Chapter 213: The Fifth Stone

"Let's get one thing straight," Cheng Banshan said, pulling the half-sleeve from where it was tucked into his waistband and laying it across his knee. "I'm sitting. You're the one doing the moving."

Bai Xiaoman lifted the wooden hand from the worktable, holding it in both hands, and fitted it into the sleeve. The leather cord wound twice around the arm, pulled tight. She tugged the cuff down so the wooden palm showed, the five finger segments hanging loose and downward. She stepped back half a pace to look, then stepped forward again and nudged the index finger segment up a fraction.

"Channel qi," she said.

Cheng Banshan didn't answer. The window paper in the outer room of the Medicine Hall was still gray with early light. A pot of medicine simmered on the wood stove against the wall, the fire banked low, and Du Xiaochuan crouched beside it feeding in kindling. After a while, something seeped through the seams on the underside of the wooden palm—thin as the last embers in a stove's ash, neither bright nor dying. Sweat soon stood on his forehead. The one hand resting on his knee twitched, fingers curling once.

"East Wood," Bai Xiaoman said, setting the largest stone into the first socket at the wrist—the one with the straightest grain. The cover plate clicked into the shallow notches on either side of the socket mouth; she pressed down with four fingers.

Light flickered in the seam of the socket. That point of brightness traveled up the line scored into the socket's base, into the palm, into the knuckles. The five wooden segments lit one after another, as if someone had lit a tiny lamp inside. Where the spirit copper wire ran, the wood warmed slightly—not enough to burn.

The light held for a while, then drew back.

Bai Xiaoman looked up. Cheng Banshan said, "The qi's uneven. I'll go again. You hold it down."

The second time he didn't wait for her word before the qi rose. The point of light climbed up from the socket's base again, reached the last segment, and stopped. It didn't draw back. Bai Xiaoman pressed the cover plate and counted, lost count, and stopped counting.

"Steady now," she said.

Cheng Banshan shifted his gaze from his own hand. "Next one."

"Rest a bit?"

"Channeling qi isn't tiring. Sitting is."

South Fire landed at noon. This one was the smallest, its grain running too hurriedly, and she feared it would slip in the socket, so she first scored a shallow line in the wood at the socket's base with her nail and wedged one corner down. It lit faster than East Wood, scattered faster too. It took two tries to hold steady. When it settled, he set the wooden palm on his knee—the five finger segments brushed against coarse cloth and didn't move.

As Bai Xiaoman removed the cover plate, she noticed: his qi hitched at the wrist, like walking on level ground and suddenly catching a low step—a pause, then up again. She didn't ask. She ran her hand over the two seated stones through the sleeve, found that point of warmth, and pressed the cover plate tight again.

On the third day, before dawn, Cheng Banshan arrived first. He pushed a window open halfway, swept the wood shavings off the worktable onto the floor, then sat and drew out the sleeve. By the time Bai Xiaoman came in, the chisel and cover plate were already laid out in a row.

West Metal was the hardest to seat. It was hard stone; if it was even slightly off entering the socket, the cover plate wouldn't catch. When the qi rose, the stone spun in its seat, light darting wildly through the knuckles—five wooden fingers lighting one by one, dying one by one. Bai Xiaoman reseated it four times. She wrapped her own thin spiritual power around the stone and pressed down, and by the third try the color had drained from her face.

"It's spinning in there," she said.

"My qi splits when it reaches it," Cheng Banshan said. "The breath I'm pushing is uneven—it hitches at the wrist. You press too hard, it spins. Ease up a little, and it can enter."

"Rest," he added.

"One more."

She eased up a fraction and pressed the stone down. The qi rose; this time it didn't scatter. The point of light moved into the knuckles, settling one segment at a time. She let go. Her fingers were still trembling.

"That stone's steadier than your hand." He turned the wooden palm over and studied the socket.

"My hand's the unsteady one."

