Chapter 194: No Stock

At the Yin hour on the second day, the lamp at the Mountain Gate still burned. Qi Qi tucked two parcels of flatbread into his shirt and stepped through the gate opening first.

Xu Yan pressed a hand along the inside of his robe on the stone steps. The prescription paper sat on the left; the hemp rope lay on the side next to the cloth pouch, the pouch angled outward. The ledger rested against his chest, just below his heart, tucked inward. He did not open it.

Nie Bo stood at the door of the low hut, his broom laid across his feet. When he saw them coming down, he nudged the broom aside, clearing half the path. The two passed him without a word. Step by step they descended the stone stairs. At the third bend, Xu Yan looked back. The lamp at the Mountain Gate was already hidden behind the trees.

Ten li of mountain road. The sky went from black to ash-gray, then from ash-gray to white. The streets of Luoxia Town were quiet. The wooden sign outside the grain shop had not yet been hung. Only two water carriers came up from the river, water slopping over their bucket rims and leaving dark streaks on the stone slabs.

Three carts sat under the carriage shed. The first was already hitched to a mule, straw mats laid in the bed, the canopy a newer piece of oilcloth. The old man who handled bookings scored a line in his register with a charcoal stick and looked up. "First cart. Steady, doesn't stop often."

"Four stones." Xu Yan counted four spirit stones from the cloth pouch and laid them one by one into the old man's palm.

"Pay when boarding, that was the deal." The old man swept the coins into his sleeve and held the charcoal stick between his teeth. "On the way back, remember to tell the yard a day ahead at the latest. Otherwise the carts'll all be hired out from under you."

The carter had a lean, long face, a whip wound around his waist with the tip tied in a knot. He rarely used it. When the mule drifted toward the roadside, he gave a short shout, brief, the way one calls a familiar name.

Eighty li of official road, wheel ruts deep, half a finger of dust settled on the oilcloth. Midway, a grain cart came at them head-on. The carter pulled the mule aside, and the two carts squeezed past, the ropes on the grain sacks scraping against their canopy with a dry rustle.

"Plenty of carts outside Linchuan City," the carter called back. "Last ten li on the official road, grain carts one after another. Won't move fast. If you're not in a hurry, once we reach the yard you'd do better walking in on foot than waiting here."

By midday the sun pressed down on the canopy, the oilcloth hot to the touch. The carter steered the mule off the road into shade at the foot of an earthen slope. A well stood at the slope's edge, a worn wooden bucket on the platform, its rope frayed.

"Rest a bit. The animal needs water too." He unhooked the fodder bag and hung it over the mule's mouth.

Qi Qi drew half a bucket of water, cupped a handful and washed his face, water dripping off his chin onto his collar. The two broke apart the flatbread. Cold water soaked hard bread and still it stayed one solid lump. Qi Qi bit off two mouthfuls and said through them, "Qian Duoduo said to get hot water at the inn, let it soften in the bowl. He didn't say what to do halfway."

"Halfway has its own way." Xu Yan broke his bread into smaller pieces, putting each into his mouth one at a time, washing them down with cold water, the bread slowly softening on his tongue.

The carter crouched at the slope's edge gnawing his own dry rations. He raised his eyes. "You two headed to Linchuan to buy what?"

"Stones," Qi Qi said.

The carter rolled the word around in his mouth and laughed once. "Eighty li to buy stones. What kind of stones?"

"Formation stones."

"That I don't know." He chewed a couple more times. "I hauled stones once. Two sacks, axle groaning the whole way. Buyer was a well-dressed fellow, said they were for repairing steps at some temple. Linchuan stones aren't cheap."

"Can't get them down the mountain," Qi Qi said.

"Things you can't get usually have something special about them." The carter untied the whip from his waist and shook off the dust. "Board up. Half the road left."

