Chapter 199: Waited Half an Incense Stick

The long ladle clinked twice against the rim of the pot. Qian Duoduo poured the last ladleful of soup into a bowl. Du Xiaochuan reached out and took the bowl, wiping his hand absently on his apron. Against the third pillar from the wall sat two pots side by side. The first was scraped empty; the wooden lid still pressed down on the second, white steam curling up through the gap in thin streams, leaving a damp sheen on the old tiles beneath the eaves.

A line of people stretched out under the eaves. At the front, a rogue cultivator with a back basket drained his soup, left two Spirit Stones under the bowl, and was already gone. The next man stepped forward, then forward again. Qian Duoduo ladled; Du Xiaochuan handed out bowls, swept the Spirit Stones into the apron pocket at his front. Nobody spoke. Only the sound of soup being drunk, of bowls clicking against lips. Across the market street, someone hawked charcoal, his call rising long, then falling short.

At the Snake hour, Qi Qi came down the mountain path, ten bottles of Qi-Gathering Powder tucked against his chest. He ran the whole way to the pillar and lined the bottles up one by one on the stall board, base to base, a straight line. Sweat beaded on his forehead. He reached out and felt the pot lid first.

"Selling fast today."

"First pot's gone," Qian Duoduo said. "Second one's still half full."

Qi Qi untied the cloth pouch at his waist and handed it over. He was about to speak when his eyes caught the man standing further back in line.

The man wore an ink-black robe, the cuffs worn to fuzz, an elbow patched with cloth darker than the robe itself. A wooden waist tablet hung at his hip, its cord blackened. He clutched two Spirit Stones in his hand, knuckles gone white, shuffling forward step by step with the line. Three men ahead of him moved off, and he reached the pot.

He pushed the two stones forward a little.

Qian Duoduo raised the long ladle. "We've got some."

Before the ladle touched the pot, a rogue cultivator behind him muttered, "That's Qingya."

The voice wasn't loud, but Qi Qi heard it. Qian Duoduo heard it. And the man in the ink-black robe heard it too. His stone-clutching hand froze in midair. He glanced toward the river—the wharf was that way—then slipped the two stones back into his sleeve, stepped back half a pace, turned sideways, shouldered his way out of the crowd, and left. He didn't walk fast, didn't look back. His robe hem brushed the foot of the wall.

Qian Duoduo's ladle hung over the pot for a moment, then came down, clinking against the rim. The man behind stepped up, placed two Spirit Stones on the stall board, said, "One bowl." Qian Duoduo ladled it out for him, passed the bowl over, swept the stones into his pocket, never pausing.

Du Xiaochuan stood holding a wooden basin, the water still sloshing inside. "He waited nearly half an incense stick."

"Two stones," Qian Duoduo said. "Exactly one bowl."

Qi Qi watched the man disappear around the street corner. "Ink Pool Gate. That robe—the first-round draw at the Grand Tournament."

"First round?" Du Xiaochuan asked.

"Three to zero," Qi Qi said. "I was in the ring."

Qian Duoduo lifted the pot lid halfway. Steam hit his face. He put it back down. The people behind moved up. No one spoke. The bowls went out one after another.

Sold out by the Horse hour. Two pots, ten bottles. Qian Duoduo emptied his apron pocket onto the stall board and counted, then packed it into the cloth pouch and tied the mouth shut with two loops of cord. The market cleared out faster than usual. A few empty bowls sat by the wall, scattered bits of straw on the ground, a length of hemp rope someone had dropped.

They left town at the Monkey hour, were back at the mountain gate by the Dog hour. Nie Bo shifted his broom aside. Qian Duoduo gave a nod, and Nie Bo swept the spot he'd just cleared.

Dinner came out in the Main Hall. Qi Qi told them what had happened at the stall: a disciple of Ink Pool Gate who'd waited nearly half an incense stick, heard someone say "That's Qingya," glanced toward the wharf, turned, and left.