Cheng Banshan took the gourd from his waist, bit the stopper out, tilted his head back for a drink, then bit the stopper back in and hung the gourd back at his belt.

"Your hand shakes," Bai Xiaoman said quietly.

"It's the one that shakes." He lifted the wooden palm. "This one of mine hasn't done this kind of work in thirty years."

On the fourth day she seated North Water. This time she didn't rush to lock the cover plate. She turned the stone in the socket three different ways, pressed her ear close to listen, and only then pressed it down. North Water's qi was the slowest. When it rose, it first spread outward, reached the socket walls, then turned back; only when it gathered did it climb. By the time it held steady, the hour had passed well into late afternoon, and the sun slanted past the window lattice.

Before lamp-lighting, she washed her hands at the Medicine Hall door and flung the water against the wall root. Cheng Banshan still sat there, the hand still on. A Sui poked her head around the door frame and asked what it was. Bai Xiaoman said it was a hand. A Sui asked if it could move. She said, if I make it move, it moves. A Sui looked at the wooden palm once and ran off.

"Have you thought about how to seal the socket mouth?" Cheng Banshan asked.

"A thin strip of wood shaved under the cover plate," she said. "You said wood swells when it takes on damp. When it swells, it seals itself."

He raised the hand to eye level and studied it for a while, saying nothing.

"The fifth stone—what does the diagram say."

"The qi of the four stones has to reach the palm center at the same moment. Only then will it hold."

"So the slow wait for the fast, and the fast wait for the slow." He turned the wooden palm over, the palm-center socket facing up. "Not fast. Together."

"Together," she repeated after him.

The fifth day was market day. In the Dragon hour, the batch of Qi-Gathering Powder came out of the wood stove. Cheng Banshan lifted the lid one-handed, scraped the pills loose with a bamboo slip, and pinched them one by one into small porcelain vials, plugging them with medicine paper. Qi Qi stuffed ten vials into his clothes and ran down the mountain. Before dawn, Qian Duoduo and Du Xiaochuan had already carried the pot down, its rim covered with thick old cloth, their footsteps fading down the stone steps. Xu Yan gathered the market ledger and box and went out with Shao Ming, pausing at the Medicine Hall door to glance inside. He didn't come in.

The mountain emptied. Huo Qing practiced his single thrust against the wooden target under the front courtyard veranda, wood striking wood at steady intervals. Nie Bo swept before the Mountain Gate, the sound of the broom drifting up in snatches. Bai Xiaoman didn't go down the mountain. She sat by the window and laid the five stones out on an old cloth, running her fingers over them one at a time, then holding them to the window light to study their grain again.

After the market closed, Xu Yan came back from town and set the market ledger at the corner of the worktable. He asked if she needed anything. "I need three days," she said. Xu Yan looked at the wooden hand, then at her face. "Three days it is." He didn't linger; he went out and headed for the Accounts Room.

The fifth stone sat above the palm-center socket. She pinched it between her fingers, eyes on the four stones at the wrist.

"I'll channel," Cheng Banshan said.

The four streams of qi came unhurried. The four points at the wrist lit up, moved into the palm bones, and traveled all the way to the palm center. She held her hand steady and waited—waited until the four strands converged at one point—before letting the stone drop.

Her hand was half a breath too slow.

The qi had already advanced a line before the stone entered the socket. It flashed once; the point of light spun once in the socket's base and scattered.

"Again."

The second time she pressed too early. The four strands slammed against the stone and rebounded. She tried to make them go around it—they wouldn't. She waited; they scattered.

"I pushed it empty," she said, then sat down. Her wrist had gone soft. She shifted to the threshold, legs dangling outside. Du Xiaochuan brought a bowl of hot water and set it by her hand without a word, then went back to the kindling.

Cheng Banshan didn't call anyone to help her up either. He took the wooden hand off and laid it on his knee, worked his wrist once; a bone cracked.

