Chapter 231: Three Days Without Touching Qi

On the seventeenth day, at the Tiger hour, the charcoal stove outside the Medicine Hall sat cold. The ash in the heart of it had settled the night before, and Cheng Banshan hadn't cleaned it out. A few fingerprints marked the surface. Dawn light came over the eastern wall and lit the top step of the stone stairs first.

"Stand back," Cheng Banshan said.

Six people stood in a row in the open space in front of the Medicine Hall. Under the corridor, the wooden target leaned beside a pillar, the crater in its center facing south. Jiang Wan stood at the eastern end, her sword left in the East Courtyard, both hands hanging at her sides. Xu Yan stood beside her, then Huo Qing, Shao Ming, Shi Po, and Bai Xiaoman. Du Xiaochuan carried a low stool out of the Medicine Hall, set it at Cheng Banshan's feet, and withdrew inside the doorway.

Cheng Banshan went to Jiang Wan first. Three fingers touched her wrist. He held it a while, shifted, pressed again, then withdrew his hand and adjusted his sleeve. Next was Xu Yan—longer this time. Then Huo Qing, who offered his left wrist. Then Shao Ming, Shi Po, Bai Xiaoman, one after another. Nobody spoke. The only sound in the corridor was the rustle of his sleeve against his clothes.

He reached the last person and stopped.

"Two Golden Core," he said. "One Foundation Establishment, one mid-stage, two at the third layer."

"Which meridian," Jiang Wan said.

"You already know." Cheng Banshan came back. "Raise both hands."

She lifted them to chest height, faltered halfway, then raised them the rest of the way, level.

"Numb," he said. "Don't pretend."

"Three days." She lowered her hands.

"Three days. Today counts as the first, through the nineteenth. On the twentieth you can move however you like."

"What about my qi in those three days?"

"Don't touch it." Cheng Banshan said. "A core that's just formed is like mud that hasn't dried. Move it and a piece crumbles off. Leave it alone for three days and it settles on its own."

Jiang Wan turned toward the gate, took two steps, and looked back at him.

"You four." Cheng Banshan turned around. "No training for three days."

"Does carrying things count?" Shi Po asked.

"Carry all you want. Just don't train."

"No laying out stones?" Bai Xiaoman said.

"No. Keep them in your sleeve. Don't let them touch the ground."

Huo Qing didn't ask. His eyes rested briefly on the wooden target under the corridor.

"That strike of yours, don't do it either," Cheng Banshan said. "Hit the target and your qi follows. Three days."

Huo Qing nodded once.

"I can still keep the books?" Xu Yan asked.

"A brush doesn't use qi."

For three days, the mountain was quiet.

All through the seventeenth, there was no sound of that thrust in the corridor. The wooden target stood by the pillar, its crater facing south, and no one stood before it. The sun moved from east to west, dragging the target's shadow across the ground. Jiang Wan sat at her courtyard gate. She drew the sword and wiped the spine of the blade with an old cloth, inch by inch, then sheathed it. A while later she drew it and wiped it again. The threshold of the East Courtyard grew warm in the sun. She sat so long that when she finally stood, she pressed a hand against her skirt.

Shi Po couldn't keep still. He moved the half-shed of firewood by the kitchen from the foot of the wall to under the eaves, five or six pieces per trip. When he finished, he stacked it neat. Qian Duoduo poked his head out of the kitchen and told him not to stack it too high. Shi Po grunted an "mm" and stopped when the pile was level with the windowsill.

Xu Yan spent all three days in the accounts room with his brush and his abacus, sitting from morning to night. His numbed fingers overshot the beads. Once he worked the same line of figures twice—the second pass was right; the first time, the beads had slipped past. He didn't mention it to anyone.

On the afternoon of the eighteenth, Bai Xiaoman came with a pair of scissors to cut Jiang Wan's hair. Jiang Wan sat on the stone steps of the front courtyard while A Sui held a cloth behind her neck. The scissors went snip—pause—snip. Jiang Wan said, "Even is fine." Bai Xiaoman said, "Stop moving, Senior Sister." The singed ends fell onto the cloth, mixed with the good, dark with yellow in the black. They gathered a small handful. A Sui folded the cloth and asked where to dump it. Qian Duoduo called from the kitchen door: dump it at the foot of the wall, not in the stove, or the whole place will stink of burnt hair. Jiang Wan touched behind her ear, said, "Fine," and left.

