Chapter 225: A Load and a Half of Charcoal

The iron ring clinked as the lid of the charcoal brazier outside the Medicine Hall rose half a foot, flames licking up through the gap.

Holding the lid was the hand that extended from the empty sleeve. Four shattered formation stones bound at the wrist, one set into the palm, the spirit copper wire threaded through the knuckles glowing faint red in the firelight. The formation hand felt neither heat nor cold; the rim of the lid burned bright and it held it steady all the same. Cheng Banshan's own hand worked the iron hook, prodding into the brazier twice to level out the coals.

Du Xiaochuan crouched beside the stove, handing up charcoal. The basket held what they had hauled back from the wharf on the thirtieth day of the Fourth Month—coals with shining fracture lines, each piece sending the flames higher as it went in.

"Don't pile it," Cheng Banshan said. "Chokes the fire."

Du Xiaochuan pulled the piece in his hand back half an inch and watched it catch on its own.

Xu Yan stood outside the threshold, the account book spread open across his forearm. He studied the newly replaced grate bar in the firebox first—it sat a shade higher than the ones beside it, and its first time in the flames it burned a paler red. The old one had been pulled out last night; the iron had burned down to a thin, brittle shell.

"This one soaks up the fire," Cheng Banshan said, settling the lid back into place with another clink of the iron ring. "Should have been replaced long ago."

Xu Yan made an entry in the book: the first day of the Fifth Month. Replaced one grate bar.

"Take the box down," Cheng Banshan said.

Du Xiaochuan lifted the wooden box from the shelf in the Medicine Hall and set it on the workbench, then opened the lid. Inside were paper packets, stacked neat and flat, each one dated. The topmost was the eighteenth day of the Second Month; the bottom, the twenty-eighth of the fourth.

Cheng Banshan ran a finger over each packet in turn, then pushed the box forward. "Eight packets. Match the furnace log?"

"They do," Xu Yan said. "The eighteenth day of the Second Month, the twenty-eighth day of the Second Month, the eighth day of the Third Month, the eighteenth day of the Third Month, the twenty-eighth day of the Third Month, the eighth day of the Fourth Month, the eighteenth day of the Fourth Month, the twenty-eighth day of the Fourth Month."

"Eight furnace runs, eighty pills," Cheng Banshan said. "Not one cracked. Eight packets."

He closed the lid, and Du Xiaochuan set the box back. Only then did Xu Yan understand where his earlier remark—"your hand has steadied"—had come from.

"Eight runs now." Cheng Banshan sat back down on the threshold. "Your hand has steadied. This furnace comes out on the eighth."

"Out the eighth, sold the tenth," Xu Yan said.

"Once it's out, the charcoal brazier gets cleared," Cheng Banshan said. "Dewdrop Pills will start the ninth. Give it seven days."

Xu Yan shifted the book into the light from the courtyard and wrote: the first day of the Fifth Month. Ninth furnace run lit. Dewdrop Pills, furnace lit the ninth day of the Fifth Month, seven days.

"Seven days, the fire cannot go out." Cheng Banshan paused. "That means a load and a half of charcoal."

"The load and a half from the thirtieth was for this run."

"This run burns out on the eighth," Cheng Banshan said. "The ninth buys its own."

"A load and a half is enough?"

"Seven days, a load and a half. One shovel short and the fire breaks; any extra piled against the wall soaks up damp, and damp charcoal smokes—then that furnace of pills is ruined."

The brush tip stalled after "a load and a half." A load was ten pieces, a load and a half, fifteen—Xu Yan already had the number in his head. He did not write it down. He left the line blank, to be filled in once the charcoal was brought up the mountain.

Both market days—the tenth and the fifteenth—fell after the ninth, and on those two mornings Du Xiaochuan would be carrying his pot down the mountain, leaving the brazier one hand short.

"Those two market mornings, I'll tend it myself." Cheng Banshan seemed to know exactly what he was calculating. "You handle your market."

"Mm." Xu Yan asked, "Everything else is stocked?"

"You buy the charcoal." Cheng Banshan paused, then added, "Supplies are enough for one furnace. Move that small packet from under the bench onto the shelf too. Keep it with the oiled paper."

