Chapter 216: Ten Pills, Eight Pieces

Qi Qi came running through the market gate, a layer of sweat on his forehead, his padded jacket collar hanging open. He set the cloth bundle on the counter with a thump and said first, "The powders are delivered to the stall." Then he pulled ten small porcelain vials from the bundle, one by one, the medicine paper plugs in their mouths tamped down tight, the labels on the bottles facing outward. He lined them up in a row on the counter and stepped back half a pace. "The pills are here. Haven't touched a single one."

Xu Yan moved the money pouch from under the counter to beside his foot, then reached out and evened up the ten vials. The labels were ones he'd written on the night of the eighteenth day of the Second Month — "Qingya" up top, "the eighteenth day of the Second Month" below. The ink had long dried.

Shao Ming was over by the door checking the scale. He glanced back and said, "These are eight pieces too?"

"Eight pieces."

"Ten pills to a furnace."

"Ten pills."

Shao Ming grunted and turned back to the scale.

Miao Zhong's talisman papers went over the scale first. He stacked them in the cabinet, then walked to the counter, picked up one of the vials, held it up to the light by the door, and read the "Qingya" on the label first, then the date below. He finished one pass, then read it again from the top.

"Sect Master Xu, the pills get labels too?"

"They do."

"The powders have had labels since the Eleventh Month," Miao Zhong said, turning the vial over. "The pills are a first."

"First batch of pills, first time selling them."

"Who wrote these labels?"

"I did."

"The furnace date too?"

"Written the day they came out."

Miao Zhong counted out eight low-grade spirit stones from his sleeve, one at a time, set them piece by piece on the counter, and only pushed them over once he'd counted them through. He slipped the vial into his sleeve. He didn't pull the stopper there on the spot. Instead he turned and asked, "Ten pills every batch from now on?"

"One furnace makes ten. Sold on the tens."

"The talisman papers stay the same, settling accounts on the tenth day of the Eighth Month?"

"Same as before."

Miao Zhong nodded, took two steps toward the cabinet-end of the shop, then came back. "That Elder of yours has a sharp nose. If he says they're good, Qingya's pills will sell."

A rogue cultivator had been standing by the door for a while. He came over and picked up a vial to inspect it. "What's the difference between these and the powder?"

"Powder's five days a furnace. Pills are seven, ten of them." Xu Yan turned the labeled side toward him. "The date they left the furnace is on the label."

"A bottle of powder's three pieces." The rogue cultivator tapped the counter with his own finger. "One pill's eight."

"Mm."

"Eight pieces'd get me four bowls of spirit meals."

"Four bowls of spirit meals, and when they're eaten, they're gone." Xu Yan said. "Take the vial home with you. You can open it whenever you like."

An older rogue cultivator standing nearby cut in: "Before, your bottles didn't even have a mark on them. I bought three bottles of powder last time and at home couldn't tell which bottle was from which day."

"Now you can," Xu Yan said.

The rogue cultivator tipped the spirit stones into his hand, paused when he reached the fifth, added three more, tucked the vial inside his robe, pressed his hand over his chest to make sure it was seated, and only then left. The older rogue cultivator bought one too; before he went he held the vial up to the sun and peered at the shadow of color inside.

After that another five or six came. One only asked the price; the rest all paid. Two came together — one read the date on the label aloud to the other, and after he'd read it, both paid. The one who'd only asked price paid in the end as well, and gave his reason plainly enough: "I bought powder last time and my master scolded me for wasting money. This one I can keep on me. He won't see it."

By the end of the Snake hour, nine of the ten vials were gone. The last customer was a tall, thin rogue cultivator. He hefted the remaining vial in his hand. "Elder Cheng's work?"

"From the Medicine Hall furnace."

"There'll be more next time?"

"On the tens."

The tall man counted eight pieces onto the counter, shoved the vial into his sash, and left. Xu Yan swept the eighty pieces into the money pouch, tied a knot in the mouth, and tucked it back under the counter. The market box sat at the other end, locked. He didn't touch it.

When the fair broke up, Qian Duoduo came over carrying that empty pot on a shoulder pole, the bottom still crusted with spirit rice. He called out from the doorway: "Sold out?"

"All of it." Qi Qi answered him. "Ten pills, not one left."

