Chapter 197: The Buyer at the Wharf

Two pots of spirit meals hung from the ends of a carrying pole, the white steam leaking from under the lids glossing the wood. Qian Duoduo switched shoulders every dozen paces, the straw soles of his sandals scraping dully against the stone steps. The sky hadn't brightened yet, and dew clung to the grass along the mountain path, soaking his trouser legs halfway up, clammy against his skin. Du Xiaochuan walked ahead with a stack of bowls on his back, the rims clinking softly until he slipped a palm between them and silenced them. Xu Yan came last, empty-handed.

"Getting cold," Qian Duoduo said. "Rogue cultivators like standing under the eaves with something hot. Today, two pots—I'll drop the second batch once they're all here."

Du Xiaochuan called back over his shoulder, "It cools fast."

"I know it cools fast." Qian Duoduo shifted the pole to the other shoulder. "Lids on tight, it'll still scald your hands by the time we hit town."

Someone was sweeping below the Mountain Gate. The broom moved steady and even, pushing last night's fallen leaves out of the cracks between the stones. When Xu Yan passed he said, "Heading down the mountain." The broom paused, then shifted half a foot to the side.

They reached the town gate as the eastern sky turned pale. On Market Street, people were already spreading straw mats, setting out clay jars, bundling greens into neat stacks. The Qingya stall stood under the third pillar along the wall, beneath a warped corner of the old tiled eaves. Qian Duoduo set his load down, one pot on each side. When he lifted the lids, steam shot up at the eaves, struck them, and scattered. Du Xiaochuan laid the bowls out upside down one by one, propping the cutting board on two bricks.

The first customers were townsfolk, drawn by the smell. They asked the price. Qian Duoduo said, "Spirit meal, one bowl, two spirit stones." The townsfolk laughed, waved him off, said they couldn't afford it. He didn't take offense, just lifted the long ladle and stirred, saying as he stirred, "Two spirit stones. If you hand me silver, I wouldn't even know where to make change." The rogue cultivators trickled in only after he started the second pot.

They came to market with baskets on their backs, spirit herbs dried and tied in bundles, mud caked on their cuffs and trouser hems. They took their bowls of spirit meal and squatted under the eaves to eat. They ate in silence, and when they paid they dropped their two stones on the cutting board and turned to leave. Xu Yan stood at the side of the board, watching them eat.

He waited until one rogue cultivator had drained his bowl and stood up before speaking. "Let me ask you something. Do any of you carry auxiliary ingredients for pill refining?"

The rogue cultivator looked up and wiped his mouth. "Auxiliary ingredients? We don't deal in auxiliaries. Whatever herb can be refined, you've got to recognize it yourself."

"Formation stones?"

Another man with a basket on his back cut in, voice low. "Stones weigh heavy on your back. One stone won't buy a few jin of spirit herbs. You haul it all the way to town, it's a hundred apiece. We can't afford them, so we don't carry them."

Xu Yan nodded. He understood both answers: the rogue cultivators had neither, and they couldn't afford to buy either.

The third man he questioned was a thin-faced, middle-aged rogue cultivator squatting by a column base, scraping the bottom of his bowl clean. When he looked up, his eyes flicked toward the river. "The buyer down at the wharf who takes in spirit herbs—he might have some."

Xu Yan asked, "The wharf?"

"The one buying at Luoxia Wharf. He takes baskets in by the lot. Everything passes through his hands." The thin-faced cultivator set his bowl back on the cutting board, stood, and slapped his trouser legs clean. "If you're after anything rare, he's the quickest to ask."

Xu Yan said, "Thanks," and the cultivator hoisted his basket to his shoulder and left without another glance.

Qian Duoduo rested the long ladle on the rim of the pot and lowered his voice. "Strange."

"What is?"

"Back in one market day in the Seventh Month, you'd get asked eight or nine times, 'Is the mountain still taking people?' I got so I didn't even have to think about the answer—just came out on its own: it takes housing, it takes rations." He glanced across the line of people. "Today, not one."

Xu Yan didn't answer. Qian Duoduo didn't push it. He picked the ladle back up and kept stirring.

