Chapter 227: North to the Back Mountain Cliff Top

On the twelfth, at lamp-lighting time, the charcoal stove outside the Medicine Hall was glowing red.

Heat rose from the edge of the stove lid, climbing to waist height before dissipating. Cheng Banshan sat on the threshold, his wine gourd resting on his knee, the empty half-sleeve tucked behind his back. Inside, Du Xiaochuan rolled over on the plank bed, one hand slipping off the edge of the straw mat, then drawing back a moment later. The outer door of the Medicine Hall stood half open, charcoal smell and medicine smell mingling as they drifted out.

Xu Yan came over from the Accounts Room and stopped below the steps.

"How's the fire?"

"Steady." Cheng Banshan pulled the stopper from his gourd, then pressed it back in. "Add one more piece after midnight. Burn through the sixteenth—just right."

"I've sorted tomorrow's charcoal. The broken pieces are by the door." Xu Yan crouched down and warmed his hands at the stove door.

"There's something I need to make clear to you first." Cheng Banshan didn't look up. "If Senior Sister takes it, she can't do it in the courtyard."

"Anywhere in the courtyard's no good."

"A Golden Core breakthrough draws a lightning tribulation," Cheng Banshan said. "The lightning falls where she sits. That spot needs to be far from the buildings, and far from the formation eye too."

Xu Yan didn't answer right away. He laid out the mountain's structures in his mind: the Main Hall with its three rooms, the Ancestral Hall, one room; the East Courtyard; the row of West Wing rooms; the Accounts Room; the Kitchen and Medicine Hall on the west side—all separated by just a few paces. The slope stretched on toward the Mountain Gate. On the East Slope of the Back Mountain lay the graves of past Sect Masters. The north slope faced away from the sun; herb gatherers went only so far before turning back. The formation eye sat halfway up the slope—a stone platform ringed by yellow grass, with the cliff face rising several zhang above it.

"The cliff top above the Back Mountain," he said.

Cheng Banshan raised his head. "Been up there?"

"No. Tomorrow I'll go."

Cheng Banshan pulled the stopper again, this time taking a sip, then pressed the gourd to his knee. "I've never seen a Core Formation lightning strike," he said. "What the books say: the lightning follows the person. Where she sits, the lightning falls. Stone shatters, roof beams collapse—and the falling beam reaches you before the lightning does. Beyond that, the books aren't detailed."

"Then keep it away from the buildings."

"I haven't finished." Cheng Banshan looked at him. "From the ninth to the sixteenth, this furnace can't go out. I can't leave this courtyard. You go look yourself."

"The deed says 'cliff top,'" Xu Yan said. "North boundary: Back Mountain cliff top."

"Written on paper doesn't mean there's a place to stand." Cheng Banshan shifted his gourd further inside the threshold, away from the draft through the door crack. "If a single rock can't hold a person, you'll have made the trip for nothing."

"Then I won't make it for nothing." Xu Yan stood and pressed the ledger against his chest.

On his way back to the Accounts Room, he circled behind the Medicine Hall to check the charcoal pile under the back wall. The stones weighing down the straw mat hadn't moved. Inside, he turned up the lamp and opened the ledger.

He went through the four boundaries line by line in his mind: east to the boundary stele on the ridge, south to the main road below the mountain, west to the stone face of the West Slope, north to the Back Mountain cliff top. The first three he had walked. He'd touched the stone at the foot of the boundary stele, counted the wheel ruts on the main road, walked the base of the West Slope's stone face. The northern boundary—that one he'd only read on paper. A line connected to a place he'd never stood.

He started a new line in the ledger and wrote down Cheng Banshan's words: the date, who said it, what was said.

On the thirteenth day of the Fifth Month, before the sky fully lightened, sword sounds already came from the East Courtyard.

Xu Yan reached the gate as Jiang Wan's sword came to a stop mid-form, frozen in the air. Her sleeves were rolled to the elbow, a thin sheen of sweat at her temples. Seeing him at the gate, she didn't stop; she finished the last half-form before sheathing the blade.

"Mao Hour," she said.

"A trip up the mountain," Xu Yan said. "To look at the spot."

"What spot?"

"The place you'll take the pill on the sixteenth."

Jiang Wan slid her sword back into its sheath and leaned against a veranda pillar, silent for a moment. Then she said, "Where does Elder Cheng say?"

"He says not in the courtyard—far from the buildings, far from the formation eye." Xu Yan said. "I've chosen the Back Mountain cliff top."

"Have you been there?"

"No."

