Chapter 205: Paper Labels

Shao Ming lifted the door panel a little higher and pulled out the wedge beneath it. The panel came down. He turned sideways, braced it against his shoulder, and leaned it against the wall, setting a stone underneath.

Someone was sweeping frost off Market Street, the broom moving down from the north end stroke by stroke. The sky had just finished brightening. A layer of white still pressed on the tile eaves, and the mud in the middle of the street had thawed halfway, soft underfoot.

There wasn't much to see inside the shop. The scale hung on the patched wall just inside the door, its hook dangling a head above the counter, the weight resting motionless on the hook. The corners of the market-rules paper on the wall were pressed flat; a night had passed and none had curled. The cabinet stood against the west wall, its doors open, empty inside, a thin film of dust on the shelf.

Xu Yan wiped the shelf down with his sleeve, spread the market ledger open on the counter, flipped back to the front, and smoothed the page flat with his hand. He took a short piece of ink and a brush from his robes, tested a stroke at the edge of the paper, then wrote "the twenty-fifth day of the Eleventh Month" and let the brush tip rest on the page. He hadn't decided what the line below it should say.

"Open?" Shao Ming stood in the doorway, one hand on the frame.

"Open."

Shao Ming stepped over the threshold and looked up and down the street. The first few stalls to the north were just setting up their frames; the old man selling flatbread had moved his stove out, smoke slanting toward the river. To the south, against the third pillar from the corner, the Qingya pot was already uncovered, steam rising from under the old tile eaves.

He stepped back inside and lowered the scale hook half a finger's width, then sighted it to make sure it hung true.

Xu Yan went over to the stall first. Qian Duoduo ladled him a bowl from the pot and sprinkled in two grains of salt. He ate standing by the pillar, and when he finished he set the bowl back on the stall board.

"Market gate's open," Qian Duoduo said.

"It's open," Xu Yan said.

"Still empty inside?"

"Empty."

Qian Duoduo wiped the bowl dry and tucked it into the carrying pole. "First day." His eyes were on the east end of the street as he said it, as if the first day ought to bring a crowd.

Up on the mountain, the Dragon hour had also arrived. The fire in the Medicine Hall's wood stove was tamped low. Cheng Banshan gripped the iron ring on the stove lid with one hand and slid it aside halfway; heat surged out, the smell sweet as it dispersed and rose to the ceiling. He waited for the hot air to settle, then used a bamboo slip to scrape the powder at the bottom of the furnace toward the mouth, flicking it bit by bit into small porcelain bottles.

Ten small porcelain bottles stood in a row on the workbench, each mouth covered with medicine paper, counted from the east end. The mouths were narrow, so the work went slowly. At the seventh bottle he paused and tapped the bamboo slip twice against the furnace rim, letting what clung to it fall back in.

"Slow," he said. Whether he meant the fire or himself was unclear.

Qi Qi squatted nearby, waiting. When the tenth was full, he took the bamboo slip from Cheng Banshan's hand and set it at the corner of the bench, then pressed the medicine paper down over each bottle mouth, one by one, flat and even.

A little powder remained at the bottom of the furnace. Cheng Banshan folded what was left into a sheet of medicine paper, gathering it into a small packet, twisting the corners shut. He set it on the bench and wrote "the twenty-fifth day of the Eleventh Month" on it with the brush. When he set the brush down, a trace of powder had smeared onto the handle.

"Put it in the box?" Qi Qi asked.

"The wooden box." Cheng Banshan took the wooden box down from the rack and blew the dust out of it. He watched Qi Qi set the little packet inside, then closed the lid, then opened it again to glance inside once more before pushing it back onto the shelf.

Pasting the labels was Qi Qi's job. The ten labels were written by Xu Yan the night before, each reading "Qingya" with the twenty-fifth day of the Eleventh Month below. He dipped a fingertip in paste and pressed the labels onto the bottle waists one by one, then held each up to the light from the doorway, smoothing every one and dabbing down any corner that lifted.

"One's crooked," he said himself, peeling the label off the third bottle and re-pasting it, his nail scuffing the edge of the paper.

Ten bottles went into a cloth sack, the mouth rolled over twice and tucked into his waistband. He hitched the sack up, said "Going," and walked out of the Medicine Hall.

Ten li of mountain road, and he ran it faster than the men carrying the pot. On the slope over the ridge he took the stone steps two at a time, the sack slapping against his hip.

By Snake hour he was in town. He set the sack on the stall board and untied it. "Ten bottles, labels on."

Qian Duoduo held one up to his eyes and turned it. "This one's pasted crooked."

"Even crooked, you can read it," Qi Qi said.

"You can read it." Qian Duoduo set the bottle back, then moved it to the front, label facing the street. "Put it out where people can see."

Qi Qi headed for the shop. He stepped through the door, glanced at the empty cabinet, and looked back at Xu Yan. "What do I move?"

"Just stand for now," Xu Yan said.

By the middle of Snake hour, people began appearing at the door.

First came two town folk, one carrying a vegetable basket, the other with both hands tucked into his sleeves. Neither came inside. They stood beyond the threshold, heads tilted up to read the paper on the wall. The man with the basket read it aloud, pausing after every line. When he reached "No stall fees, no commission," he turned and looked at Shao Ming.

"Really no fees?"

"None," Shao Ming said.

"Weighing's free too?"

"Free."

The man with his hands in his sleeves craned his neck through the doorway, saw the scale, and pulled back. The basket carrier read the paper from beginning to end, clicked his tongue when he finished, said "There's nothing in this room at all," and went off toward the far end of the market with his basket.

Two rogue cultivators came next, standing farther off, against the wall across the street. One peered in and asked, "Do you charge stall fees?"

"No," Shao Ming said.

"Then how do you make money?"