Du Xiaochuan ducked under the bench and felt around until he found a small packet, wrapped tight in thin oilcloth—tighter than the retained samples, with an old crease along one corner. He blew the dust off it and placed it toward the back of the shelf, right alongside the oiled paper packet.

Xu Yan closed the account book and asked nothing more.

Du Xiaochuan stood up from the brazier, his knees dusted with ash. "Elder Cheng, this furnace is still ten pills?"

"Ten," Cheng Banshan said. "Not one cracked. Same as the eight runs before."

From the second to the fourth, nothing else was scheduled on the mountain. Huo Qing threw his single sword-pierce in the veranda before dawn, the wooden target thudding as the crater in its bullseye deepened another fraction. Jiang Wan practiced her sword in the East Courtyard at the Mao hour, the blade never leaving its sheath, only the sound of wind passing the wall. The brazier outside the Medicine Hall burned from the Dragon hour until lamp-lighting, Du Xiaochuan adding charcoal three times a day, then sitting on the threshold after each trip, counting the remaining pieces one by one.

The fifth. Before dawn, both pots in the kitchen went on at once. Qian Duoduo and Du Xiaochuan each hefted one and headed down the mountain. At the Mao hour, Xu Yan shouldered his market box, tucked the market book into his sash bag, and walked out the Mountain Gate with Shao Ming behind him.

Overnight leaves had drifted against the gate. Nie Bo's broom swept steadily along, and when he saw them coming he stepped aside half a pace without stopping the broom.

They reached town at the Dragon hour. The market gate on the east side of the grain shop's back courtyard swung open. Shao Ming lifted the door panel and leaned it against the wall, hung the scale on the nail above, the hand scale beside it. Xu Yan spread the market book open on the counter and sharpened the charcoal stick.

The first one in was a rogue cultivator carrying a bundle of dried grass—the same one who had come on the twentieth day of the Fourth Month. He hooked his bundle onto the scale. "Nineteen jin."

Shao Ming let the weight settle. "Nineteen and a half."

"These eyes of mine just can't get it right." The man laughed at himself. He pulled two paper tallies from the counter, squatted down to write his price, then set the charcoal stick aside and looked up. "This price work?"

"Your goods, your price," Xu Yan said.

The man pasted the tags onto the bundle, stored it in the bin under the counter, and turned back. "Those two pills from last time—I took them. My qi flows smoother than before."

"Come back when they're gone," Xu Yan said.

"The tenth?"

"The tenth. Ten pills."

The second one in only weighed his goods without consigning. He hooked his bundle of grass onto the scale, listened to Shao Ming call the weight, nodded, then lifted it back onto his shoulders and left.

The third was a townswoman, a middle-aged woman with a basket of dried mushrooms. Her first question at the door: "You can weigh these too?"

"We can weigh them," Xu Yan said. "Weighing costs nothing."

Shao Ming unhooked the scale, caught the basket handle, and called out the weight. The woman noted the figure on the back of her hand, got it wrong, made Shao Ming repeat it, then finally picked up her basket and left, saying the inn bought dried mushrooms by the jin.

From the Dragon hour to the Snake hour, that was all the foot traffic through the market—thinner than it had been in the Fourth Month. The dried grass and paper talismans stacked in the bin under the counter sat mostly untouched. Only the Ink Pool Gate's compartment stood empty.

At the Snake hour, Qi Qi came running down the mountain path with ten bottles of Qi-Gathering Powder, first delivering them to Qian Duoduo at the stall, then heading into the market to move stock, clearing the empty baskets under the counter into the back room. When he came out, he stood at the door and looked up and down Market Street. Twice.

"What are you looking for?" Xu Yan asked.

"Seeing if anyone turns this way," Qi Qi said.

No one turned.

The fair broke up at the end of the Snake hour. The two pots of spirit meals sold to the bottom, and Qian Duoduo restocked next fair's spirit rice at the grain shop. The last customer through the weigh-in left, and Xu Yan closed the market book, tucked it into his sash bag, and said to Shao Ming, "I'm going to the wharf."

"I'll close up the gate," Shao Ming said.

