Chapter 202: One Original, One Copy

At the Mao hour on the eighth day of the Eleventh Month, the sky was still dark. Xu Yan took out the old cloth bundle pressed to the bottom of the chest. Thirty spirit stones, divided into three stacks. He counted them through twice, one by one, wrapped them back up the same way, and tucked them against his chest, a layer of cloth between them and the ledger.

Shao Ming waited by the Accounts Room door, an empty cloth sack tied at his waist.

"Thirty," Xu Yan said.

"The proprietor said to count them in person."

Under the front courtyard veranda, Huo Qing was already standing before the wooden target, right arm hanging at his side, the wooden sword in his left hand. His shoulder moved first, then the sword came out. Kitchen smoke rose from the west side; Qian Duoduo coughed once inside.

Frost had settled on the stone steps before the Mountain Gate. Nie Bo swept it to either side, leaving a damp track down the middle. The two of them walked down along that track.

The ninth was not a market day. By the time they reached town the sky was fully light. Market Street stood empty—a charcoal seller had set his baskets against the base of a wall, and two old women were talking by the well platform, though their words didn't carry. The grain shop had only half its door panels down. Inside, the proprietor worked an abacus behind the counter, the beads clicking in a rapid stream.

Xu Yan spread the two copies of the lease out on the counter, smoothed the fold marks flat, pushed one copy over, and kept the other at hand.

The proprietor set down the abacus and opened the paper with both hands. He read from "the parties to this lease" to "paid in full on the day of signing," line by line. When he reached the closing clauses, his finger stopped.

"No one stays overnight." He read the words aloud, then looked up. "I said this last time."

"It's written down," Xu Yan said. "What's written down, we follow."

The proprietor grunted, pulled a small box of seal paste from the drawer, pressed his thumb into it, and stamped the closing section. When he lifted his finger, the red mark sat slightly off center. He pressed again—still off. The third time he didn't try again. "That'll do."

Xu Yan took the brush and wrote his name at the close of both copies, the brushpoint passing along the edge of the seal mark.

"The eighth day of the Eleventh Month. Lease signed, one year, shop rent thirty stones." The proprietor recited it, then put his own copy into a wooden box beneath the counter. "For the year ahead, the property is yours to use."

Xu Yan opened the old cloth. Three stacks of spirit stones went onto the counter, ten to a stack. The proprietor counted them one by one. When he reached the third stack, he turned the top stone over and held it to the light from the doorway, examined it, accepted it, and swept all three stacks into the wooden box, snapping the lock hasp shut.

"What goes on the plaque?" the proprietor asked.

"Qingya Market."

"The street outside is Lu Shoutian's to manage." The proprietor said, "He carries a little scale stuck under his arm and walks the street all day long."

"I know."

"Opening is easy." He nudged the wooden box further under the counter. "Keeping it open is hard. That building has held grain before, and other things too. Three owners in a row."

"One year," Xu Yan said. "We'll count it year by year."

The grain shop hand came in from the back courtyard with water buckets on a carrying pole, the pole flexing on his shoulder. He saw the papers spread on the counter, stopped, and asked, "Sect Master Xu, what're you opening in that place?"

"A scale," Xu Yan said.

The hand said "Oh," carried the water on through, then glanced back at the paper from the back-courtyard doorway.

Xu Yan folded his own copy, creasing it to the width of the ledger, and tucked it into the innermost layer against his chest.

"The sacks in the east room," he said. "Old stock. I can't spare a room to clear them out."

The proprietor laid his hand on the abacus. "The sacks are mine, taking up your space. If you want them gone, I'll figure something out—but the grain shop can't spare anybody for a few days."

"I'll take a look first," Xu Yan said.

At the Snake hour, the proprietor let him in through the small back-courtyard gate with a key. The moment the east room's door was pushed open, the smell of sacking and mildew rushed out together. The room was packed with old burlap sacks, stacked chest-high, the bottom layer blackened. The east corner of the roof leaked, and a slanting shaft of daylight fell onto the sacks, glaring bright.

