Chapter 240: Sixth Month Balance

At the Dragon hour on the twenty-eighth, the lid of the charcoal stove outside the Medicine Hall gave a single clink.

Cheng Banshan held the alchemy flame down with one hand, sealing the furnace chamber, while his formation hand reached out. Wooden fingers closed on the iron ring of the lid and lifted. White vapor burst out, striking his face. He turned his head aside, waiting for it to dissipate before setting the lid on the blue stone at his feet. Du Xiaochuan crouched in front of the furnace, working the iron hook into the chamber, dragging the dark-red coals out one hookful at a time into the dustpan basket. The layer of charcoal black on the backs of his hands grew steadily thicker.

Ten pills lay at the bottom of the furnace.

"Not a single crack." Du Xiaochuan counted them one by one. At ten, he wiped his hands on his trouser legs.

Cheng Banshan slid a bamboo slip down and scraped the layer of pill powder off the furnace floor, gathering it into a small pile, scraping until the iron showed through. Xu Yan spread a sheet of medicine paper on his palm and took the powder, folding it into a packet. His brush wrote "the twenty-eighth day of the Sixth Month" on the corner. He set it at the end of the row of paper packets on the rack, then opened the furnace log and wrote a line.

On the rack, a row of packets ran from "the eighteenth day of the Second Month" all the way down to this one, days following one after another, never a break.

"Next batch of materials," Cheng Banshan said.

"Azure Brook Sect's spirit herbs are in the cabinet," Xu Yan said. "I'll pick through them at the thirtieth market. Fire goes up the first day of the Seventh Month."

"And the charcoal?"

"Buy it at the wharf on the thirtieth."

Cheng Banshan grunted, set the lid back in place, and pressed his formation hand around the rim to test the seal. Du Xiaochuan carried the basket out the door and shifted the remaining half-basket of charcoal toward the foot of the wall. A little ash rose, visible in the sunlight.

On the thirtieth, at the Mao hour, they went down the mountain. The sound of sword practice was already ringing from the East Courtyard. Xu Yan walked along below the courtyard wall, the sound following him step by step, not fading until he reached the Mountain Gate. Nie Bo was sweeping inside the gate, his broom working along the edges of the stone steps. Shao Ming waited up ahead, the market ledger tucked under his arm.

At the Dragon hour the gate boards came down and leaned against the wall. The scale went up on its spike, the hand scale hanging beside it. Market Street was already warming up. White smoke rose at the base of the third pillar from the wall, and when Qian Duoduo ladled out the first pot of spirit meals he called out once. Du Xiaochuan passed bowls in behind him.

The first arrivals at the market were, as always, a few people with goods to weigh. The first of them carried half a basket of green-peel fruit on his back and asked whether there was room to display it. Xu Yan said there was an empty compartment and that the man could write his own price. The next one came in hugging half a bundle of dried spirit grass. After it was weighed, he asked whether the shop would take it. Shao Ming said they would sell it for him: if it sold, the money went under his name; if not, he carried it back. The man hiked the bundle up on his shoulder and said, "Then I'll take it to the wharf," and went out heading east.

Steward Miao arrived at the end of the Dragon hour. Across his shoulder was a long cloth sack, one end stuffed with spirit herbs, the other rolled around talisman paper, the mouth tied with hemp cord. He set it down in front of the counter.

"Steward Miao."

"Sect Master Xu." Miao Zhong untied the cord, lifted the herbs onto the scale hook, and laid the talisman paper on the counter. "Two bundles of herbs, two rolls of talisman paper."

Shao Ming slid the weight, called the number, took it all off and checked a second time — the two readings matched. Only then did he put brush to the market ledger. Miao Zhong wrote his own price tag with a charcoal stick, then slipped it into the gap of the cabinet door, writing facing outward, at the same price as last time.

"I'll come collect on the tenth day of the Eighth Month," he said.

"Very well."

Miao Zhong didn't leave. He stood at the counter, looking into the cabinet. The upper shelf held Ink Pool Gate's talisman paper, pressing down on the two rolls Miao Zhong had just placed. The middle shelf was scattered with small sundries. The bottom shelf stood empty, its wood polished bright by years of hands.

"Those disciples of my sect — from the fifth of this month, they've been going to the wharf too," Miao Zhong said.

Xu Yan half-closed the market ledger and looked at him.

"I've spoken to them twice," Miao Zhong said. "I won't a third time. Their herbs are theirs to carry."

"The wharf pays cash on the spot," Xu Yan said.

"Everyone's waiting on money," Miao Zhong said.

He stood a while longer, folded the empty cloth sack and tucked it under his arm. Before going out the door, he said one last thing: "On the tenth, I'll be watching you settle that account, line by line."

At the Snake hour, they sold the Qi-Gathering Pills. All ten went into bottles, the label reading "Qingya" and the twenty-eighth day of the Sixth Month.

Eight spirit stones each. The first buyer was an aging rogue cultivator who took only one. The next, a younger man, counted out the stones for two across the countertop and asked, "Will you still be selling in the Eighth Month?"

"We sell on the tenths," Xu Yan said.

All ten sold. The countertop bore ten round impressions, one layer of dust over another.

At noon Xu Yan opened the cabinet and carried Azure Brook Sect's two bundles of spirit herbs to the counter, untying them one at a time. He pinched up a handful and examined the undersides of the leaves, turned them over at the roots, set aside what he sorted out, and bound up the rest. When he had enough for one furnace-load, twenty spirit stones went into the market box, a line went down in the market ledger with the date beside it, and beneath: "Azure Brook Sect, Kuang Lun."

