Chapter 189: A Debt Repaid

On the thirteenth day of the Seventh Month, during the Tiger hour, the lamp in the accounts room was still burning.

Xu Yan flipped back through the last pages of the Sixth Month's running ledger. During that month inside the Hidden Realm, he had kept no records—the ledger had stayed on the mountain, and once they came out he'd been busy with the confrontation, firing the furnace, and rushing shipment after shipment for the market. The Sixth Month's balance had dragged on into the Seventh Month. He went through the few entries line by line: the fifth day, Mao hour, exiting the Hidden Realm, all ten out; the sixth day, down the mountain to buy the Sixth Month rations, fifty spirit stones; the tenth day, first market, sold out, and after the fair they'd replenished two pots of spirit rice at the grain shop, ten spirit stones. When he reached the last entry, he evened out the balance and drew a horizontal line beneath it.

The moment the line was drawn, a row of text appeared before his eyes.

[Balance: one debt on credit, repaid.]

He kept the brush in hand and waited, watching for the next line to surface—the income entry that would read: Jiang Wan, Foundation Establishment Late Stage. Since entering the Hidden Realm, he had seen such lines twice: once on the eighteenth day of the Fifth Month, when Bai Xiaoman sat within the guard formation, and once on the thirtieth day of the Fifth Month, when Huo Qing was in the stone chamber. Both times he had seen it. Both times he had stopped whatever he was doing in that moment.

The lamp wick sputtered. No other words appeared in the ledger.

He had known this would happen. On the night of the twentieth day of the Fifth Month, after Jiang Wan drank her medicine and lay down to sleep, he had followed the accounts room's old rule and read that line aloud: borrowed power is repaid with the next breakthrough; once repaid, it does not enter the ledger. On the twenty-first day of the Fifth Month, when she asked him where that stick of incense had come from, he'd only said: recover first. This entry was one he himself had put on credit; the words he himself had read. Written clearly. Nothing to dispute.

Xu Yan set the brush back on the edge of the inkstone and sat there.

The horizontal line on the paper had not yet dried. He reached around and pressed at his lower back. The qi slowed when it reached that spot—over forty days since he'd entered that layer on the thirtieth day of the Fifth Month, the blockage at his lower back still hadn't cleared, only loosened halfway, like an alley that never reached the end. He closed the ledger, tucked it into his clothes, shut the account book and pressed it onto the board beneath the ledger rack, then nudged the lamp wick a little higher. The room brightened, and the ink spots on the desk's edge came clear.

He did not go to the East Courtyard.

Outside the window it was still dark. From the Mountain Gate came the sound of a broom—swish, swish, unhurried. Someone in the kitchen coughed twice; Qian Duoduo getting up in the night, then the clink of a water vat lid. A gust of wind passed over the Back Mountain, turning the leaves of the old pagoda tree in the Front Courtyard, the sound like water.

The sky lightened, little by little.

At the Mao hour, the East Courtyard's door opened.

Jiang Wan came out carrying her sword. She pushed the door halfway open before stepping over the threshold. On the stone platform by the East Courtyard entrance sat a coarse porcelain bowl, a leaf pinned beneath it—the water the kitchen left every day, cooled, no one saying who left it, no one ever mentioning it. She drank half the bowl, returned the rest to its place, lowered her head to look at the bowl once more, then lifted her eyes.

Cheng Banshan was already standing in the yard, no one having noticed when he arrived. With one hand he nudged the bowl toward the inner edge of the stone platform, then laid three fingers against her wrist.

No one in the courtyard spoke. Jiang Wan stood still and let him press, her eyes on the bowl on the stone platform, a bit of water still clinging to its rim. Cheng Banshan's brow furrowed, then relaxed. His fingers moved up half an inch and pressed down again.

He held for half a quarter-hour.

"Foundation Establishment Late Stage."

Jiang Wan's hand paused on the sword sheath. "I knew it last night."

"Knowing is knowing." Cheng Banshan withdrew his fingers and hooked his hands at his waist. "That empty stretch in your meridians has only just filled in. Don't take it out to test swords with anyone. These next couple days, stand your pillar exercises, smooth the qi—that palm strike you took in the Hidden Realm, the flesh below your right ribs is thinner than elsewhere. I felt it."