Shao Ming stepped in, tipped his head back at that shaft of light first, squinting. He reached into it; the light lay across the back of his hand like a line. He pulled back and wiped his hand on a sack.

Then he walked along the east wall, rapping it knuckle by knuckle. At a spot about two feet from the corner, the sound changed—hollow.

"Patched here," he said, pointing to a patch of mud a different color. "Patched thin."

He reached higher, caught the rafter, and grabbed at the empty air, and dust sifted through his fingers.

"This rafter's rotten. The one next to it's no good either." He counted from the east corner to the middle. "Replace two."

He crouched down and began scratching lines in the packed-earth floor with his finger. First a square, meaning the building. Then he pressed the east line deeper.

"The east half gets peeled up and re-laid; the west half stays." He tapped his scratch marks. "Replace two rafters. Tiles get replaced wherever the new rafters run."

"The walls?" Xu Yan asked.

"Three spots." He tapped points around the square. "One on the east wall, two on the south. Two coats of mud."

He walked over to the door that had been nailed shut, gripped the panel edges with both hands, and pulled inward. A few rusted nails loosened half an inch, the seams opened, and voices from the north end of Market Street came through the crack, a bright sliver of light falling across his shoes.

"The door has to come out," he said. "Better out."

He stepped back and studied the roof from end to end, then looked down at the floor. The packed earth near the back wall was darker and gave slightly underfoot.

"Half the roof, one door, a few wall patches." He counted them off one by one. "Half a month."

"The back wall stays as is," Xu Yan said.

Shao Ming repeated "The back wall stays as is," then pressed a hand against it. A clod of mud dropped off. He rubbed his fingers together. "It's against the river. One coat won't hold."

"You and Shi Po come down on the eleventh. Down the mountain at the Mao hour, back up at the You hour," Xu Yan said. "I'll buy the tiles and materials on the ninth."

"How many tiles?"

"Buy as much as you can carry. One trip, enough for half the roof."

Shao Ming nodded, then looked back at the roomful of sacks. "If the sacks don't get moved, there's no place to set the tiles down."

"I'll figure that out," Xu Yan said.

That night, he slipped the folded lease between two pages of the ledger, placed it together with the land deed, the promotion documents, and the three judgment documents, aligned the paper corners, closed the book, and pressed it once on the table.

At the Mao hour on the ninth, the four of them went down the mountain. The man behind the counter at the Luoxia Money House was tall and gaunt, wiping the countertop with a cloth.

Xu Yan set two spirit stones on the counter. The man brought out a small scale from beneath it, weighed each stone until the beam sat level, then counted out twenty taels from the till, wrapped them in two separate paper packets, and pushed them across.

"Two stones for twenty taels," he said. "Count it here and now."

Xu Yan handed the two packets of silver to Bai Xiaoman. She turned her back, tucked one into an inner cloth pouch, the other into a different one, then smoothed the outside flat with both hands.

"Don't clasp them while you walk," Xu Yan said. "Walk steady."

"I know," she said. Her steps immediately shortened.

Two rogue cultivators were coming straight toward them on Market Street. At three paces they recognized the people from Qingya, angled off to the far side of the street, and fixed their eyes on the base of the wall. Bai Xiaoman, holding the silver, turned to look back once.

"Keep walking," Xu Yan said.

"They didn't say anything."

"No, they didn't."

The pawnshop opened early. Behind the long counter, shelves rose tier upon tier. The appraiser, his hair graying, took down an old scale from the shelves—the beam black and glossy, the stars inlaid copper points, half the rust worn off the hook. Then he brought down a small wooden box and slid it open; inside lay a hand scale.

Bai Xiaoman picked up the hand scale first, hefted it, then held the beam up to the light at the doorway and examined it point by point. She turned it over to check the back, and finally examined the counterweight.

"The stars aren't worn," she said. "The weight's intact." She looked up at Xu Yan. "Accurate."

