain road. The grass had grown to knee height, the dew not yet dried; after a stretch of walking, their trouser legs were soaked. Shi Po walked in front, his feet landing on stones without a sound. At the fork three li out, Xu Yan glanced east. In Wang Shuan's spirit field, the rice had shot up a notch, water running beneath the field embankments.

"Water's enough," Shi Po said.

"Mm," Xu Yan said. "Come autumn harvest, he'll carry the rice up."

They entered town at the Dragon hour. Half a street in Luoxia Town was open. The grain shop had unloaded two of its door panels, leaning them against the wall. A shop hand dragged out two sacks of spirit rice from inside, the mouths tied with hemp cord, the loose ends knotted in slipknots. Xu Yan untied the cloth pouch at his waist and counted out fifty spirit stones onto the counter: ten to a stack, five stacks laid out. The shop hand counted through stack by stack, flicking each stone into a bronze dish. When he finished, he poured them into a wooden box behind the counter, glanced up at Xu Yan once, and shoved the two sacks of spirit rice and one sack of coarse grain toward the door.

Xu Yan recorded the fifty stones in his mind, then noted: market gathering on the thirtieth day of the Sixth Month; restock the Seventh Month rations then.

Shi Po took one sack onto each shoulder. Xu Yan reached for the third sack—the coarse grain—first.

"This one's light."

Shi Po didn't argue, just shifted the two sacks to the other shoulder.

Across the street was the town market ground. It wasn't a market day. A few rogue cultivators sat against the wall, waiting. One recognized Shi Po by the way he carried the rice and said to the man beside him, "Qingya's people." The other man turned his head away. Xu Yan tucked the cloth pouch back into his robe, wound the cord around twice and tied it, and stood under the eaves watching Shi Po stack the two sacks of spirit rice against the wall—one layer each, sack mouths facing out.

"Sit a while," Xu Yan said. "Rest past the Horse hour, then we'll head back."

Shi Po pulled a coarse grain flatbread from his robe—Qian Duoduo had set it aside for him at breakfast—broke off half, and held it out. Xu Yan shook his head. Shi Po ate the whole thing, chewing slowly, steadily, and at the end brushed the crumbs from his hands onto the ground by the wall.

At the Horse hour, a clerk came up the street in a gray robe, a register held to his chest. He stopped under the grain shop's eaves.

"Sect Master Xu."

Xu Yan stood. "Here."

"The Rank Evaluator requests your presence at the inn."

Shi Po was already hoisting the two sacks of spirit rice onto his shoulders. Xu Yan took the sack of coarse grain, and the two of them followed the clerk toward the inn. At the door, Shi Po stopped on the stone steps and shifted the sacks from one shoulder to the other. He did not go in.

In the front hall of the Luoxia Inn, the tables had been pushed aside, leaving an open space in the middle. Wen Su sat behind a table set further back, a sheet of paper spread before her with one corner weighed down by an inkstone. A leather water flask from the Branch sat at the table's edge; she had poured herself a bowl of water and was drinking it, no tea ordered. Another clerk stood at her side holding a register, the corner of it showing through his fingers. Eight team leaders stood on either side. None sat. The innkeeper stood behind his counter, keeping well away.

When Xu Yan stepped through the door, all eight were watching him.

Xiong Dai spoke first. Business, not greeting:

"One: Qingya's Jiang Wan, mid-Foundation Establishment, used the power of a Golden Core on the second level on the twentieth day of the Fifth Month. She must have consumed something in the Hidden Realm. Two: Qingya is the landlord sect. They guarded the gate for nineteen days, starting the sixteenth day of the Fourth Month."

The clerk's brush moved across the paper, pausing between sections, waiting for Xiong Dai to finish.

Wen Su asked, "You were there on the twentieth day of the Fifth Month?"

"I was," Xiong Dai said. "She slapped me in the chest with the flat of her sword. I went down by the water. Four men carried me back. A mid-Foundation hand doesn't hit like that."

"Those are your own words to put on record?"

"They are."

"Then write them under the first article," Wen Su said. "A petition is divided into articles. One article holds one accusation."