That night in bed, his qi rose on its own. It climbed to his elbow, paused, and slowly slid back down. Xu Yan didn't push it. He turned over and ran through the old ledgers in his head. He fell asleep halfway through.

On the nineteenth at the Dragon hour, Cheng Banshan was cleaning ash from the stove by the Medicine Hall door. He worked the hook one-handed, pulling the ash out and spreading it at the base of the steps. The stove had been empty for three days. He finished and looked up just as Xu Yan came over from the accounts room.

"Going up tomorrow at the Rabbit hour?" he asked.

"Rabbit hour."

"Go up and sit. The qi will move on its own—don't push it." Cheng Banshan leaned the furnace hook against the wall. "At noon eat flatbread. Don't light a fire on the cliff. Come down at the Rooster hour. That stretch of stone gully's hard going once it gets dark."

"Mm." Xu Yan's gaze rested on the stove mouth. "Light it on the twenty-first?"

"Twenty-first."

On the evening of the nineteenth, in the accounts room, lamps were lit.

Bai Xiaoman sat at the table with a small abacus, the market ledger spread in front of her. Shao Ming stood by the door, which was only half open. The lamp sat at the corner of the table.

"The twentieth, the twenty-fifth, the thirtieth—you'll keep those three market days," Xu Yan said.

"I will." Bai Xiaoman gave the abacus a click. "I'll copy the Sect Master's columns exactly."

"On the thirtieth, you'll sell the Qi-Gathering Pills. Eight spirit stones each, ten bottles, and when they're gone, you're done. The money goes in the cash box, not the market box."

"What if no one buys them?"

"They will. If anyone asks, you give one answer."

Bai Xiaoman nodded and wrote two lines on a slip of prescription paper. She looked up. "For the pill materials, I'll pick them from the cabinet?"

"One furnace's worth. Twenty stones. Put the money in the market box and record it in the market ledger under the consignor's line."

"What about charcoal?"

"The wharf, a load and a half, fifteen stones." Xu Yan looked toward the door. "Qi Qi will carry it with you."

"Mm," Shao Ming said.

"Who do I hand the market box back to?" Shao Ming asked.

"Me. I'll come down at the Rooster hour."

"That last market day, there'll be more money. Give it to you too?"

"Same."

Bai Xiaoman set down her brush. "What if someone at the market asks about the two pillars of light that fell on the mountain on the sixteenth?"

"If they ask about the two lightning strikes, say yes. Nothing else."

"And if they ask who broke through?"

"Don't say."

Shao Ming leaned against the doorframe a while. "What if someone offers congratulations?"

Xu Yan thought for a moment. "If they do, accept it. One thanks is enough."

Bai Xiaoman lowered her head. A bead on the abacus clicked faintly under her fingers—not arithmetic, just a single idle tap.

Xu Yan dragged the iron cash box out from under the ledger rack. He untied the hemp rope and counted stack by stack. He counted out three stacks of ten, then five more—thirty-five in all—wrapped them in an old cloth, and set it on top of the market ledger.

"I'll give it to you tomorrow at the Rabbit hour."

Bai Xiaoman reached over and nudged the cloth bundle, listening to the sound. "I'll keep it against my chest. The market box is Uncle Shao's to carry."

The lamp wick had burned down a notch. Xu Yan pushed it forward a little.

On the twentieth at the Rabbit hour, before dawn had fully broken, there was already movement in the front courtyard. Qian Duoduo and Du Xiaochuan had left before first light, carrying two pots of spirit meals downhill. The kitchen door stood half open; a little porridge remained in the pot.

Xu Yan handed the cloth bundle to Bai Xiaoman. She untied a corner, counted the stones over twice, one by one, wrapped it again, and tucked it against her chest, pressing once outside her robe.

"The Rabbit hour is here." Jiang Wan came out of the East Courtyard, no sword at her side. The hair behind her ear was trimmed even, and when the wind caught it, it flicked up.

"Go up and sit," Cheng Banshan said from the Medicine Hall doorway. "The qi will move on its own. Don't push it. Come down at the Rooster hour."

Xu Yan answered, and the two of them headed behind the Ancestral Hall.

The back mountain path took two quarter-hours to reach the formation-eye stone platform. The formation stone east of the platform lay there just as before. They circled around the east end of the platform and followed the cliff base east. The moss in the stone gully was drier than the last time; the rocks weren't as slippery. Jiang Wan went first. At the steepest turn she stopped and turned back to wait for him.