"Accurate or not, I won't claim," the appraiser said. "It's old. If it breaks, bring it back."

"Three taels?" Xu Yan asked.

"Three taels."

Xu Yan counted the money out to Bai Xiaoman, and she passed it up, set the hand scale back in its wooden box, and held it in both arms. Coming out of the pawnshop, she looked down at the box in her arms. "This hand scale's lighter than Huichun Hall's."

"Light and accurate," Xu Yan said.

Shi Po had been standing at the door the whole time, his shoulder still empty, waiting to carry tiles. He suddenly asked, "Those points on the scale—what do they do?"

"They tell you how much," Shao Ming said. "Move the weight to which star, and that's the amount."

Shi Po nodded once and didn't ask again.

At the east end of town, the tile seller's yard held several stacks of roof tiles. Lime sat to one side under a reed mat. Shao Ming lifted the corner of the mat, pulled out a tile, turned it over to check the back, and rapped it with a knuckle—the sound came out clear. He pulled another and rapped it—dull. He put the clear one on top and set the dull one aside.

"Tiles need to be new," he said. "The old ones that come off the roof—the ones still usable, stack them against the wall."

The seller bound them with straw rope into two bundles. Six taels. Bai Xiaoman untied one packet of silver and passed it over, watching while he counted it out, then folded the empty paper and tucked it into her sleeve.

The carpenter's shop stood on the north side of the street. A middle-aged carpenter with sawdust all over his hands had a plane laid on his workbench. Shao Ming took a hemp rope from his waist, tied with two knots. "The door panel follows this." The carpenter measured the rope against the wood twice and nodded.

"The cabinet needs a lock," Xu Yan said. "The hasp on the outside. Two replacement rafters, too."

"How tall a cabinet?" the carpenter asked.

"Waist-high." Xu Yan pressed his hand to his own waist. "So a man standing outside can reach in."

"What's it for?"

"Other people's goods."

The carpenter's planing hand paused for a moment. He glanced at Xu Yan, then went back to planing the side, shavings curling from the plane's mouth.

"Delivered on the twentieth," he said. "To the back gate. I'll help carry it in."

Xu Yan went through his pile of boards to pick one for the plaque, turning piece after piece over to inspect the back. He chose a flat board with no knots, ran a finger across it—no splinters. A small pot of lacquer as well. Board and lacquer together, one tael.

The carpenter's total came to eight taels. Bai Xiaoman counted out the remaining silver, paused halfway through, put the silver back on the paper, and counted again before handing it over.

They left town at the Wei hour. Shi Po slung the two tile bundles from the ends of his pole and shouldered it. Shao Ming carried a sack of lime on his back. Bai Xiaoman walked in the middle with empty hands, holding the plaque board to her chest, pressing her front placket down every few steps.

"Leave the tiles on the mountain," Shao Ming said on the midway slope. "That building in town doesn't have a door yet. Set them down there and they'd be gone by morning."

"We'll carry them down tomorrow," Xu Yan said.

Shi Po answered from behind: "That roof—I'll go up."

"You go up, I pass them," Shao Ming said.

They reached the Mountain Gate at the Shen hour. Nie Bo stepped aside with his broom. Shi Po unloaded the tiles at the base of the wall outside the kitchen, pulled the reed mat over them, moved the lime in a bit deeper, and kicked the dirt level with his foot.

A lamp was lit in the Accounts Room. Bai Xiaoman opened the silver ledger and wrote entry by entry: exchanged twenty taels; scale and hand scale, three taels; tiles and lime, six taels; carpenter, eight taels; plaque board and lacquer, one tael. She finished writing and looked up.

"Twelve taels left."

Xu Yan set down the brush. "Keep two for New Year."

Bai Xiaoman closed the ledger, tucked it into her sleeve, and was at the door when she remembered something and turned back. "Sect Master, where do we keep the scale?"

"The Medicine Hall," Xu Yan said. "We'll calibrate it on the twenty-third."