At the Snake hour, Qi Qi arrived, sprinting in from the mountain path with his face flushed to his neck, a cloth bundle clutched to his chest. He set it on the cutting board and unwrapped it. "Ten bottles, not one missing. Elder Cheng brought them out of the furnace at the Dragon hour."

Qian Duoduo ladled him a bowl of spirit meal and pressed it into his hands. "Eat first."

Qi Qi took two quick bites, then looked up and noticed Xu Yan still standing. "Sect Master, aren't you eating?"

"When you're done, come with me to the wharf."

"Buying charcoal?"

"Asking one question."

From the pillar down to the river was a downhill slope. Once they reached the top of the stone steps, the market noise dropped away behind them. The river wind came up carrying the smell of water. Boats were moored with two gangplanks apiece; men carried sacks across the planks, and someone called the hauling rhythm, the sound breaking apart against the water's surface. The stone steps at Luoxia Wharf ran straight down into the water, the bank piled with grain sacks and coils of hemp rope.

At the top of the steps sat a table with a scale beside it and a ledger anchored at one corner. The buyer stood behind the table, his sleeves rolled past his elbows, a streak of ink on the back of his hand. He bought spirit herbs. A rogue cultivator would set his basket on the table; he'd plunge both hands in, turn the contents over, pull a handful free and inspect the roots carefully. Then the whole basket went on the scale. The beam evened out; he called a number and counted payment from a cloth pouch at his feet. The seller pocketed the money, tucked the empty basket under his arm, and walked off, and the next man shuffled forward.

Xu Yan stood at the top of the steps, off to the side, watching. Not one cultivator being weighed haggled. Whatever number was called, that was the number. One man with a full basket thought his price was too low and hefted it again; the buyer just said, "That's the number," and the man took his money.

The third man in line was the thin-faced cultivator who'd scraped his bowl clean at the stall.

His basket went on the table. The buyer rifled through it, checked the roots, looked up and called the price. The thin-faced man grunted, took his money, and walked up the steps with his empty basket under his arm, his eyes fixed on the stones underfoot as he passed Xu Yan, walking faster than he'd come.

When the fourth basket went on the scale, the buyer raised his eyes and looked over. He said nothing to Xu Yan. He steadied the basket with one hand, fingers resting on the scale beam, then turned to the line of waiting cultivators. His voice wasn't loud, but it carried to every man in the row:

"Anyone selling to Qingya—the Tower won't take his goods."

The beam wobbled once and settled level. He called a price. He paid. The cultivators in line kept their heads down, studying their baskets, the stone steps, their sandals. A man ready to hand his basket up pulled it back half a pace, and only handed it over after the man ahead had gone, as if that half-pace could put distance between them.

One cultivator at the very back glanced at Xu Yan, then quickly looked away.

Xu Yan stood at the top of the steps for a while. He didn't move forward, didn't ask. He watched the scale: the counterweight hung from one end of the beam, polished bright by countless hands, the scale stars embedded one by one—worn but undimmed.

Qi Qi stood half a step behind and to his side, mouth opening. Xu Yan lightly touched the back of his hand, turned, and walked back. Once they were on the street, Qi Qi finally said in a low voice, "Sect Master, he said that in front of all those people."

"Mm."

"Why didn't you ask him something?"

Xu Yan said, "He was talking about his own goods. What was there for me to ask."

"Then we—"

"Go back. The pots aren't sold out yet."

Back at the stall, the sun had slanted past the eaves as the Snake hour waned. Rogue cultivators still came: ate, bought, paid. Nothing changed. Except one thing: no one spoke. Some would normally ask, "What's in the soup today?" or "Still setting up next market day?" That day nobody asked. Money down, bowl down, gone.

Qian Duoduo's ladle hand paused on the rim of the pot. He called out to a familiar face, "Today's batch is thick—threw in an extra handful of rice."

The cultivator nodded, took his bowl, ate, set down his two stones, and left.

The ones who'd spoken to Xu Yan earlier that morning no longer looked his way either. One man standing under the eaves, three or four paces off, stared fixedly at the opposite side of the street.

