Chapter 195: Decided Upstairs

The Wanbao Tower storefront was wider than the other shops in the market, a two-story building with a pair of wind lanterns hanging under the second-floor eaves, their shades coated in dust. Xu Yan stopped in front of the tower, took a look at those two lanterns, then stepped over the threshold.

Inside was darker than the street. The counter ran in three sections: at the east end, alchemy materials wrapped in paper were stacked cell by cell, each packet marked with writing; in the middle, several bamboo crates held ore, rough and fine sorted apart; at the west end, a wooden tray held formation stones, each one wiped clean, arranged so neatly it looked as if they'd just been pulled from water and left to dry. The stones at the formation implements shop west of here sat in cloth-lined wooden troughs; the stones here were arranged on a wooden tray, and they rang when tapped.

Two customers stood at the counter. One was bent over picking through alchemy materials, flipping packets over to read the characters on the bottom; the other was tapping the stones in the wooden tray with a finger—tap one, listen, tap another—and on the third stone he stopped, picked it out, and set it by his hand.

Behind the counter, a man sat on a tall stool, a small abacus at his hand, quoting prices for the one picking alchemy materials. Xu Yan hadn't even reached the counter when the man rose from his stool, set the abacus down, and spoke first: "Sect Master Xu."

Xu Yan stopped.

This was his first time setting foot in this building. He wore no badge, his clothes were plain coarse cloth from town, yet the man behind the counter knew his name.

The man wore a dark blue long gown, the cuffs worn pale, quick of speech but unhurried of hand: "My surname is Teng. I manage this shop."

"Shopkeeper Teng," Xu Yan said.

Teng Mao gestured with both hands to the three sections of the counter, his fingers touching nothing: "Alchemy materials, ore, formation stones—whatever Qingya wants, the tower has none of it."

Xu Yan did not answer right away. He looked the three sections over from end to end, taking it all in. At the west end, the two stones in the wooden tray—one in the third cell from the left, one in the second cell from the right—had fine lines running across their surfaces. The two stones Bai Xiaoman needed were exactly like these. At the east end, the packets of alchemy materials were labeled; the two ingredients written on Elder Cheng's prescription paper, if they were on this counter, should be in that pile in the second cell. Everything was on the counter.

"Is it that you don't have it, or that you won't sell?" Xu Yan asked.

Teng Mao answered quickly: "Decided upstairs. This tower does not do business with Qingya."

The buyer picking alchemy materials froze with his hand on a packet, turned his head, glanced at Xu Yan, and asked Teng Mao, "From Qingya?"

Teng Mao didn't answer him, just said, "Weigh yours."

The man turned his packet back over and lowered his head to count his purchases; the stone-tapper also took his hand off the stones and stepped back half a pace.

Only then did Teng Mao turn back around. He gathered up the packets the first buyer had selected, weighed them one by one on the small scale, quoted a price, ran the abacus, took the money, tied the packets into a bundle with straw rope and handed them over. For the stone the other buyer had picked out, he quoted and took payment the same way, wrapping it in old paper. The two buyers carried their purchases past Xu Yan, neither lifting their eyes to look at him. Xu Yan stood at the counter like a man waiting in line, and when the counter cleared, the man behind it still did not look his way.

That sentence had no "this once," no "for now," no "wait a while." Xu Yan turned it over in his mind, and once through, he heard its meaning clearly: it wasn't that these few items were sold out—it was that this tower would not do business with Qingya at all.

"Shopkeeper Teng, noted," Xu Yan said.

Teng Mao said nothing more, just straightened the button at his cuff, sat back on the stool, and went back to his abacus.

Xu Yan turned and walked out. Passing the wooden tray at the west end, he looked the stones over from end to end, touching none of them; he also swept over the prices on the alchemy packets, each one clearly marked, only not for sale to him.

Out past the threshold, he stood under the eaves for a while. In the archway at the market's north entrance, two rogue cultivators with baskets on their backs came in, walked past the tower without looking inside. The window on the second floor was half open, no sound from within. The two wind lanterns under the second-floor eaves swayed slightly in the wind, a little dust falling from their shades.

Qi Qi followed him out, stayed at his heels all the way to the middle of the market before speaking: "Wanbao Tower is Jinding Pavilion's shop. Everyone in Linchuan City knows that."

"Mm," Xu Yan said, not slowing.

Qi Qi waited, and when Xu Yan didn't take it up, he said no more. The market's center was the most crowded stretch—pole carriers, basket carriers, mule leaders all jammed into one lane. A talisman-paper seller hoisted a stack of yellow paper above his head shouting the price, shaking the stack with each shout. Xu Yan edged sideways through the gaps between bodies, looking at no stall, saying nothing. Qi Qi kept half a step behind; several times he opened his mouth, saw Xu Yan's back, and swallowed the words. They passed the street corner of the formation implements shop, and Xu Yan didn't glance west. The two of them walked past the medicine guild's door; two winnowing baskets of herb slices still sat out front drying, no one turning them. Behind the counter inside, someone was answering a question, quoting another house's price. Xu Yan looked once, didn't stop.

At the tail of the noon hour, the street vendors had pulled their stalls in a little, leaving the middle path open. An old man selling straw rope hugged his rope to his chest, gave them a glance, then turned his face away. In Linchuan, plenty of people recognized Qingya, and plenty didn't; Xu Yan didn't bother sorting out which kind that glance was.

Wei hour, the public office at the market's north end.

The office door stood open. No one sat on the dais inside; the door at the back was shut, the bronze ring nailed to its panel motionless. A wooden threshold at the entrance was worn low in the middle. Xu Yan stood outside the threshold without stepping in.

