Chapter 232: Closing the Books on the Fifth Month

On the twenty-first, at the Dragon hour, a small red glow first appeared in the charcoal stove outside the Medicine Hall.

Cheng Banshan set the wooden basin on the stone step beside the stove. Inside were the alchemy materials he had picked out from the Market on the twentieth, divided into several piles with oiled paper underneath. He lifted one side of the stove lid with one hand while Du Xiaochuan crouched below, working the fire tongs to open a gap among the charcoal. The fire rose up through the gap and blackened the inside of the lid.

"This batch runs seven days. Comes out on the twenty-eighth," Cheng Banshan said. "On the thirtieth, you two don't go down the mountain. Bai Xiaoman sells."

"Understood," Xu Yan said.

"Head up. Sit there. Don't force it."

Jiang Wan was already standing on the path behind the Ancestral Hall. The water flask hung from her shoulder, and the cloth bundle held flatbread Qian Duoduo had griddled before dawn, still warm. The two of them walked north, one behind the other, reaching the formation-eye stone platform in two quarter-hours. They circled around the platform's east end, then followed the cliff base eastward. The moss in the stone cleft had dried in the sun and crunched faintly underfoot.

At the clifftop, the wind came up from the south. The two halves of the old pine stood where they always had, the split's white raw wood open to the sky, pine needles along its edges swirling in the wind. Jiang Wan went to sit beneath the eastern half. Xu Yan went west, his back against the roots. The white split lay between them, two or three paces across.

There were no markers on the clifftop.

On the twenty-second, she brought the prayer cushion from the front courtyard up with her and pressed it onto the bare stone, saying the rock was too hard. After that, every day at the Mao hour, she came up, drew qi out from her dantian, circulated it once through her body—and did not push against it. At the Horse hour, she ate flatbread and drank water. At the You hour, she went down. She no longer counted how long she sat; she only watched where the sun had reached. Xu Yan came to know the scorched rock beside her spot by heart: it split down the middle, one crack running east, three running south, the widest gap big enough to slip a finger into.

On the twenty-third, the wind blew hard. She pulled her sleeves down over her wrists and sat facing away from the wind all morning. On the twenty-fourth, in the early afternoon, something happened: she was sitting when her qi suddenly rose, traveled up to her chest, and stopped there—neither rising nor falling. She opened her eyes, let out a breath, placed both hands on her knees, and waited for it to settle back on its own. It took the better part of half an incense stick. Xu Yan watched from his side and said nothing. Only after she closed her eyes again did he loosen his grip on the empty water flask that had gone warm in his hand.

On the twenty-fifth, the clouds hung low. Their shadows drifted across the bare stone in patches, dissolving when they reached her feet. On the twenty-sixth, there was no wind. The pine needles in the rock crevice had gathered into a small pile. Xu Yan reached over and cleared the ones near her side, worried about damp. She opened her eyes for a moment, then closed them again.

What was said on the clifftop amounted to fewer than three sentences a day. On the afternoon of the twenty-fourth, Jiang Wan said, "The wind's pressing south." Xu Yan made a sound of agreement. On the twenty-fifth, she said, "Half a flatbread left," and he pushed the water flask over. On the twenty-seventh, she reached up and touched the trimmed hair behind her ear and said, "It's grown again." The rest of the time there was only wind and the sound of pine needles landing.

The nights were no easier. On the night of the twenty-third, after he lay down, the pill in his dantian floated upward on its own, rising to his heart and pushing sleep away. As Cheng Banshan had told him, he did not touch it. He lay with his eyes open, waiting for it to sink back down, until the window paper showed a trace of gray-white. Those days he slept lightly, waking two or three times a night. When he woke, he listened to the wind in the front courtyard and the low-fire sounds from the Medicine Hall.

Down the mountain, life went on as usual. Before dawn, three soft sounds came from under the veranda—Huo Qing's thrust, one thrust and one retraction. The hole in the bullseye was invisible in the dark, but the sound carried. By the time the two of them came out of the front courtyard, no one was under the veranda anymore. On the twenty-fifth, the Market ran as it had on the twentieth: Bai Xiaoman kept the ledger, Shao Ming watched the door and the scale, and few people came through to have goods weighed. From the twenty-first to the twenty-seventh, Cheng Banshan stayed by the charcoal stove at the door, sitting beside it during the day, and at night closing the furnace door down small, leaving it just a breath of fire. Du Xiaochuan slept in the outer room of the Medicine Hall and got up twice each night to check.

