Chapter 222: The Stacked Talisman Paper

The twenty-first day of the Third Month, Mao Hour. The cart left the carriage yard outside Linchuan City.

The sky was still pale. No other carts on the official road. The wheels ground over gravel the whole way. Qi Qi sat with his bundle hugged to his chest for half a shichen, then said abruptly, "That box of labels. Who printed them."

"Carved from my writing," Xu Yan said.

"I'm asking who carved them."

Xu Yan watched the trees slide past. "Only one entry in the ledger doesn't match. Ask any further and it's guessing."

Qi Qi shut his mouth. A while later he shifted the bundle behind his lower back as a cushion. "I'm not guessing. I'm thinking."

"Set the thinking aside for now," Xu Yan said. "There's still a furnace of pills on the mountain that hasn't been entered into the books."

Eighty li of official road. By Shen Hour the cart stopped in Luoxia Town. The two of them walked the ten-li mountain road from the carriage hire office and reached the Mountain Gate at You Hour.

Nie Bo was inside the gate, sweeping leaves. He angled the broom aside, leaving half a step. Qi Qi nodded to him. He pushed the next sweep out, didn't stop.

The charcoal stove outside the Medicine Hall glowed red, light seeping through the seam of the furnace door. Cheng Banshan sat on a low stool beside it, his formation hand resting on his knee, the other hand gripping a bamboo slip. White streaks of scraped pill powder marked the slip.

"The eighteenth. That furnace. Ten pills," he said. "Not one cracked."

Xu Yan spread the furnace log on the table, dipped the brush, and added a line: the eighteenth day of the Third Month, Qi-Gathering Pill, ten. When he finished, he flipped back. The eighteenth day of the Second Month, the twenty-eighth day of the Second Month, the eighth day of the Third Month, line after line, with a few lines still empty beneath them.

"Retained sample?"

"On the rack." Cheng Banshan lifted his chin toward the medicine rack. "Bai Xiaoman wrapped them. She wrote the date on each."

Bai Xiaoman was crouched under the rack counting bottles. She stood up when she heard her name, dust on her front placket. "The twentieth, that furnace of Qi-Gathering Powder: ten bottles. I counted twice. The Qi-Gathering Pills, ten, sold out before noon." She paused. "Sect Master, on the twentieth, the Market was thin."

"How thin?"

"Normally on a market day, the rogue cultivators waiting to weigh goods line up past the threshold. That day only a few came. Consignment goods were scarce too. Only two lots of spirit herbs from rogue cultivators. None of Steward Miao's people showed."

Xu Yan closed the furnace log. "Anyone ask questions?"

"Yes," Bai Xiaoman said. "One rogue cultivator, after his spirit herbs were weighed, as he was hugging them to his chest, asked: 'Did Qingya pills make someone sick?'"

"What did you answer?"

"I said they weren't Qingya's. Someone else's labels. Sold from a stall at the south end of Linchuan, copied to imitate ours." Her voice steadied. "He asked then why nobody was doing anything about it. I said the Sect Master went to Linchuan and filed a complaint."

"Did he believe it?"

"He didn't say he believed it." Bai Xiaoman thought for a moment. "He set the spirit herbs back on the scale, had them weighed, left them in the Market for consignment, and walked out without a word."

Xu Yan drew the account book from his robes and turned it over. On the back pages were the words of the three Linchuan parties from Alliance Year 301, the third day of the Tenth Month, one line per party. Beneath them he started a new line: the date, the place, what was said, by whom. He closed the book when he was done.

"What did you record?" Cheng Banshan asked.

"The nineteenth and twentieth days of the Third Month," Xu Yan said. "Kept together with those lines from the third day of the Tenth Month. If it's needed later, it all comes out at once."

Bai Xiaoman crouched back down to finish counting bottles and added, "Sect Master, that man didn't leave a name. I'd have run after him to ask if I should have."

"In the Market, we don't ask names," Xu Yan said.

Cheng Banshan grunted from beside the furnace. "Keep that line."

A He and A Sui were peeking around the Medicine Hall doorframe when Qian Duoduo came over from the kitchen, seized each by the collar, and hauled them both back.

Lamp-lit. The Main Hall.