The hall smelled of old ink and wood. A row of wooden boards was nailed to the wall inside, one next to another, their corners glossy from handling. He counted from the east end, reading them one by one.

The first board stated: goods for sale must be openly priced—what is sold and at what price must be written in plain sight, no vagueness allowed; the last line was that no merchant may ask which sect the buyer belongs to.

At that last line, he paused. At noon in that tower, all three counter sections were openly priced; the packets had writing, the stones in the tray were marked. And they had asked precisely about the buyer. This rule governed the act of selling—that you may not pick and choose customers—but it said nothing about what should happen when a merchant refused to sell.

He read the middle boards one by one, unhurried, and after finishing one, sometimes went back to reread half of another.

Further down: if a dispute arises in the market, the stewards may inspect the accounts of any shop or stall in the market.

Qi Qi stood at the edge of the threshold, scraped a foot against it twice, and peered into the hall: "Go in and file a complaint?"

Xu Yan didn't answer right away. He read that rule again, looking at the opening phrase. A dispute takes two parties: one speaks, the other pushes back—only then is it a dispute. Today the three shops said their piece and left it at that; no one pushed against anyone. And the tower hadn't sold him anything, so this transaction would never appear in their books; an audit would turn up nothing.

He read to the bottom. Not one board covered the three sentences said today.

"A single 'no sale' won't carry a complaint," Xu Yan said.

"So it counts for nothing?" Qi Qi said.

"It's noted," Xu Yan said.

He glanced past the threshold: the hall was empty, the inner door shut, a sliver of light showing beneath it. He did not go in. He turned and walked toward the market exit.

At the market gate, he stopped and said to Qi Qi: "Go to the carriage yard outside the city and confirm: Mao hour on the fourth."

Qi Qi acknowledged and headed toward the city gate, his soles slapping against the stone all the way. Xu Yan waited at the market entrance. While waiting, he counted through the three shops he'd visited in the last half day, one by one: one at the west end, one in the middle, one at the north entrance; west to east, south to north—three people, three sentences. Behind each sentence, someone had been standing there listening.

Qi Qi came back with sweat on his forehead: "It's set. Mao hour on the fourth. The cart will be in the yard."

The two returned to the inn before dark. The innkeeper was at the counter working his abacus, looked up to greet them, and said if they wanted hot water that evening, just say so. Their room was the east one upstairs: two plank beds, one by the window, one by the door; a small table under the window with an oil lamp on it.

Xu Yan untied his cloth pouch, spread it on the bed board, stacked the stones in piles of ten, and counted: two hundred sixteen, same as yesterday, none touched. The cart fee of four was already paid; the inn, two nights at four, settled at departure. The two hundred for those two formation stones was still in the pouch, unspent. He tucked the pouch back into his clothes, felt the inner side once, then sat down.

At Dog hour, dinner was laid out downstairs, but they didn't take it. They soaked two dry flatbreads they'd brought and ate those. The bread fell apart once soaked. Qi Qi said mid-bite, "Sect Master, in that tower today, they didn't even ask the price before saying their piece."

"Mm."

Xu Yan chewed his bread and said no more. Who exactly was "upstairs" in that tower, he didn't know and didn't intend to guess. What the tower had sold him was a polite, definitive answer; what stood behind that answer was not today's business. He drained the last mouthful of water from his bowl.

At night, the oil lamp burned, the wick flowering. Downstairs someone was clearing bowls; bowl knocked against bowl, sound after sound.

Xu Yan lay in bed, not sleeping.

He arranged the three shops' sentences in rows.

First row: Dragon hour, formation implements shop at the west end of the market, the shop hand at the counter—"No stock." When he said it, the stones were all in the wooden trough. Afterward, a rogue cultivator asked for a piece of flint; the hand picked one from the trough, examined it under the lamp, a hundred per piece, took the money, wrapped it in old paper with two turns of straw rope. In front of that rogue cultivator, in front of Qi Qi.

Second row: Snake hour, the medicine guild in the market, shop hand—"These two are cut off," "can't say." The prescription paper pushed back, a corner creased. In front of him, in front of Qi Qi. No one else was in the guild; the alchemist in the back didn't come out.

Third row: Horse hour, Wanbao Tower at the market's north entrance, Shopkeeper Teng—"Decided upstairs. This tower does not do business with Qingya." In front of the two buyers at the counter, in front of Qi Qi.

Three rows lined up. He read from the top down, and when he reached "in front of whom," he checked row against row: first row—one rogue cultivator behind, plus Qi Qi; second row—only Qi Qi; third row—two people, plus Qi Qi.

The medicine guild row was the shortest. Short by no small measure.

He didn't write. The paper was on the mountain, the ink was on the mountain; the account book in the Accounts Room had blank pages after the last entry—he'd have to wait until the fourth, when he got back, to write. He had a rule for his own bookkeeping: put it down the same day. But there was no paper today, so the rule had to yield. He would remember. Not a single word would drop.

These three rows were useless today. A single "no sale" wasn't a ledger entry; only the three sentences placed together made one. But where that entry should be written, and for whom, there was no one today.

Downstairs, the last bowl was put away; the walls went quiet.

On the other bed, Qi Qi turned over: "Sect Master."

"Mm."

"Those three shops—"

"Noted," Xu Yan said.

Qi Qi didn't ask again, turned back over, and after a while his breathing evened out.

Xu Yan blew out the oil lamp. In the darkness, he checked the three rows once more from the top: one shop, one time, one sentence, who stood behind it. Row next to row, no gap between them.