At the Dragon hour on the twenty-eighth, the pills came out. The two of them were on the cliff then and only heard the wind tearing a break in the clouds to the south. From the front courtyard, not a sound.

At the You hour, they came into the front courtyard. The smell of cooking already drifted from the Kitchen. Du Xiaochuan came out of the Medicine Hall to meet them, a medicine-paper packet cradled in his hands.

"Ten," he said. "I counted twice."

"Not one cracked?" Xu Yan asked.

"Not one." Du Xiaochuan said it and didn't leave, turning back to glance at the row of bottles on the rack. The labels weren't on yet.

Cheng Banshan followed him out, wiping one hand on his sleeve. "The sample's here. The date is yours to write."

Xu Yan opened the paper packet and looked inside: a pinch of pill powder scraped from the bottom of the furnace. He folded the packet shut and nodded.

That night, lamps lit, in the Accounts Room, he wrote "the twenty-eighth day of the Fifth Month" on the packet. Then he wrote the date on ten labels and added a line to the furnace log. Only after the ink dried did he carry the packet and labels back to the Medicine Hall: the packet went into the wooden box on the rack, the labels to Du Xiaochuan to affix. Inside the box, earlier packets pressed against one another in a row, running from the eighteenth day of the Second Month to the eighth day of the Fifth Month.

Before dawn on the twenty-ninth, Xu Yan counted out in the Accounts Room the spirit stones that would go out on the thirtieth. Alchemy materials and charcoal were bundled together, pressed beneath the Market ledger. The Sixth Month rations were wrapped separately in cloth. When he finished counting, he tied the hemp cord and pushed the iron cash box back under the ledger rack.

Before coming down from the cliff on the twenty-ninth, Jiang Wan broke off half the remaining flatbread from the cloth bundle and set it on the stone across the white split. Xu Yan ate it and tossed the water flask back to her. Just before rising, she said, "It'll rain tomorrow, won't it." He said, "Not enough cloud."

At the Mao hour on the thirtieth, two bundles of spirit stones went out.

"Twenty for alchemy materials, fifteen for charcoal." He placed one bundle in Bai Xiaoman's hands.

Bai Xiaoman untied a corner of the cloth and counted the stones one by one, rewrapped them, tucked them inside her robe, and pressed a hand against the outside of her jacket.

"Sixth Month rations here." He handed the other bundle to Qian Duoduo. "Fifty stones. Two sacks of spirit rice, one of coarse grain."

Qian Duoduo took it with both hands and hefted it. "Enough."

The two left the front courtyard, heading up behind the Ancestral Hall.

At the Dragon hour on the thirtieth, the Qingya Market opened. The crowd on Market Street arrived early. The two pots of spirit meals under the third pillar from the wall had already been uncovered. Shao Ming hung up the scale and the hand scale; Bai Xiaoman spread the Market ledger on the counter with the brush weighting down the corner of the paper.

At the Snake hour, Qi Qi ran down from the mountain. First he delivered the ten bottles of Qi-Gathering Powder to the stall, then went into the Market proper and laid the ten Qi-Gathering Pills out from his cloth bundle one by one on the countertop in a row.

More people came to buy pills than last month. Bai Xiaoman sold at the set price, eight stones each, the money going into the small box behind the counter, not into the market box. A rogue cultivator held a pill up to the light to check the label on the bottle neck before paying. Another asked about the next batch. She said, "The tenth day of the Sixth Month," and he nodded once, tucked the pill into his robe, and left.

One rogue cultivator brought spirit herbs to be weighed. After the weighing, he didn't leave; he asked whether the pills sold in this Market were refined locally. Shao Ming said, "They come from the Medicine Hall on the mountain." The man made a sound of acknowledgment and said he'd come again next month. Shao Ming reported the count and watched the scale as usual, not asking his name.

At the Horse hour, Bai Xiaoman picked out from the cabinet one batch's worth of alchemy materials: twenty stones. The money went into the market box, and the Market ledger entry went under the consignor's line.

The Market closed at the end of the Horse hour. Qi Qi and Shao Ming went to the Wharf and bought a load and a half of charcoal from the charcoal boat—fifteen stones. One carried a full load on a pole, the other a half load.

Qian Duoduo stood outside the grain shop for a while before going in and buying the Sixth Month rations: fifty stones, two sacks of spirit rice, one of coarse grain. A shop hand tied the sack mouths and hauled them to the door, where Du Xiaochuan lent a hand.