"The qi at the palm center is four streams merging into one," he said. "A step too early, it hasn't merged yet. A step too late, it's already merged and scattered—the qi you push in becomes the stone blocking the way."

"I know."

"Knowing and landing it right—there's three days between them." He fitted the wooden hand back on. "Come again tomorrow."

The sixth day she arrived before Cheng Banshan, swept out the socket bases, and filed the cover plate's edge a little more. That day she seated it twice: once early, once late. Both times the light spun once in the palm center and died. After those two attempts, Cheng Banshan sat motionless, that hand resting on his knee. Every so often he squeezed it and released it, until the skin over the knuckles turned white.

In the late afternoon she sat under the veranda, back against a pillar. The fire at the wood stove had burned low; Du Xiaochuan added two sticks of kindling. She spread her hand open and closed it—open, close, open, close—the scab over the old wound on the web of her thumb worn pale.

When you drop the fifth stone, think first of it landing, not of it drifting off-center.

That was what Senior Sister said. At the time she hadn't taken it in—she'd only thought that throwing a pebble in was just throwing a pebble in. Only today did she understand: what she'd been thinking was don't let it die. So her hand went chasing after something that never came. That half-breath she'd been waiting on—that was exactly where it scattered.

Before lamp-lighting, she went back to the Medicine Hall, lifted the wooden hand onto the worktable, and by lamplight looked over the five stones again. When she got to the palm-center stone, she scraped twice at the socket rim with her nail and blew the wood dust out of her palm.

Jiang Wan came over from the East Courtyard, her sword across her back. She stopped under the veranda and watched her for a moment. "Rest, then go eat. There's still tomorrow."

"Understood, Senior Sister."

On the seventh day, during the Dragon hour, she tried again. The don't-let-it-die was still lodged in her mind, not fully cleared out—the moment the stone entered the socket, her hand withdrew again.

At noon she tried once by herself, without asking Cheng Banshan to channel. No qi came; the stone sat dry in its socket, showing nothing. She took her hand away and sat at the table looking at that stone for a long time, then put it back in the socket and let the cover plate hold it down.

At the You hour, the sun sank off the window paper, and the outer room of the Medicine Hall was left with nothing but gray. Cheng Banshan had sat for half the day, drinking twice from his gourd in that span, not a single word of urging. Du Xiaochuan swept up the wood curls from the worktable, paused at the door, then withdrew.

"Elder Cheng—channel."

When the four streams of qi rose from the wrist, she didn't count, didn't stare at the socket. She thought only of the stone dropping. Her hand started half a breath ahead of the qi. When it landed, the four strands were merging into one at the palm center.

The stone entered the socket and lit.

That point of light stood at the socket's base and moved into the five finger segments, shining through them one by one. The seams of the wood flushed with a faint color, like charcoal just burned through and gone dark again.

Bai Xiaoman's hand stayed pressed on the cover plate. She made no sound.

After a long while, Cheng Banshan spoke, his voice lower than usual. "Still lit."

"Still lit," she said.

She scraped the very edge of the cover plate smooth, pressed the thin strip of wood shims underneath into place, stood, and stepped back two paces to look from the other end of the table. Cheng Banshan turned the wooden palm over and back. The five finger segments hung downward; the point of light turned with them and didn't die. He tried moving the thumb. The wood creaked; the light wavered once, then held.

Bai Xiaoman said that once the stone was seated it stored its own qi. When he wore the hand, qi from the arm sleeve would slowly replenish it—slow, but enough.

Du Xiaochuan came to light the lamps. He lit the one in the outer room, and everything in the room sharpened into clarity. That point was still visible, pressed beneath the lamplight—dimmer than the lamp, closer than the lamp.

It grew dark. The window paper of the Medicine Hall's outer room showed an unnameable color. Cheng Banshan didn't take the hand off. He didn't untie the leather cord. He just sat on that low stool, looking at it, for a very long time.