They climbed to the clifftop. Wind came flat out of the south, sweeping the pine needles on the bare stone into lines. The two halves of the old pine stood just where they'd been: one half fallen west, the other pressed against the rocks to the east. Between them, the pale wound of the break gaped at the sky, bleached by the wind, pine needles gathering in the crack.

Jiang Wan walked to the eastern half, looked at the rock beneath it, and sat. Xu Yan went to the western half and leaned back against the roots. Between them the pale break ran, two or three paces wide.

She closed her eyes. Qi moved through her meridians, slow, sinking at the dantian, then rising out. He sat still, not prodding the core in his dantian, letting it spin on its own.

The sun climbed from the east to the top of the sky. No one else came up. There was no other sound—only the wind and the faint whisper of pine needles landing. He counted his own breaths once. Around several hundred he lost the count, gave up, and just sat.

At noon, Jiang Wan opened her eyes. "Water."

Xu Yan picked up the water flask beside his foot and tossed it over. She caught it one-handed. After two sips, she set the flask down, broke half a flatbread from a cloth bundle, laid it on the rock on her side of the pale break, and closed her eyes again.

The flatbread sat on the rock for a long time. He reached over and ate it. Crumbs landed on his knees; he flicked them away one by one.

In the afternoon, when she opened her eyes again, she ran her hand over the scorched rock beside her, found the crack, and scraped a finger inside. She dug out a little black ash and rubbed it between her fingers. She looked up at the gap of sky, then settled back. All afternoon, the two of them on the clifftop said only that one word: "water."

At the Snake hour, at Qingya Market.

Shao Ming hung the scale on the doorframe, set the hand scale level, and stood beside it. Bai Xiaoman opened the market ledger and sat behind the counter. At the far end of market street, more than half of Qian Duoduo's pot of spirit meals was already sold; Du Xiaochuan fed the fire. Qi Qi came running down from the mountain, delivered ten bottles of Qi-Gathering Powder to the stall, then came into the market hall to help move stock.

The first few rogue cultivators who came by weighed spirit herbs on the scale—no consignment, just weighed and packed back into their baskets. One of them stayed after his weigh. He watched Bai Xiaoman write the figure down, then asked, "That was your mountain, on the sixteenth?"

"Yes," Bai Xiaoman said.

"Who broke through?"

"We don't say."

The man said "oh," shouldered his basket, and on his way out the door still looked back north at the mountain.

Halfway through the Snake hour, Miao Zhong arrived with goods on his back: a stack of talisman paper and a few bundles of dried spirit herbs. Shao Ming weighed; Bai Xiaoman recorded. Miao Zhong marked prices on the goods—the same figures as the Fourth Month.

"Prices haven't moved," he said.

"Thank you, Steward Miao," Bai Xiaoman said.

Miao Zhong stepped back from the scale and stood watching the hall. After a while, he spoke.

"On the sixteenth, the whole town saw it," he said. "On that cliff behind Qingya Mountain, two lightning bolts fell."

Bai Xiaoman's brush stopped on the paper.

Miao Zhong paused.

"Congratulations."

"Thank you, Steward Miao," Bai Xiaoman said.

Nothing more. Miao Zhong didn't press. He put the goods in the cabinet, took his stall tag, clasped his hands behind his back, and went out to the market street.

After the market broke up, Bai Xiaoman picked a furnace's worth of pill materials from the cabinet—twenty stones. She dropped the money into the market box, bent over, and recorded the consignor's name under that line in the market ledger. Qi Qi and Shao Ming went to the wharf and bought a load and a half from the charcoal boat—fifteen stones. One carried a full load, the other a half. They left town.

At the Monkey hour they were back at the mountain gate. The charcoal was stacked against the back wall of the Medicine Hall and covered with a reed mat.

At the Rooster hour, the two of them came down from the clifftop.

On the stone gully stretch, Xu Yan went first. Jiang Wan followed, stepping where he stepped. At the turn, she pressed a hand against the rock, steadying herself, and only then moved on.

They entered the front courtyard. Bai Xiaoman waited under the corridor, holding the market box.

"Steward Miao said congratulations." She handed the box to Xu Yan.

"Mm."

He took it and tested its weight in his arms—lighter than last time. Jiang Wan stood at the door of the East Courtyard and looked back. "Going back up tomorrow?"

"Yes."

She pushed the door open and went in. Xu Yan carried the market box toward the accounts room. Passing the Medicine Hall, he saw the stove by the door had been wiped clean. Tomorrow they'd load the pill materials into it.