They left town in the Wei hour and reached the Mountain Gate in the Shen hour. The charcoal was stacked against the back wall of the Medicine Hall and covered with a reed mat. The rations went into the Kitchen, where Qian Duoduo stacked the sacks one by one up to the windowsill.

On the afternoon of the thirtieth, on the clifftop, the wind stopped for a while. The bare stone baked hot to the touch. Jiang Wan opened her eyes and looked south: Luoxia Town's Market Street was a narrow strip, packed down the middle, the crowd shifting and re-forming with every movement.

"There are a lot of people at the Market today," she said.

Xu Yan looked south too, for a while.

"The pills in the Market should be sold out by now," she said.

"Mm."

At the end of the Shen hour, the wind rose, sweeping pine needles off the white split. He stood first, stowed the water flask in the cloth bundle, and shook the crumbs at the bottom of the bundle into a rock crevice.

At the You hour, they came down from the clifftop for the last time. At the bend in the stone cleft, she reached out as usual and pressed her hand on the rock, steadying herself before moving her feet. At the topmost step, she stopped and looked back at the two halves of the old pine. On the edge of the eastern half's raw stump, a few needles had sprouted, green. She shook the pine needles off her prayer cushion and tucked the cushion under her arm.

Xu Yan looked back too, and said nothing. One after the other, they descended to the base of the cliff, circling around the east end of the formation-eye stone platform.

When they entered the front courtyard, Cheng Banshan stood at the Medicine Hall door, a small pile of herb dregs at his feet. He hooked three fingers onto Jiang Wan's wrist, pressed for a while, then shifted to another spot and pressed again. For Xu Yan, it was the same three fingers: first the left wrist, then the right, before he withdrew.

"Stable," he said.

"No need to go up tomorrow?" Jiang Wan asked.

"No. The qi is circulating on its own now. Don't chase it." Cheng Banshan tucked back his cuffs. "From the fifth day of the Sixth Month on, the two of you go down the mountain as usual."

She nodded and walked toward the East Courtyard.

Bai Xiaoman came down the veranda carrying the market box, the Market ledger tucked under her arm, and handed both to Xu Yan. "The Market ledger's done. Money's inside too."

Xu Yan took the market box and tucked the Market ledger under his arm. The box was a little heavier than last month.

That night both of them stayed in the front courtyard. Dinner was set in the Main Hall as usual. Twelve people sat at the table, and A Sui first carried a bowl down to the low hut by the mountain gate. Qian Duoduo said the Kitchen's firewood would last until the tenth day of the Sixth Month, and that the rice was bought—coarse grain packed underneath, spirit rice to be eaten first. Cheng Banshan said at the table, "Both of them are stable," and nothing more. After the meal, Shi Po moved a small armful of charcoal from under the reed mat and stacked it by the stove, leaving it ready for the morning fire.

Lamps lit, in the Accounts Room.

Xu Yan went through the Fifth Month's ledger from front to back: six Market days of income, the money from two batches of pills, three purchases of charcoal, two of alchemy materials, the Sixth Month rations. He turned to the page not yet tallied, dipped his brush in ink, and wrote in the month's closing balance: spirit stones 8,562, silver ten taels.

Only after the ink dried did he close the account book, laying the furnace log on top of it.

He dragged out the iron cash box and counted stack by stack, tied the hemp cord back around it, and pushed it under the ledger rack.

He sat for a while, then pulled the Market ledger out again and flipped through two pages. The entries for the thirtieth were all in Bai Xiaoman's hand, written one by one—her characters bigger than his, the grid copied faithfully, every consignor's name correct. He pressed a fingernail mark beneath the last line, closed the Market ledger, and locked it back in the cabinet.

Before blowing out the lamp, he went to the Medicine Hall. The door was open, the lamp still burning. Cheng Banshan sat on a low stool just inside, the Wine Gourd resting on his knee.

"The accounts are closed," Xu Yan said.

"Closed."

"8,562 stones."

Cheng Banshan grunted, asked nothing further. Xu Yan looked up and saw the small porcelain vial on the top shelf still where it always was, the stopper set tight.

"That one," he said.

"Let it sit," Cheng Banshan said.

Xu Yan asked nothing more. He stepped back out and pulled the door shut. The lamp inside the Medicine Hall still burned. The small porcelain vial on the top shelf stood in the lamplight, its stopper facing out.

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