Shao Ming thought about it. "We don't."

The cultivator looked at him, then left with his companion. A few steps away, he turned back to glance once more at the scale by the door.

Lu Shoutian came at the end of Snake hour, carrying his small scale, walking step by step from the north end of the street to the door. He looked inside first, at the hanging scale, then at the cabinet, and finally at the market rules on the wall, studying them for a long while.

"Who calibrated this scale?" he asked.

"Up on the mountain," Shao Ming said. "Checked against the grain shop's. Filed the weight three times."

Lu Shoutian bounced his own little scale in his hand. "The inside is your business." He lifted his chin toward the street. "Just don't block the road out front."

"Rest easy, Market Chief Lu," Xu Yan said, coming around from behind the counter to stand inside the threshold.

Lu Shoutian glanced at the paper again. "The writing's stuck down well. It's windy on this street."

He left. A ways off, he turned back. "Sect Master Xu, if you ever want to give this place up, I'm the first person you tell."

"We won't," Xu Yan said.

Lu Shoutian walked off into the distance. Shao Ming stood in the doorway, one hand still on the frame. People passed in front of him on the street; two looked up at the plaque over the lintel, murmured it, and walked on without slowing.

Over at the stall, a rogue cultivator bought a bottle of Qi-Gathering Powder. He set the money on the board but didn't leave. He turned the bottle over and scraped at the label with his thumb; a corner lifted.

"What's this say?" he asked.

Du Xiaochuan was squatting, collecting bowls. He looked up. "The Sect Master wrote it. The day it came out of the furnace."

The man raised the bottle to his eyes. The ink on the label had gone gray in the daylight. He read the line beneath. "You write the date even after it's out of the furnace?"

"We do," Du Xiaochuan said. "Every bottle."

The man pressed the label back down, smoothing it flat, and tucked the bottle into his robes. After a few steps, he asked, "If someone tears the label off, do you still stand behind it?"

"Stand behind the medicine in the bottle," Du Xiaochuan said.

Beside him, Qian Duoduo tapped his ladle against the pot rim. "We made the medicine too. Same furnace."

The cultivator said nothing to that and walked off with the bottle.

By the end of Snake hour, the market had thinned.

The pot was scraped clean. Ten empty bottles lay on the stall board; even the one in front had sold. Qian Duoduo collected the empties into the sack one by one, counted twice, folded up the stall cloth, and went to the grain shop to restock spirit rice for next market day, counting out five spirit stones from the sack. Du Xiaochuan upended the pot onto the carrying pole, pulled the ropes tight, and tested the load with his shoulder.

In the shop, a whole morning had passed and the cabinet was still empty.

The market ledger lay open on the counter. The page held nothing but "the twenty-fifth day of the Eleventh Month" and a blank below it. No one had consigned goods, no one had come to weigh anything.

Xu Yan sat on the low stool behind the counter, picked up the brush, and added a line beneath those characters: "Opened."

That was all.

He blew the ink dry, closed the ledger, and looked up at the market rules on the wall. A gust from the doorway had lifted a corner; he reached out and smoothed it down, pressing the edge flat with his nail.

At the end of Horse hour, Shao Ming put the door panel back on. He lifted it into the frame, then drove the wedge in with the heel of his palm, two strikes before it seated. Qi Qi stood in the doorway watching. "You're not opening tomorrow?"

"Market days are the fifth and tenth," Xu Yan said.

"What if someone comes?"

"The grain shop people are by the door," Xu Yan said. "The dates are written on it."

Qi Qi tilted his head up to look at the plaque over the lintel again, studied that line of characters, and didn't ask anything more.

They left town in the Wei hour and reached the Mountain Gate by Monkey hour.

The ten-li walk went slowly. Halfway up the slope, Qi Qi finally spoke. "I stood by the door all morning. Six people came in. Five asked if we charged. One asked where the latrine was."

"Where did you point him?" Xu Yan asked.

"The grain shop's back courtyard."

"It's there."

"I know it's there," Qi Qi said. "The man went in and walked around, then came out and thanked me."

Qian Duoduo laughed from behind, his carrying pole bouncing on his shoulder. Du Xiaochuan walked ahead, the pot upended on his pole, silent the whole way.

When they passed through the Mountain Gate, Nie Bo eased his broom aside. The wind on the stone steps came down from the back mountain, cold.

Xu Yan went to the Medicine Hall first.

The wooden box was still on the rack. He took it down and opened it. The little packet lay at the bottom, the words "the twenty-fifth day of the Eleventh Month" on it in Cheng Banshan's hand, the ink dry. He pinched the corner and turned it over to look, then put it back, closed the lid, and slid the box onto the rack.

Cheng Banshan was stirring the fire at the wood stove. At the sound of the box, he didn't turn his head. "Sold?"

"Sold."

"The cabinet?"

"Empty."

Cheng Banshan poked the fire once; an ember popped out of the mouth and died on the dirt floor.

"First day," he said.

"First day," Xu Yan said.

He took the furnace log from his robes, turned to the first page, dipped the brush in ink, and wrote a line: "The twenty-fifth day of the Eleventh Month, Qi-Gathering Powder, ten bottles, one retained sample."

When he finished, he held it up to the lamp to read it over, closed the booklet, and set it on top of the account books.

It was nearly dark by the time he returned to the Accounts Room. Under the ledger rack sat two boxes: one was iron, its lock catch broken, tied shut with hemp rope. The other was the market box, wooden, with a lock, empty.

He dragged the market box out and lifted the lid. Inside was perfectly clean. No one had consigned anything today, and there had been no sales, so there was nothing that should have been in it.

He closed the lid anyway, fastened the lock catch, gave it a tug—it held—and pushed it back under the rack, a foot away from the iron money box.

The click of the lock catch sounded just the same as it did when the box was full.