On the table: a pot of spirit rice porridge, a dish of pickles, a dish of stir-fried dried mushrooms. Everyone was at the table. Xu Yan washed his hands and sat, then laid out the events in Linchuan, one sentence at a time, no bends in the telling.

"The stall was sealed, the owner expelled from the Market, name entered in the Office Register."

"The Alchemist from the Medicine Guild tested it in person. They identified the herb dregs in the fake pills. Our retained sample from the twenty-eighth day of the Second Month does not contain that herb."

"One wooden chest was opened at the warehouse outside the city. Inside were stacks of printed labels, only the name 'Qingya' printed, the date blank. Beneath them, a layer of empty bottles without stoppers. The Branch sealed the chest and carried it back with them."

"The Rank Evaluator said the fake pill matter has sufficient evidence. The supply cutoff: at present only Qingya has spoken. Other sects who saw anything must file their own petitions with the Branch by the thirtieth day of the Eighth Month. She will come to Luoxia before the Autumn Evaluation to hear both matters together."

Huo Qing asked first. "The warehouse door. It was locked."

"Locked," Xu Yan said. "The key was with the Shopkeeper."

"He opened it?"

"He opened it himself. The Branch Clerk stood by and watched."

Huo Qing picked up a bite of food and asked nothing more. Shi Po set his chopsticks down. "That box of labels. How do they differ from what we sell in our Market?"

"Ours are written. Ink pressed into the tooth of the paper." Xu Yan said. "The ones in the chest are block-printed. Ink sits on the surface, furs up when you touch it. On the twentieth day of the Third Month I took one of my own spoiled labels, laid them side by side, and examined them against the light."

Shi Po nodded and picked up his bowl. Shao Ming took two mouthfuls of porridge and raised his head. "The money the stall owner owes those three people. Who pays it."

"He can't produce it, so it's recorded in the Office Register," Xu Yan said. "That debt is not Qingya's."

The table went quiet, only chopsticks against bowls. Jiang Wan finished her rice, set her chopsticks down. "Understood."

She rose and paused at the threshold, turning back. "A He, A Sui. Come with me."

Behind the Main Hall, at the foot of the stone steps before the Ancestral Hall, the two children sat down beside her. Jiang Wan had not brought her sword. She crouched and pressed A He's hand to his lower belly. "The breath comes to here. Don't pull it higher."

"Senior Sister, I can't pull it higher."

"Then don't. Not yet." She paused. "Are you counting in your head?"

A He nodded.

"Count to three, one breath," Jiang Wan said. "One breath every three counts is enough. More than that and the qi rises and floats."

A Sui whispered, "I can't even keep the count straight."

"Then count with your brother." Jiang Wan pressed her hand down as well. "A wrong count isn't wrong. A broken breath is."

Cheng Banshan came out of the Main Hall carrying his wine gourd and stopped just inside the threshold. "Little Xu. What did this trip bring back?"

"One sentence," Xu Yan said. "Matters outside the Market fall under the Branch's jurisdiction."

Cheng Banshan unscrewed the gourd, sniffed, screwed it shut again. "That sentence was worth the fare."

The twenty-fifth day of the Third Month, market day.

Before dawn, Qian Duoduo and Du Xiaochuan were already hauling a pot of spirit meals down the mountain, Qi Qi following with ten bottles of Qi-Gathering Powder tucked into his robes. Xu Yan left the Mountain Gate at Mao Hour and reached town at Chen Hour. The Market Gate was already open. Shao Ming hung the old scale on its wall hook, lifted the hand scale from its wooden box, hung it beside the main scale, and wiped it once with a cloth.

"How many for weighing?" Xu Yan spread the Market ledger open.

"Not many," Shao Ming said. "This time in the past, there'd be a line at the scale. No line today."

The Market was quiet. People still moved along Market Street, still stood at the spirit meal stall, but fewer came through the gate to weigh goods. Xu Yan set it down in one entry, brush rasping across the paper. Rogue cultivators' spirit herbs, a basket of dried mushrooms, two old iron hoes — weight and price written out clearly, rogue cultivators' goods in the rogue cultivator column. When he finished, he laid the brush on the inkstone.