The clerk added a line beneath that first article, neatly written, then wiped the brush tip against the edge of the inkstone.

Xiong Dai waited a moment, then asked, "Finished?"

"Finished," the clerk answered.

Xiong Dai turned to Xu Yan. "That bundle your ten people carried out of the Hidden Realm—you know exactly what's in it."

Xu Yan said, "The two articles written on the petition—Qingya acknowledges them."

Pang Ce spoke then. "Add one more. The storehouse was empty. What burned in the accounts room was all waste paper. They carried a bundle out."

Wen Su did not look at Pang Ce. She looked at Xiong Dai. "Write this one, or not?"

"Two articles," Xiong Dai said.

Wen Su turned the paper halfway around, the bottom edge facing the room. "Sign and seal on the spot."

Xiong Dai stepped forward, took the brush, and wrote his name at the foot of the paper. The strokes were large, the last one pressed down hard. The clerk intoned: "Wanshou Mountain, Xiong Dai." The brush passed to Pang Ce. He wrote smaller, evenly, and when finished stepped aside with the brush. Lin Lian took it and signed, then looked up and said, "That pool of water—there's a question to ask about it too." Wen Su did not respond to that. Tan Shuo signed quickly and glanced back at the others when he finished. Ke Wujiu wrote slowly, stroke by stroke, and when he was done tidied the brush tip against the inkstone edge. Qin Ruo signed and withdrew half a step. Gan Ren signed and then looked toward the door at the two rice sacks on Shi Po's shoulders.

Only Wei Changge remained.

He came out from behind the others, took the brush, wrote his name at the foot of the paper, set the brush down beside the inkstone, and returned to his place. He did not say a single word from start to finish. He did not look in Xu Yan's direction.

A silence fell over the front hall. The clerk lifted the paper, blew on it lightly, and passed it to Wen Su. She read it over, folded it, and tucked it into her sleeve.

"Make a copy."

The clerk took another sheet and sat to copy. The only sound in the front hall was the brush on paper. Xu Yan stood by the door, hands folded in front of him, watching the paper grow character by character.

When the copy was done, the clerk slid it to the edge of the table. Wen Su said, "Sect Master Xu. The copy. The land deed is at Qingya?"

"In the Accounts Room."

"Snake hour, the eighth. Qingya Main Hall. The eight team leaders will attend. Sect Master Xu will bring the deed to the hall."

"Understood."

Xu Yan picked up the copy. He did not fold it. He asked, "On the eighth, in the hall—what does Qingya say?"

Wen Su shifted the inkstone further back on the table. "What the regulations say, that's what I rule. If there's anything to say, say it in the hall on the eighth."

Leaving the inn, Xiong Dai passed beside Shi Po, stopped a step, and eyed the two sacks on his shoulders. "Qingya people all carry things like that?"

"I can carry it," Shi Po said.

Xiong Dai said nothing more and left.

At the Monkey hour, they were on the road back to the mountain. The sun had dropped behind the ridge; the dew on the grass had long since dried. Shi Po carried the two rice sacks, one on each shoulder, shifting them at intervals. Xu Yan carried the coarse grain sack, swinging against his leg.

"That day, the twentieth day of the Fifth Month, the sect had nothing to eat," Shi Po said.

"Mm."

"The flatbreads we brought—one per person—were gone by morning."

"I know," Xu Yan said. "You broke half of yours off for me that morning."

Shi Po fell silent.

After a stretch, Xu Yan took the copy from his robes, looked at it once, and put it back. Two articles: one about power, needing inspection; one about the gate, needing documents. He laid the two sentences flat in his mind, side by side, into two neat rows.

They reached the mountain gate at the Dog hour. Nie Bo's broom stood propped by the threshold; the man himself had stepped aside. Qian Duoduo came running from the kitchen to take the sacks, felt the coarse grain sack, and said this one weighed heavier than last month's. A He and A Sui stood in the front courtyard. A Sui asked if the rice was this year's new crop. Qian Duoduo said they'd know once it was steamed.

At the Dog hour, the lamps were lit in the Main Hall.