They reached the carriage yard outside Linchuan City at the Shen hour. An open stretch of tamped earth, hitching posts in a long row, a few carters squatting by the wall talking. Mule carts didn't enter the city gate. Xu Yan lifted the bread parcels and cloth pouch from the cart bed and they walked toward the gate, reaching it in under half a shichen. Under the gate archway a row of water stalls had set up, one carrying pole and two buckets each, bowls turned over on the bucket lids.

The inn by the market had a low counter, the shopkeeper behind it wiping bowls with a cloth. He looked up and studied them. "It's you two. The east room upstairs is empty. Two plank beds, two stones a night, settle when you leave."

"Got hot water on the stove?" Qi Qi asked.

"Yes. Help yourself if you need it, pot's on the stove. Fire gets banked at the Xu hour. After that it's only lukewarm."

The upstairs room smelled of old wood. Qi Qi pushed the window open halfway. Street noise poured in; a noodle-soup vendor's pole rapped out his wooden clapper as he passed, three knocks, then a pause. Xu Yan took a flatbread from the cloth pouch and tore it in half. They got half a bowl of hot water from the inn, the bread sinking slowly, softening.

"Heading back on the fourth," Qi Qi said, holding the bowl. "If people in town ask, what do we say?"

"Bought it or didn't buy it," Xu Yan said. "It is what it is."

"Say neither got bought." Qi Qi rested the bowl on his knee. "The stones can wait. Those two herbs can't. Elder Cheng says grass sitting three years is still grass, but if the auxiliary ingredients don't come, the grass just keeps sitting."

"Then we go home and say we didn't get them," Xu Yan said.

After nightfall the street grew louder. Qi Qi went downstairs and came back up. He said a pair of out-of-towners at the table below were gambling with dice and had asked if he was from Qingya.

"What did you say?"

"I said no." Qi Qi pulled off his shoes and sat cross-legged on the bed. "He didn't ask again, just went back to throwing. Sect Master, in a place like Linchuan, plenty of people don't know Qingya, and plenty do. Either way it's trouble."

Xu Yan didn't answer. He poured the spirit stones from the cloth pouch onto the bed plank and stacked them in piles of ten. Twenty-one stacks, six left over at the end. He ran the accounting through his mind: four stones for the round-trip fare already paid today; the inn, two nights, four stones, settled on departure; two formation stones, two hundred; that left twelve for the two herbs. Twelve stones for two auxiliary ingredients—he wasn't counting on quality.

First, the stones. If the stones couldn't be bought, all two hundred went to the herbs. If the stones went through, the herbs would only come home as a report.

At the counter tomorrow, he planned to use the lines Bai Xiaoman had given him: lay the hemp rope into the groove; if it sits a finger's width too wide, it won't seat; a finger's width too narrow and it'll wobble. And Elder Cheng's advice: judge the quality with your own eyes, don't let anyone wrap it up and hand it over. He fixed the two instructions firmly in mind before returning the coins, stack by stack, to the pouch. He folded the mouth over twice and tucked it into the outer side of his robe.

On the third day people were up and down the stairs before dawn. By the time Xu Yan and Qi Qi arrived, the market shops were taking down their door panels one by one, standing them against the wall. The whole street thudded with the dull sound of wood hitting stone.

The formation implements shop stood at the west end of the market, its frontage deeper than the others, the counter in the back half. A small lamp burned on the counter, flame turned low, its light falling only in a circle on the countertop. A row of wooden troughs lined the surface, old cloth padding their beds, stones resting in each. Metal, Wood, Water, Fire, Earth—carved into the wood beside the troughs, the characters worn glossy by passing hands.

It was the same short middle-aged shop hand. He held a coarse cloth and wiped a stone, slowly, steadily.

Xu Yan drew the hemp rope from his robe and laid it on the counter, the two knots facing up. "Wood trough, fire trough—one each. Matched to this width. I want to tap it myself and listen. Price comes after."

The shop hand didn't look up. "No stock."

"Those in the troughs."

"Display pieces." He turned the stone in his hand over and kept wiping. "No stock."