A regular rogue cultivator finished weighing his goods but didn't leave. "Sect Master Xu, what day are you selling the next furnace of Qi-Gathering Pills?"

"The thirtieth."

"I'll come on the thirtieth then." He hoisted his empty basket, turned back at the door. "I heard a stall at the south end of Linchuan got sealed. Selling pills with your sect's name on them."

"Sold on the fifth day of the Third Month. Three people got sick," Xu Yan said. "The stall was sealed and the man expelled."

The rogue cultivator stood on the threshold, rubbing his hands along the basket rope. "So the Market... still sells pills, then?"

"Every ten-day market, ten pills, eight stones each. As before."

"As before is good." He went down the steps.

Mid-Snake Hour, Miao Zhong came in with a bundle of talisman papers on his back.

"Sect Master Xu."

"Steward Miao." Xu Yan nudged the Market ledger aside. "Talisman paper, same rules as always. Weigh it, set your own price, whatever sells gets recorded under your name."

"Understood." Miao Zhong set one end of the bundle on the scale pan.

Shao Ming added weights, the beam leveled, he called the number. Xu Yan wrote: Ink Pool Gate, talisman paper, one bundle.

Miao Zhong stacked the talisman papers pile by pile into the deepest part of the cabinet. Halfway through, he asked, "What did Linchuan say?"

Xu Yan leaned on the counter and told it from the beginning:

"The stall owner was expelled from the Market, name entered in the Office Register. Going forward, he may not set up a stall, work as hired help, buy, or sell within the Market."

"The Alchemist tested the pills in person. They identified that one herb dreg in the fake pills."

"The stall owner's purchase ledger has one line: the third day of the Third Month, warehouse outside the city, Qi-Gathering Pills, forty, on credit. The goods were extended to him on credit from the Wanbao Tower warehouse outside the city."

"The warehouse door was opened. In the corner of the west room, one wooden chest. Inside, stack after stack of printed labels, only 'Qingya' printed, dates blank. Beneath them, a layer of unstoppered empty bottles. The Branch sealed the chest and carried it off."

"The shop ledger shows no record of that shipment. Goods left the warehouse, but the shop ledger has no entry."

"The Rank Evaluator said the fake pill matter has sufficient evidence. The supply cutoff: at present only Qingya has spoken. Other sects who witnessed anything must file petitions with the Branch before the thirtieth day of the Eighth Month. She will come to Luoxia before the Autumn Evaluation to hear both matters together."

Miao Zhong's hands never stopped, stacking pile after pile. At the words "the shop ledger has no entry," his hands slowed half a beat, then resumed their rhythm.

"Those three are doing better," he said.

Xu Yan waited for him to go on.

"Two of the rogue cultivators can draw qi now. The one from Ink Pool Gate still has a ways to go. Said yesterday his chest felt tight." Miao Zhong squared the corners of the last few piles, pressed the edges with his fingertips, straightened up. "They stopped taking them the day after buying. Have been resting and recovering since."

"As long as no lasting harm came of it," Xu Yan said.

"None," Miao Zhong replied, not glancing at the open Market ledger on the counter. "Talisman paper settles on the tenth day of the Eighth Month. As before."

"As before."

Miao Zhong shouldered the empty rope and left. He passed the spirit meal stall, heading for the north end of Market Street. Du Xiaochuan called out "Steward Miao" from behind the stall. He raised a hand in response, didn't turn.

Qi Qi came in from the door, voice low. "He didn't say whether he'll file."

"Mm."

"Should I ask him?"

"If he means to file, he'll go to the Branch and file," Xu Yan said. "If he doesn't, one question from me won't produce a petition."

Qi Qi scratched his head and went over to the scale. Shao Ming stood at the door a moment, came back in, and said, "He stacks his talisman paper neatly."

"He stacks it neatly every time," Xu Yan said.

They closed at the end of Wu Hour. A few more had come to weigh goods than at Chen Hour. Xu Yan flipped the Market ledger back to Miao Zhong's line, scraped the ink from the brush tip against the stone's edge, and did not add anything below it. That pile of talisman papers at the back of the cabinet sat perfectly squared, edges pulled into a single line.