Qian Duoduo set the pot down outside the threshold, came in, and counted the pile of spirit stones on the counter. "I've counted the seventy pieces from the powders and the meals." He tapped the counter with his finger. "Add this to it, and this fair's worth two."

"The pill money doesn't go in the market box," Xu Yan said.

"I know." Qian Duoduo hoisted the pot back onto his shoulder. "What I mean is, you ought to buy yourself a pair of shoes."

Qi Qi added from the side: "The soles on those shoes of his — I spotted them last month already."

Xu Yan didn't answer. He turned the market ledger to the consignment page.

They shut the market gate at the end of the Horse hour. From one of the consigned packets of spirit herbs he picked out a furnace's worth of pill materials — twenty pieces — counted the money out of the pouch, dropped it into the market box, and recorded it in the market ledger under the two consignors' names. Shao Ming hung the scale back by the door, put the hand scale into its wooden case, and bolted the gate.

They left town in the late Sheep hour and went to the wharf for charcoal. The man on the charcoal boat hooked the charcoal over to shore, weighed it — one dan and a half, fifteen pieces. Qi Qi shouldered two basket-loads, switched shoulders once halfway up the mountain, and Xu Yan took a stretch for him.

They entered the mountain gate in the late Monkey hour. Nie Bo was sweeping inside the gate; he stepped back half a pace at the sound of footsteps, the broom never stopping. The charcoal was stacked against the back wall of the Medicine Hall. Qi Qi dragged a straw mat over it and weighted it with two stones. Inside the hall, that charcoal stove was still cold, a thin film of ash left over the furnace door.

"Light it tomorrow morning," Cheng Banshan said, coming out from the inner room for a look. "No rush this time. Take it slow."

On the morning of the twenty-first, at the Mao hour, the charcoal stove outside the Medicine Hall was lit. Cheng Banshan pressed one hand against the furnace door to hold back that thread of heat while the wooden hand carried a packet of pill materials to the furnace mouth, feeding it in layer by layer, then set the lid on. Du Xiaochuan crouched beside him, breaking charcoal into small chunks and stacking them one by one at the edge of the basin.

"Call me if the fire drops even a hair," Cheng Banshan said.

"Understood," Du Xiaochuan answered.

"I'm sleeping in the outer room at night."

From that day on, the fire never went out. Cheng Banshan slept nights on the plank bed in the outer room of the Medicine Hall, one end by the furnace door. If the fire dropped a hair, he woke; and when he woke he didn't light a lamp, just watched that strip of red through the furnace seam for a while before closing his eyes again. Du Xiaochuan kept watch until the Hai hour, then went back to the West Wing, breaking up the next day's charcoal and stacking it by the basin's edge. Shao Ming came by at midday to move a basin of charcoal behind the door. Bai Xiaoman came in once every night, crouching in front of Cheng Banshan to study the stone in her palm.

"The fire's burning this hot," Bai Xiaoman said. "Doesn't that wood crack in the heat?"

"If it cracks, I'll carve another joint." Cheng Banshan said. "There's wood left, and the diagram's still here."

The fair on the twenty-fifth went as usual: one pot of spirit meals, ten vials of powder, weighed at the market. Two unfamiliar faces came through; they looked at the scale and at the posted market rules, and bought nothing.

On the morning of the twenty-eighth, the second batch came out.

Cheng Banshan sat on a low stool, one hand pressed against the furnace door to hold the pill fire steady, the wooden hand resting on the lid's edge. Bai Xiaoman stood beside him and pulled the iron hook straight down — the wooden hand lifted the lid, brought the tray, and the pills dropped one by one into a shallow wooden tray. Du Xiaochuan counted them one by one: "One, two... ten."

Ten pills. Not a single crack.

At the door stood Qi Qi and Qian Duoduo. Over by the Kitchen, A He poked half his head out to look and was dragged back in by A Sui.

Cheng Banshan pinched one pill between his fingers, held it against that line of red through the furnace door seam, then set it back. He scraped the layer of pill powder from the furnace floor with a bamboo slip. Xu Yan collected it in a sheet of medicine paper, wrapped it, wrote "the twenty-eighth day of the Second Month" on the wrapper, and set it on the Medicine Hall shelf behind the packet marked "the eighteenth day of the Second Month." Ten pills went into vials — ten vials, paper plugs in the mouths.