Xu Yan looked into the troughs. The wood trough held three stones, the fire trough two, all polished clean, a trace of un-wiped dirt at their edges. Under the lamp the fine grain on their surfaces showed clearly. The brittle kind Bai Xiaoman had described, the kind that should ring clear when tapped.

A rogue cultivator squeezed in behind them, a worn basket on his back stuffed with straw rope and half a ration of dry bread. He leaned on the counter. "One fire stone."

The shop hand set down his cloth, bent and picked a stone from the fire trough, straightened and turned it under the lamp, then held it to the light to check the side. "This one. One hundred."

The rogue cultivator drew a cloth bundle from his chest and unwrapped layer after layer. Spirit stones inside, stacked too, though unevenly. He counted out a pile and pushed it over, then counted a second, then counted it all again himself. The hundred stones on the counter sat in ten small stacks. The shop hand swept them into one heap and scooped them into his sleeve.

The stone went into a sheet of old paper, corners folded in, straw rope bound twice around. The shop hand found a charcoal pencil in a drawer, located a line in an open ledger, scored through it, and put the pencil back.

Xu Yan stood at the counter and watched the hundred stones vanish into the sleeve, watched the rope tie, watched the charcoal line strike.

"When will you have more?" he asked.

The shop hand pushed the wrapped stone toward the rogue cultivator and picked up his cloth again. "Don't know."

Qi Qi shifted half a step forward, his mouth already opening. Xu Yan laid a hand on his arm, very light, just one touch.

"Let's go," Xu Yan said.

Outside, Qi Qi glanced back at the shop. "He's got them in the troughs..."

"I saw." Xu Yan tucked the length of hemp rope back into his robe, the two knots still tied.

The medicine guild stood just south of the market's center. Two winnowing baskets of herb slices sat drying inside the door, a shop hand turning them with a bamboo strip—flipped over white, dropped back white. The smell of medicine hit the nose, bitterness pressing down a hint of sweetness. A small scale stood on the counter, a thin layer of dust in its pan.

Xu Yan spread the prescription paper on the counter and smoothed its two creases flat with the guild's bronze ruler.

The shop hand set down his bamboo strip, wiped his hands, and picked up the paper. He read it slowly. When he finished he looked up at Xu Yan, then back down at the two lines.

"These two are cut off."

"When will they come in?"

"Can't say."

The paper came back across the counter. The shop hand's finger pressed into it and the corner folded.

"How long have they been out?" Xu Yan asked.

The shop hand didn't answer. He went back to the winnowing basket and turned the herb slices again, the bamboo strip scraping the bottom, each stroke distinct.

The curtain to the back room hung still, no sound behind it. Xu Yan had been to this medicine guild once before. The year someone reported the spirit meals as poisoned, he'd stood outside the threshold and asked whether ginger went on the inspection slip. The alchemist had crouched in the back room reaching for a jar and said, "I only write down what I test." That time he'd waited for an inspection. This time the counter held nothing at all.

"Your alchemist in the back?" Xu Yan asked.

"In." The shop hand switched the bamboo strip to his other hand. "Busy."

Xu Yan waited a while. The curtain didn't stir. He picked up the prescription paper, folded it along its original crease, smoothed the corner the shop hand had bent, and returned it to his robe.

Qi Qi followed him out and didn't speak until they were under the lamp at the medicine guild's door. "You won't even ask the price?"

"He's not quoting. What am I supposed to quote?" Xu Yan said.

The street thickened with people. Two men carrying empty baskets threaded between them. Across from the medicine guild a dried-goods stall had chestnuts in bamboo trays gleaming in the sun, someone crouched before them picking them over one by one.

Qi Qi lifted his chin toward the north entrance of the market. There, a stretch of roofline stood higher than the rest—a two-story building, two wind lanterns under its eaves, still lit at this hour.

"There's another one over there. Wanbao Tower. Sells everything," Qi Qi said.