She went inside and came out with two water flasks, tossing one to him, her sword at her waist. "What's the route?"

"Past the Ancestral Hall going north, to the formation eye, then east along the foot of the cliff."

Crossing the Front Courtyard, Huo Qing was already on the veranda, drilling that single thrust at the wooden target—thrust, withdraw, thrust—right arm hanging at his side. The pit in the target's center showed dark in the dim light. Jiang Wan didn't slow; neither did Xu Yan.

The two passed in front of the Ancestral Hall. The door was shut, last night's pine needles scattered on the stone steps. Northward lay the mountain path behind the peak, its stones polished bright by foot traffic, dew still hanging from the pine branches on either side. Their trouser cuffs were soaked before they'd gone far.

"Two li," Xu Yan said.

"You're counting?"

"Ancestral Hall to the formation eye, two li, half an hour at walking pace," he said. "On the sixteenth, we'll have to calculate by the hour. A quarter-hour early or late makes all the difference."

Jiang Wan asked nothing more, walking half a step ahead.

Halfway up, the trail crossed a stone ledge. The stones there were loose; she stepped around to the left, glanced back at him, and Xu Yan followed precisely in her footsteps. Past the ledge, the path climbed, the slope easing, scrub trees thickening on both sides. Their leaves held water; they had to push branches aside to pass.

"There's still a path like this behind the Ancestral Hall," Jiang Wan said.

"For herb gatherers," Xu Yan said. "They turn back at the north slope. No one goes higher."

The formation eye sat halfway up. A stone platform, five formation stones set to the five directions, the carved characters along the grooves darkened by water vapor rising off the rock. A few wind-blown pine needles lay at its center. Jiang Wan stopped to look, didn't reach out; Xu Yan didn't touch it either.

"East," he said.

The cliff-foot stretch hugged the rock face. Dead vines no one had touched in decades hung in clumps, rustling faintly as the wind passed. Not far eastward, the cliff wall dropped lower, and at twice a man's height a stone cleft split open, its mouth facing south.

"This cleft goes to the top?" Jiang Wan asked.

"From the look of it, it does."

On the thirteenth day of the Fifth Month, the two of them climbed the cliff top for the first time. From the formation eye to the top was one li; the climb took half an hour. The cleft was narrow, and the steep section had to be braced with both hands—no fast going.

"I'll go first." Jiang Wan unstrapped the sword from her waist and slung it across her back. "Follow my feet. When I say a rock's loose, don't step on it."

The cleft was too narrow to walk abreast. The floor was loose gravel, slippery underfoot, and the moss on both walls came off at the touch. After a few dozen steps, the cleft bent, and the grade steepened. Jiang Wan climbed up first and stood at the turn, looking back down. Xu Yan braced one hand on a stone edge and climbed; his right foot slipped on a wet rock, and his knee knocked against stone—not hard.

"Don't step on the white rocks," Jiang Wan said from above.

"Got it."

"Your Accounting Office trousers."

Xu Yan looked down at his knee. Rubbing at the dirt only made it worse. "I'll deal with it when we get back."

Another stretch above, and crooked trees grew out of the rock fissures, offering footholds. Near the top, wind came down through the gap overhead, driving fine grit into their faces; it stung. Jiang Wan pulled her sleeves down over her hands, climbed over the cliff edge first, and planted her feet.

"Come up. It's flat up here."

Xu Yan braced one hand on the edge and pulled himself over.

The cliff top was bare rock—nothing else, only a few fissures where soil had accumulated and clusters of short grass had taken root. Wind rose from the south with nothing to block it, making the eyes sting. An old pine grew from a fissure near the south side, its trunk leaning out over the edge, branches pressing against the cliff rim and throwing a patch of shade over the stone below.

Xu Yan walked to the southern edge and stood there. Looking south, Luoxia Town spread below, houses crowded together, roof tiles gray. The river ran past the town, its surface flashing white light, the wharf steps clearly visible.

That line on the deed—today he stood on it for the first time.

He walked the length of the cliff top, east to west, then back again. The north side rose an arm's length higher than the south, solid rock that answered with a dull thud when he knocked it with his heel. The flat patch south, near the pine, lay in its shadow, where the wind curved around before reaching it.

Jiang Wan made a circuit herself, stopping finally beneath the old pine to press her palm against the trunk and look south.

"Why here?" she asked.

"The deed reaches here," Xu Yan said. "It's Qingya land."

"The deed reaches here, so she has to take the lightning here?"