Xu Yan spread the copy on the table and read it aloud, character by character. When he reached "used the power of a Golden Core on the second level on the twentieth day of the Fifth Month," no one in the hall moved. When he reached "guarded the gate for nineteen days starting the sixteenth day of the Fourth Month," Qi Qi clicked his tongue. When he finished, he laid the paper on the table and smoothed it flat.

Jiang Wan stood at the door and spoke quickly: "I didn't eat anything."

Xu Yan said, "On the eighth, in the hall—whatever the Rank Evaluator asks, answer it."

"Then do I speak or not?"

"If she calls you, step forward," Xu Yan said. "What she doesn't ask, don't say a word about."

Cheng Banshan held his wine gourd in one hand, stopper still in. "Guarding the gate is written in Rule Three. The landlord sect also enters ten people and also guards the gate. This article makes it sound like a task Qingya asked for."

"Around the twentieth day of the Fifth Month, Jiang Wan was carrying internal injuries," Shao Ming said. "Elder Cheng's pulse records—they're on file in the Medicine Hall."

"They're on file," Cheng Banshan said. "If the hall asks about injuries, I'll speak from the pulse records. I take pulses; I don't say anything beyond that."

"There are also established ways to test for elixirs," Shao Ming added. "Whoever has doubts, let them test by the rules."

Qian Duoduo had squeezed in at the back. He wiped his hands on his clothes first, then asked, "On the eighth, should I set out tea in the hall?"

"No," Xu Yan said. "She's the Rank Evaluator. She doesn't eat or drink what's ours."

Qian Duoduo made a small "oh," then said, "The market on the tenth—"

"We go as usual," Xu Yan said. "The eighth is on the mountain. The stall won't be affected."

Qi Qi asked, "Want me to go listen outside the inn?"

"No," Xu Yan said. "Once they've signed, there's nothing more to hear."

Bai Xiaoman had been standing by the table studying the copy. At the end, she looked up. "I've copied the deed's four boundaries before. North reaches the Back Mountain cliff top."

"Mm," Xu Yan said. "I'll look it over again tomorrow morning."

Du Xiaochuan had said nothing the entire time. Now he asked, "On the eighth, where do we stand?"

"People stand on both sides," Xu Yan said. "Just stand in the hall. No interruptions."

A Sui, standing in front of A He, asked, "Where do we stand?"

"Outside the threshold."

"Will we hear?"

"The hall doors stay open," Xu Yan said.

Huo Qing stood toward the back of the hall, silent until now. He said, "The Heavenly Sword Sect signed too?"

"They did," Xu Yan said.

Huo Qing moved his left hand away from his sword hilt and asked nothing more.

The gathering dissolved. Only the lamps remained in the hall. Xu Yan folded the copy in three and tucked it into his robes, trimmed the lamp wick shorter, and went out toward the Accounts Room. In the night, there was a broom's sound from the direction of the mountain gate, stroke by stroke, now near, now far.

The next day at the Dragon hour, light came through the Accounts Room's window paper and fell on the top shelf of the ledger rack.

Xu Yan drew the land deed from between two pages of an account book. The paper had been folded twice; he opened it layer by layer along the old creases, the paper rustling dryly. The characters in the four-boundaries column were written densely. He read through them entry by entry, starting from the east boundary, his finger stopping on the north line: North reaches the Back Mountain cliff top.

He then drew another sheet from behind the ledger—the four-boundaries copy Bai Xiaoman had made in the Ninth Month of Alliance Year 300, written neat and proper, with one extra line drawn on it. He laid the two sheets side by side and compared them entry by entry: east boundary, south boundary, west boundary, north boundary. Same characters, same phrasing.

When he finished, he moved a stool over and took down the stack of ledger pages from the top shelf of the rack, vermilion seals facing out, and flipped through them one by one. At the seventh page, he stopped: the "Qingya Accounts Room" seal at the head of the page was crisp and clear, the red unfaded, all four edges intact. The text beneath was ordinary running account—dates, income, expenditure, balance on hand.

He pulled that page out and pressed it beneath the land deed.

The two sheets lay stacked together. Outside the window, Nie Bo's broom had swept its way to the front courtyard.