Xu Yan grunted.

Shi Po shoveled half his rice into his mouth and looked up. "Don't they have a pot at his sect?"

"They do," Qian Duoduo said.

"Then why didn't he buy?"

No one at the table answered. A Sui pulled her bowl a little closer and glanced at her brother. Cheng Banshan took a sip of wine, stoppered the gourd, and set it by his hand. Jiang Wan chewed and said, "Ink Pool Gate is Ninth Rank."

"Ninth Rank still has a pot," Shi Po said.

Qian Duoduo laughed, a short, clipped laugh. "I already had the ladle raised."

"Raised, then put back down," Du Xiaochuan said.

Bai Xiaoman hadn't spoken the whole time. Finally she asked, "He queued up by himself?"

"By himself," Qi Qi said. "Waited most of half an incense stick."

"A Ninth Rank sect—whoever goes out the gate carries only a few stones at his belt," Shao Ming said. "Counts every one before he spends it."

Bai Xiaoman picked up her bowl and asked nothing more.

Huo Qing set down his chopsticks and went out to the veranda. The wooden target had taken a hit before dawn; now it sounded again. Once. Again.

Before the Dog hour, Qian Duoduo turned over one hundred stones at the Accounts Room, wrapped in two layers of oiled paper. Xu Yan counted them twice and wrote a line in the ledger: the twentieth day of the Tenth Month—one hundred in. The brush tip paused on the paper.

"Qi Qi."

"Yeah."

"When he looked up—he was looking at the wharf?"

"The wharf, yes," Qi Qi said. "Where he was standing, the first thing his eyes found was that stone stairway."

Xu Yan laid the brush on the inkstone and flipped to the back of the ledger. Past the pages recording the Seventh-Rank Five Articles: three lines about Linchuan, one line about auxiliary ingredients, the ink long dry. One blank line still remained below. He looked for a while, closed the book, wrote nothing.

The twenty-first through the twenty-fourth passed without incident. The pre-dawn thrust on the veranda, sword sounds in the East Courtyard at the Mao hour, the Medicine Hall keeping its charcoal stove lit until lamplight, the two children reciting formulas before the Ancestral Hall, frost settling on the pebbles of the front courtyard. The days on the mountain went one by one.

On the twenty-fifth, at the Dragon hour, the pills came out. Cheng Banshan spooned the powder into ten small bottles one-handed, scraping the last bit back into the medicine jar. Qi Qi tucked the bottles into his robes and left the Medicine Hall. Xu Yan walked out the mountain gate with him.

Qi Qi ran fast. After a stretch, he looked back, saw Xu Yan still behind, and slowed to wait. Two steps of waiting, then running again. Halfway down the mountain, he pulled his robes together and pressed the bottles closer.

"Won't break," Xu Yan said.

"If they rattle, it sounds bad," Qi Qi said.

They reached town at the Snake hour. The stall was already set up. Qian Duoduo and Du Xiaochuan had carried the two pots down before dawn; the charcoal at the bottom still glowed red, Du Xiaochuan fanning it twice with a palm fan. Qi Qi lined up the ten bottles on the stall board. Xu Yan didn't stop at the stall. He walked toward the river.

Luoxia Wharf was a run of stone steps. At the top sat a flat stretch of ground with an old table: a scale, a ledger book, an ink stick, a stone paperweight. Behind the table sat the man who bought the goods. Two boats were tied up east of the steps—one unloading charcoal, ash blowing onto the stone with each gust of river wind. Rogue cultivators with back baskets queued below the steps, passing their loads up one basket at a time. A third boat waited midstream, the boatman calling out a number from the prow. The buyer cocked his head, which counted as a reply.

Xu Yan stood slightly south of the top of the steps—out of the way, not taking a seat at the tea stall's three low tables. The old woman glanced at him, nudged the bronze kettle toward the stove, and the lid rattled.