"The buildings are below, separated by a cliff. The formation eye is to the west below—its platform is a li away." Xu Yan said. "The rock is solid. Lightning falls on stone, a piece of stone bursts, but the buildings below stay standing. If it falls in the courtyard, the roof beams come down first."

Jiang Wan looked up at the pine, then south, scanning the cliff top from south to north, east to west. Finally she said, "This will do."

She crouched by the flat stone near the edge and wiped the surface with her palm. Wind-blown sand coated it; one sweep and it was clean. She stood, brushing the grit off on her trousers. "I'll sit here. You stand under the pine."

Xu Yan didn't respond. He crouched to examine the stone surface by the pine roots, then stood and walked each edge of the cliff top. The descent route ran through his mind as well: half an hour up, slower going down—factor three quarters of an hour.

At Snake Hour, they came down.

The descent was harder than the climb. Jiang Wan led, probing one foot downward, planting it solid before moving the other. Xu Yan followed; the dirt on his knee gained another layer. At the cleft mouth, the wind had reversed, blowing up from below, plastering their clothes against their legs.

By the time they reached the formation platform, the sun had passed overhead toward the south. They didn't rest, just followed the path down the mountain.

At the Medicine Hall door, Cheng Banshan sat on the threshold while Du Xiaochuan crouched by the stove sorting charcoal.

"There's a route," Xu Yan said. "There's room to stand up top."

"How far?" Cheng Banshan asked.

"East from the formation eye, one li. Half an hour up to the top."

"Solid rock?"

"Solid. There's a flat patch on the south side."

Cheng Banshan stoppered his wine gourd and pressed it to his knee. "Senior Sister looked at it?"

"She says it'll do."

"If she says it'll do, then it'll do." Cheng Banshan stood and went into the outer room, straightening the charcoal basket by the plank bed. "On the sixteenth, when it comes out of the furnace at the beginning of Horse Hour, move immediately. No delay. From the time the lid comes off, you have one shichen."

"Understood."

"What about the way down?"

"Count three quarters of an hour going down," Xu Yan said. "Half an hour up, slower coming back."

Cheng Banshan nodded once, unhooked the furnace poker from his belt, and probed into the stove door.

On the fifteenth day of the Fifth Month, market day.

The Market ran as usual. Shao Ming took down the door panels and hung the scale and hand-scale; Xu Yan opened the market ledger. A steady stream of customers came to weigh goods all morning. The consignment stock was still the same few items from the three sects. A few rogue cultivators came through, dropping off spirit herbs and leaving. The fair dispersed; at the end of Horse Hour they closed; in the late afternoon they left town, and at Monkey Hour they came through the Mountain Gate. Nie Bo swept at the gate, sweeping up to the threshold, then stepped aside.

At lamp-lighting time, everyone gathered under the veranda in front of the Medicine Hall.

The stove had burned into its seventh night. Flames showed through the cracks, red but dimmer than the nights before. From time to time, Cheng Banshan probed with the furnace poker, then pushed the lid back over the mouth; the iron ring clinked. Du Xiaochuan dragged a basket of charcoal to the door and crouched, sorting out the broken pieces. Shi Po came over from the Kitchen, water still on his hands. Qian Duoduo stood below the steps holding an empty bucket. Qi Qi sat at the base of a veranda pillar, the carrying pole from the market stall laid at his feet.

Cheng Banshan hung the poker back on his belt and turned to face them.

"Tomorrow, at the beginning of Horse Hour, it comes out of the furnace," he said. "No one goes down the mountain."

A beat of silence under the veranda.

Five prayer cushions," Cheng Banshan said to Shi Po. "Tomorrow at Snake Hour, lay them out on that open ground under the veranda."

Qian Duoduo glanced at the open ground, let his eyes travel over the people standing under the veranda, and switched the bucket to his other hand. No one asked questions.

"Du Xiaochuan, tonight's the last watch. You don't need to get up to add charcoal in the morning—I'll keep watch at dawn," Cheng Banshan said.

A Sui poked her head out from the Kitchen door. "Grandpa Cheng, how many for tomorrow?"

"We'll see tomorrow."

The group dispersed. Jiang Wan left last, glancing northward into the dark, where nothing was visible. Xu Yan returned to the Accounts Room, opened the ledger, and wrote a line: the fifteenth day of the Fifth Month, Elder Cheng says: tomorrow at the beginning of Horse Hour, the furnace comes out. No one is to go down the mountain.

When he finished, he pushed the lamp toward the corner of the desk and turned to look toward the Medicine Hall. The door was half closed, firelight seeping through the crack beneath it in a red line.