Du Xiaochuan squatted behind the pots washing bowls. After a long while he said, "Back at Chixiao, when I went down the mountain to buy needles and thread, the townsfolk wouldn't talk to me either. They didn't know me—they just didn't speak." He flipped a bowl facedown on the board. "Later, once I hung a tag at my waist, they'd talk."

Qian Duoduo asked, "What'd they say?"

" 'Senior Brother, what do you need?' " Du Xiaochuan stacked the last bowl and said nothing more.

Around noon, two pots scraped empty, bottles sold out. Du Xiaochuan upended the pots and scraped the bottoms. Qian Duoduo gathered the money from the cutting board into the cloth pouch in his apron, stacked the empty baskets together, and went to the grain shop to buy spirit rice for the next market day's two pots. He came back with two small sacks lashed to his pole, the rice rustling inside with every step.

The market broke up faster than usual. The stall was packed away, and the three of them carried the empty pots, bowls, and bottle-baskets out of town, reaching the Mountain Gate at the You hour. Nie Bo's broom was at work on the stone steps again.

Before the Dog hour, in the Accounts Room. Qian Duoduo upended the cloth pouch onto the desk and stacked the stones into ten neat piles, then slid them over. "One hundred. Two pots, eighty. Ten bottles, thirty. Rice, ten. Not one missing."

Xu Yan counted twice and entered it: the fifth day of the Tenth Month, Income one hundred.

"Anything else?"

Qian Duoduo pushed the stones toward the iron box, his hands hesitating. "No. Everyone bought the way they're supposed to, paid the way they're supposed to." He moved toward the door, and at the threshold his feet stopped, though he didn't turn around. "Sect Master, not one person said a word. I called out twice. They nodded and left."

Xu Yan set the brush on the corner of the inkstone. He flipped to the back pages of the account book; under those three lines there was still one blank row. He remembered the buyer's words clearly: the day, the place, who was there. He picked the brush up, and the tip hovered over the paper—this entry was no purchase, no sale, not a single spirit stone spent; it didn't belong in the daily ledger. He set the brush back down and closed the book.

For the market on the tenth day, Xu Yan stayed on the mountain.

Before dawn, the familiar sound of the thrust came from the veranda, the wooden target absorbing the force dully. At the Mao hour, Jiang Wan practiced her sword in the East Courtyard, the scabbard ringing against the stone steps. In front of the Ancestral Hall, Shao Ming listened while the two children recited the breathing formula—A He rattled it off quickly, A Sui stalled halfway before continuing, and Shao Ming only said, "Again." The wood stove in the Medicine Hall burned; Cheng Banshan kept one hand near the Furnace Door. In the front courtyard, a ring of pebbles lay on the ground, and Bai Xiaoman crouched over it, pressing them down one by one, then picking them up again.

Shi Po came back from the Back Mountain with a slab of blue stone over his shoulder, set it by the kitchen door, and measured it against the threshold with his foot. "To raise the threshold," he said.

Around mid-morning, Bai Xiaoman looked up and asked, "Sect Master, in Linchuan—other shops won't sell either?"

"I asked. Three shops."

She swept the pebbles back into her palm and asked nothing more.

News from town came back down the mountain road. Leaving town at the Monkey hour, reaching the Mountain Gate at the You hour. Qian Duoduo drank half a dipper of water at the door, then tipped the pouch onto the desk—ten stacks again. "A hundred."

Xu Yan counted and entered it: the tenth day of the Tenth Month, Income one hundred.

"They still pay, but no words." Qian Duoduo stood watching him finish the entry, his voice low and even. "Buyers for the spirit meals, buyers for the Qi-Gathering Powder—same as ever, they come, they pay. Not one of them looks at me."

Xu Yan closed the account book.

Qian Duoduo picked up the empty pouch and turned toward the door. At the threshold he looked back. "Sect Master—"

He stood in the doorway, the darkening sky of the front courtyard behind him, one edge of the pouch still in his hand.

"No one's asking whether the mountain is still taking people either."