At lamplight, Xu Yan wrote the labels at the desk. Ten sheets — "Qingya," and below it "the twenty-eighth day of the Second Month." When he'd finished he laid them out on the desk, one by one, to dry. He opened the furnace log and added a line: "The twenty-eighth day of the Second Month, Qi-Gathering Pills, ten." When he was done he smoothed the page flat and weighted it down.

Bai Xiaoman crouched in front of Cheng Banshan, watching the wooden hand. Cheng Banshan was adding charcoal to the furnace — the wooden hand picked up a chunk of charcoal, carried it to the furnace mouth, released it, and the flame curled upward with a snap.

"Elder Cheng, does it do what you say?" Bai Xiaoman asked.

"I say add charcoal, and it adds charcoal." Cheng Banshan closed the furnace door. "It's more obedient than your mouths."

"I don't talk back."

"You talk back the most."

Du Xiaochuan was bent over the furnace mouth, brushing out the firebox, and his shoulder twitched.

At the fair on the thirtieth day of the Second Month, the market sold the batch from the twenty-eighth. Miao Zhong came early, and this time he took two vials. "Someone from the sect tried them. Says they're good." He counted out sixteen pieces, arranging them piece by piece on the counter before slipping the vials into his sleeve.

By the Horse hour, all ten were gone again. The rogue cultivator who'd bought one last time squeezed up to the counter. "Any left?" Xu Yan showed him the empty countertop. He sighed. "The tenth?" Xu Yan said: "The tenth."

Xu Yan picked the next furnace's materials from the consignments on the counter, at the prices marked on the labels — twenty pieces — counted them piece by piece into the market box, and recorded them in the market ledger under the consignors' names. Outside the gate the fair was already more than half cleared; at the far end of the street Qian Duoduo was lidding the empty pot and stacking bowls into a basket.

They shut the market gate at the end of the Horse hour and left town in the late Sheep hour. The same charcoal boat was at the wharf. The boatman shoveled two baskets full, weighed it — one dan and a half, fifteen pieces. Qian Duoduo bought the Third Month's rations at the grain shop, fifty pieces; Qi Qi carried a stretch of the mountain road for him, the coarse-grain sack slung sideways across his back so he had to walk tilted.

They returned to the mountain in the late Monkey hour. Over by the Kitchen, A Sui was crouched on the threshold picking grit out of the spirit rice. She looked up at Xu Yan. "Sect Master, sold out?"

"Sold out."

"Do you have any empty bottles?"

"What for?"

"Big Sister Bai said my pebbles are arranged in a nice circle. I want to keep them in a bottle."

Xu Yan thought for a moment. "The Medicine Hall doesn't have any empties. When the next batch comes out, I'll save you one."

A Sui counted on her fingers. "Next batch is the tenth?"

"The tenth."

"Then I'll come get it on the tenth." She hugged the half-sheng of spirit rice and ran back to the Kitchen, turning at the door to add, "I won't rush you."

Before it got dark, Xu Yan went into the Accounts Room and added up the Second Month's books from the beginning. He did it twice: six markets, one line per market; charcoal money on the tenth, twentieth, and thirtieth; at month's end a line for the Third Month's rations. He checked them item by item. Nothing missing. He added two lines of pill income to the ledger — one for the twentieth, one for the thirtieth, eighty pieces each — and two lines for materials, one for the twentieth, one for the thirtieth: the money dropped into the market box, recorded under the consignors' names, the other side entered separately in the market ledger. Two more sample packets on the Medicine Hall shelf, two more lines in the furnace log. For the first time, the Second Month's income included pill money.

He wrote a final line at the foot of the ledger: Balance on hand, 6,787 pieces. When he'd finished, he closed the book, squared the edges, and pressed it flat under the wooden board at the bottom of the ledger rack. On the Medicine Hall shelf sat the pill materials for the first day of the Third Month; against the back wall lay the dan and a half of charcoal under its straw mat and stones. From the veranda came the steady whistle of sword wind, one stroke after another — Huo Qing was drilling that thrust.

After lamplight, he passed by the Medicine Hall door. The charcoal stove was cold, the furnace door shut tight, the last warmth inside the firebox not yet fully dissipated. The inner room was lit. Cheng Banshan was untying the wooden hand from its leather strap, setting it at the head of his desk, palm upward, the five fingers laid out flat. Only then did he blow out the lamp.