The first basket went onto the scale. The buyer lifted the grass covering the mouth, grabbed a handful, spread it across his palm, pinched up two stalks to check the roots, shook the dirt back into the basket, and called out a number. The old man with the basket said, "Last time it was more."

"Last time the roots had dirt on them," the buyer said.

The old man opened his mouth, said nothing more, took a few Spirit Stones, stuffed them into his belt, and went down the steps with his empty basket.

The second was a young rogue cultivator. The basket had barely touched the scale hook when he asked, half-joking, "Is that scale even accurate?"

No one behind him laughed. The buyer didn't look up. "Accurate."

The young man let it drop, waited for the number, the silver, then left.

The third basket had a clump of wet grass mixed in. The buyer grabbed it out, tossed it on the ground under the table, and said, "That doesn't count."

The rogue cultivator bent down, picked it up, looked it over, wadded it into a ball, stuffed it back along the basket's edge, and didn't argue. He waited for the rest to be weighed, took his money, and left. A small damp patch remained on the ground.

Next came two people together: an old man leading a half-grown boy, two baskets weighed as one. The buyer gave only the final number. The two split the few Spirit Stones, quick about it, neither saying a word.

Then a basket only half full. The buyer slid the scale weight over and gave a lower number than the rest. The cultivator said, "Half a basket's still grass." The buyer said, "Half a basket gets half a basket's price." The man took his money, slung the empty basket over his shoulder, and left.

Xu Yan kept his hands in his sleeves, pressing his knuckle joints one by one to mark it: which basket, what quality, what number called. He had no ledger to write in, so he recorded everything in his hands.

He studied the scale. The beam was wood, the scale stars fixed in one by one, the weight sliding along its cord. Wherever it stopped, the buyer clamped his hand and called the number. The cultivators queued, looked up at the scale—only to see how far the beam tipped. Not one of them craned to check the stars, and not one asked what was written in the ledger. One man took his coins, squatted at the edge of the steps, and counted them twice before tucking them into his belt.

After each number, the buyer wrote a stroke in the ledger. The brush tip was dull; he'd write a stroke, lick the tip, write again. The river wind flipped the pages; he held them down with the stone.

Over twenty baskets passed through in a Shichen. Midway, one cultivator lifted his basket halfway, then set it back down, said he'd come next market day, and walked off carrying it. The buyer didn't try to keep him, didn't look up. Another time, a cultivator passed by Xu Yan, slowed a step, recognized him, then sped up again, eyes on the stone steps. The buyer never once looked Xu Yan's way.

At the Horse hour the last few baskets cleared. The buyer unhooked the beam from the scale, leaned it against the table, closed the ledger, pressed it down with the stone, and picked up his tea. The stairway emptied.

Xu Yan walked back to the stall. Both pots were already empty. Du Xiaochuan stacked the last bowl on the basin rim.

They left town at the end of the Horse hour. Qian Duoduo and Du Xiaochuan still had to stop at the grain shop to restock two pots' worth of Spirit Rice for the next market—ten stones. Xu Yan and Qi Qi went on ahead.

The official road turned onto the mountain path, the sun slanting west. A slope on one side, a cliff on the other, fallen leaves heaped to one side, silent underfoot. Qi Qi walked in front and turned back every few steps.

Halfway up, Xu Yan looked back. The stretch of stone steps by the river had shrunk to a thin white line. The table was too small to see.

"There's only one buyer for spirit herbs in Luoxia?" he asked.

"Only the one," Qi Qi said. "Been the same family as long as I can remember."

"Nowhere else?"

"Linchuan," Qi Qi said. "Eighty li. By the time you haul a basket there, it's dried out. The cultivators who gather herbs in town all carry them down those steps."

Xu Yan didn't ask anything more. Qi Qi walked on a ways, looked back, saw Xu Yan lagging, and just stopped to wait.

Xu Yan walked a few more steps and said, "The scale is his too."