Jiang Wan didn't answer that. She only lifted her sword half an inch, then let it drop back. "So the ten days I lost in the Fifth Month—I've won them back?"

Cheng Banshan looked at her. "You have. You raised them back yourself."

She looked toward the Front Courtyard. Xu Yan stood beneath the eaves, a brush still in his hand, as though he'd just stepped out of the accounts room and stopped.

"You don't look well," she said.

"The Sixth Month's accounts only balanced today."

"A month of accounts, and you had to burn the lamp to the Tiger hour?"

"Delayed twice, so I had to check it twice."

She made a small sound of acknowledgment, then turned and moved through two sword stances in the courtyard, drew the blade back, laid it across her palm and weighed it. "The sword's no lighter."

Cheng Banshan grunted, took up his wine gourd, and left.

By the Dragon hour, the whole mountain knew.

The word had spread from the kitchen. Qian Duoduo heard it from Du Xiaochuan, wiped both hands on his apron, and turned right around to lift the steamer tray. "Then we'd better steam an extra batch." Du Xiaochuan asked what the extra batch was for. Qian Duoduo said people who break through eat well—back in town, he'd seen a Foundation Establishment cultivator put away three bowls in a single meal.

A tray of coarse grain steamed buns came out to the Front Courtyard. A He and A Sui each snatched one first. A Sui took a bite and mumbled through it that this was Senior Sister's. Qian Duoduo smacked the edge of the steamer. "It's all of yours, and nobody's to keep score." After saying so, he tucked one into his own sleeve, saying he'd save it for noon. Du Xiaochuan carried the tray and asked whether to keep the rest. Qian Duoduo said he'd steam another batch at noon; today the kitchen fire wouldn't rest. A He ran toward the kitchen with the bun still in his mouth, calling that he'd add firewood. Qian Duoduo shouted after him: "Add it steady."

Bai Xiaoman came over from the east end of the Front Courtyard, two pebbles in her hand. "Senior Sister, at Foundation Establishment Late Stage, does your qi reach the place you want it to go?"

Jiang Wan thought for a moment. "Not yet. It moves half a breath faster than yesterday."

Bai Xiaoman squeezed the pebbles tight. "When will I reach it?"

"First, steady your Pillar at the second layer." Cheng Banshan came over from the direction of the Medicine Hall, wine gourd in hand. "Once steady, then ask about the third step."

Shi Po stood by the wall, eating his bun one bite at a time. He didn't speak until it was gone. "Senior Sister, still training? I'll stand with you."

"Go stand your own pillar."

Shao Ming put away the mnemonic verses, rose from the stone steps before the Ancestral Hall, and came over to cup a fist toward Jiang Wan. "Qingya's sword—it's reached the late stage." After saying it, he seemed to realize the words came out clumsy, waved a hand, and sat back down, telling the two children to keep reciting.

Huo Qing stood under the veranda, facing the wooden target, practicing that single thrust. From start to finish he never raised his head. Jiang Wan walked the length of the Front Courtyard, stopped beneath the veranda, and stood watching.

"Shoulder's pulling in too early."

Huo Qing lowered his left hand and gave a nod.

"Run it once more."

He raised it and ran through the motion again. Jiang Wan watched until the third movement, then raised a hand. "Don't rush this one. You're going in after his force breaks—not before he does."

Huo Qing grunted and ran it a third time.

The half-day passed like any other. Nie Bo swept fallen leaves by the Mountain Gate, skirting around the veranda when his broom took him near; the kitchen fire burned from the Dragon hour to the Monkey hour, and the steamer was put on once more; Bai Xiaoman finished arranging her pebbles, spread the formation banner on the stone to air, flipped it, flipped it again.

Xu Yan, in the accounts room, turned the Sixth Month's ledger to its last page, wrote a line reading "Sixth Month balanced," and closed the book. He sat for a while, then stood and walked to the Front Courtyard.

Jiang Wan was just coming across from the East Courtyard, sword at her waist.

"Senior Sister."

"Yeah."

The two passed each other, neither stopping. Seven or eight paces on, she reached over and tugged the knot on her sword sheath, saying nothing.

The days after that went on, one after another.

On the morning of the fourteenth day of the Seventh Month, Cheng Banshan said at the Medicine Hall doorway, "The East Courtyard can take visitors now." Those words traveled faster than anything. By noon the kitchen had delivered a bowl to the East Courtyard—hot, not cooled.