From Market Street down toward the river, the stone steps wore a layer of coal dust. Boats crowded bow to stern at the wharf, gangplanks bridging the gaps; grain sacks were stacked on the blue stones at the base of the wall, and on the other side, charcoal—stacked neat and square. The charcoal boat was moored at the outside edge. The boatman sat at the prow, a scale by his feet and an empty basket.

Xu Yan stood on the bank. "A load and a half."

"A load's ten pieces." The boatman looked up. "A load and a half, fifteen."

"Two full baskets, one half."

The boatman dragged the baskets out and weighed them one by one, calling the figures, then lined the three up on the gangplank. Xu Yan counted fifteen spirit stones from his sash bag, laying them one by one onto the deck; the boatman tucked each into the cloth pouch at his waist, then cinched the mouth shut.

Then the boatman scooped up two handfuls of charcoal crumbs from the hold and moved to stuff them into the gaps between the baskets. "These crumbs are free."

"No need," Xu Yan said. "It's enough."

Qi Qi hefted the full load, feeling the ropes bite white lines into his palms. He switched hands, and Xu Yan took the carrying pole from him.

"You carry the half load," Xu Yan said.

"I can carry it."

"Half load. Then we don't have to stop on the road."

Qi Qi muttered something, but hung the half-load side onto his own pole.

They left town at the Wei hour. The official road ran a stretch before turning onto the mountain path. The poles bounced against their shoulders; the charcoal in the baskets knocked together with a muffled sound. The one in front stepped off on his left foot, and the one behind matched him, left for left, until the two poles rose and fell in rhythm.

They rested once, on the flat stone at the halfway slope. Qi Qi set the half load down and rubbed his shoulder. "This load and a half—it's for the Dewdrop Pills?"

"Mm."

"Seven days of burning. Enough?"

"Elder Cheng did the math."

"The boatman said a lot of people have been hauling charcoal these last few days." Qi Qi uncorked the water flask. "Plenty of people down the mountain burn their own charcoal. Why go all the way to the wharf?"

"It's about the wood," Xu Yan said. "For furnace charcoal, Elder Cheng only trusts that family at the wharf."

Qi Qi handed the flask over, then thought of something else. "The pills come out on the sixteenth. Who takes them?"

Xu Yan drank, passed the flask back. "He didn't say."

"And you didn't ask?"

"He'll say it if he wants to."

After that rest, they didn't stop again. There was little wind on the mountain path. The dust on the grass blades was white, and charcoal crumbs sifted through the basket gaps, leaving a gray trail behind each pole. They entered the Mountain Gate at the Shen hour and set both loads down in the open ground outside the Medicine Hall. Xu Yan went into the Accounts Room and filled in the rest of the entry under the Fifth Month's first day: one load and a half, fifteen. He set the brush back on the brush rest, came out, and helped Qi Qi stack the charcoal against the rear wall of the Medicine Hall—the full pile toward the inside, the half load toward the front. The old reed mat came up from the base of the wall; one corner was scorched from the brazier's heat. They spread the mat over the pile and pressed the four corners down with stones.

Shi Po came over from the West Wing, hefted one of the full baskets with one hand, then set it down. "One more load?"

"Done stacking," Qi Qi said.

Cheng Banshan came out of the Medicine Hall and stood on the threshold, his eyes passing over the two piles beneath the reed mat.

"Enough."

He turned back inside and reached up to touch the oiled paper packet at the back of the shelf, pressing the corner flat, then pressing down once more; he nudged the thin oilcloth packet beside it, squaring the two together.

Xu Yan stood at the door, watching. He knew that oiled paper packet: the twelve Dewdrop Grass stalks harvested from the Hidden Realm on the twentieth day of the Fifth Month of Alliance Year 301, wrapped in oiled paper, sitting on the Medicine Hall shelf, untouched by anyone.

"Don't stack the charcoal flush against the wall," Cheng Banshan said without turning. "The wall sweats."

"There are stones holding it down," Xu Yan said.

Cheng Banshan nudged the small iron plate over the furnace door, leaving a crack, and a line of flame licked out. The oiled paper packet still sat on the shelf, the yellowed edge of its corner flashing once in the firelight.