The fifteenth day of the Seventh Month: market day. The stall stood as always beneath the third pillar from the wall—two pots of spirit meals and ten bottles of Qi-Gathering Powder, set out at the Snake hour, sold out by the Horse hour. The talk in town had changed: the Hidden Realm affair faded, and the question most asked at their stall became, "Is your mountain still taking people?" Qian Duoduo handed over the last bowl of spirit meal and wiped his hands. "Gotta have rooms and rations." The man pressed, asking when there might be. Qian Duoduo said, "That you'll have to ask our Sect Master." Xu Yan collected money behind the stall, heard it all, and didn't respond. Once the man left, he placed the spirit stones into the cash box one by one, arranging them neatly.

Some people still talked of old matters. A man with a shoulder pole stopped before the stall and told the person beside him that in the Sixth Month, the Eight Great Sects' signed petition had been rejected by the Dongzhou Branch, and none of them had gotten anywhere; and that the man from Wanshou Mountain, when he left, had spent half a day cursing over by the Quarry. Qian Duoduo listened, folded the steamer cloth, and didn't dare even answer.

Markets on the twentieth and twenty-fifth days of the Seventh Month. The days between stayed the same as ever on the mountain: before dawn, Huo Qing under the veranda, practicing that thrust at the wooden target; at the Mao hour, Jiang Wan practicing sword in the East Courtyard, hanging her blade behind the door when finished; Shao Ming drilling the two children on their mnemonic verses; Bai Xiaoman arranging her pebbles in the Front Courtyard, then scraping them back into a pile with her toe; Cheng Banshan's furnace one batch after another, ten bottles out by the Dragon hour on market days; and every day the kitchen still left a bowl of water on the stone platform by the East Courtyard door, still placed by A Sui.

Once, after setting down the water, A Sui didn't leave. She stood at the East Courtyard door and asked Jiang Wan where one should begin, learning the sword. Jiang Wan took her wrist and turned it this way and that, then said: first, learn to stand. If you can't stand, everything else is empty. A Sui went back and stood at the base of the Front Courtyard wall, stood until her legs trembled, and was dragged away twice by A He.

After the market on the thirtieth, Xu Yan and Shi Po went to the grain shop to buy the Eighth Month rations. Shi Po slung two sacks over one shoulder; Xu Yan carried the coarse grain. The two of them rested under the grain shop's eaves. On the road back, Shi Po suddenly said, "Grain shop hand says rice prices will rise in autumn."

Xu Yan nodded. "Rising or not, we still eat."

That night in the accounts room, he evened out the Seventh Month's running ledger. His brush-tip paused on the balance line. That layer of Jiang Wan's—if it were entered by the rules of the roster, he ought to be advancing a step right now. Instead, the ledger only read "repaid," and he had not moved at all. This entry she had repaid herself: the mountain gained one Foundation Establishment Late Stage sword cultivator, the books clean, nobody owing anybody.

He set the brush down and wrote nothing. He flipped to a blank page at the back of the ledger and wrote: "Autumn Evaluation: rank silver, one hundred twenty spirit stones." Below it, a note: the day before the Autumn Evaluation, count it out separately from the cash box and bag it. Only after writing that line did he feel the day had been properly closed.

The Eighth Month came, and the market still ran on days ending in five and ten. The fifth day of the Eighth Month was still scorching. The stall sold cleaner than in recent markets; Qian Duoduo said it was the harvest workers with coin in hand—two spirit stones a bowl, and they'd still buy.

After the market broke and they returned to the mountain, it was the Rooster hour, daylight reduced to a single strip on the Mountain Gate's eave. Xu Yan called out to Qi Qi at the accounts room door.

"Sixth day. Go to the carriage house."

Qi Qi still held two emptied sacks in his hands. "Book which day?"

"Seventh day, Mao hour."

Qi Qi switched the sacks to his other hand. "Going to the Branch?"

"To submit the application."

"Bring the roster?"

"Bring it. Wrapped in oilcloth."

Qi Qi nodded. He took two steps, then turned back. "How many days left until the ninth day of the Ninth Month?"

The lamp in the accounts room was not yet lit, and the room had already darkened. The sheaf of ledger pages on the top rack had its edge sticking out. Xu Yan glanced at it before finishing his sentence.

"A little over a month."