They closed at the end of the Horse hour. Shao Ming set the door boards up one by one, driving the wedges in with the heel of his palm. Xu Yan put the market ledger into the market box, hung the bronze key back at his waist, carried the box, and pressed his palm flat on the lid.

Out of town, toward the river. The charcoal ash on the wharf steps had been trodden flat, thinning with each step. The charcoal boat was moored below the steps, the boatman taking two turns of the mooring rope around the post. He sat at the bow, rising only when he saw them coming.

"One and a half loads," Qi Qi said.

The boatman weighed, called the number: fifteen spirit stones. Qi Qi counted the money out on the deck, crouched, and began loading the baskets onto the carrying pole one by one, shortening the rope ends, testing the balance, then heaving it onto his shoulder. The pole dipped; he started up the steps.

At the buyer's table by the wharf, a line of people waited. One by one they untied the bundles of herbs from their backs, set them on the scale pan, heard the number, took their money, walked off. The wooden sign on the table had been bleached pale by the sun, but the charcoal writing held.

Xu Yan did not go that way.

The grain shop stood in the northeast corner of the market. A wooden sign by the door listed several prices in charcoal. In the back, someone was hauling water up from the river, the buckets swaying, water sloshing onto the dirt before the threshold and darkening it in spreading patches. The Seventh Month's rations came to fifty spirit stones: two sacks of spirit rice, one of coarse grain — same as every month. The grain sacks were dragged out from the back and leaned against the cabinet legs, their mouths bound tight with hemp. Shao Ming laid the pole crosswise, hung a sack of spirit rice at each end, and set the coarse grain in the middle. He crouched, straightened his legs first, and only then his back.

They reached the Mountain Gate at the Shen hour. Nie Bo was sweeping inside the gate, his broom working along the edges of the stone steps. Not much dust. Shi Po came down off the veranda and took Qi Qi's load of charcoal, one basket in each hand, heading around the back wall of the Medicine Hall first.

The open ground at the foot of the back wall had been swept clean. The charcoal was stacked in two layers, covered by a reed mat, its corners weighted with stones. This new load raised it a finger's height. Shi Po pressed a hand down on it and said, "This charcoal's dry." Qi Qi leaned the pole against the wall and shook out his clothes, sending down a layer of black.

Cheng Banshan came out of the Medicine Hall and looked at the pile against the wall. "That's enough for one furnace."

In the kitchen, Shao Ming set the three sacks down beside the rice vat. Qian Duoduo came over from the stove, crouched, and inspected the sacks one by one — checked the cords at the mouths, patted the bodies twice — then stacked them on the rack behind the vat, laying them level by size.

The vat still held a little under half.

"Eat this half-vat first," Qian Duoduo said. "Keep those two sacks pressed down out of the damp."

A Sui poked her head out from the stove mouth, looked at the three sacks, pressed a fingertip into one, watched it sink, and drew her hand back.

"When I make the porridge, I'll take one handful less," Qian Duoduo said.

Shao Ming stood in the doorway, clapping the dust from his hands. "Fewer people in the market this month, but the money's no less."

"What's less is the goods in other people's cabinets," Xu Yan said.

Shao Ming thought about it, nodded once, and didn't ask further.

Xu Yan headed for the Accounts Room.

At lamp-lighting they ate in the main hall, twelve at the table. A Sui first carried a bowl down to the low hut by the Mountain Gate for Nie Bo. The table held spirit meals and coarse grain flatbread. Qian Duoduo said the rice was bought; three days before anyone needed to go down the mountain again. No one spoke of the market.

After the meal, Xu Yan went into the Accounts Room, lit a lamp, and opened the Sixth Month market ledger, starting from the fifth.

Fifth, tenth, fifteenth, twentieth, twenty-fifth, thirtieth — six pages, one market per page. At the head of each page the date; below, name after name, and under each name the consigned goods, the weight at the scale, and the consignor's own price. He recognized the names of the three sects. Most of the rogue cultivators left only a mark, written under the character "Mou."

He finished the six markets and pulled out the Fifth Month's ledger, laying it beside.

On the Fifth Month's pages, names crowded together, line pressing against line, characters jammed in tight. The Sixth Month's six pages were looser, the lines drifting downward, an unfamiliar name appearing only every few rows. He went name by name through the ones who had brought spirit herbs in the Fifth Month, matching them into the Sixth Month. The ones who remained were the same few: the ones who came to the first market came to the second; by the third, they were gone.

Half of the Fifth Month's ledger was still in Bai Xiaoman's handwriting, larger than his, filling each grid to its edges. The Sixth Month's six pages were all his own.

He turned to the Fifth Month's last page. Beneath her writing there was a blank line, still blank. He looked at it for a moment, then turned the page.

Six markets accounted for, consignments were down thirty percent from the Fifth Month. The slack came mostly from the rogue cultivators' spirit herbs. The three sects' goods hadn't lessened by a bundle: Steward Miao's talisman paper, Steward Zhuo's spirit herbs, Elder Kuang's herb bundles and those two medicine cauldrons — all still in the cabinet, labels facing the door.

The market book was the market book; the account books were the account books. The money in the market box was not Qingya's spirit stones. Every month's in and out he recorded twice: once for the mountain, once for the counter. When the two didn't match, something had to be recalculated.

With both books side by side, he read from the first page to the last. At the last page, he closed them.

He could change things — make this book look better. Take a ten-percent cut, and the Sixth Month would show a surplus; charge a stall fee, and the ones who weighed goods would pay it; advance half the money, and the rogue cultivators' herbs could be half-retained. He thought through each one, and set each one down.

Take a cut, and the scale gained an extra pair of hands — anyone who came would have to calculate their own ten percent before they could figure what their goods were worth. Charge a stall fee, and the scale by the gate became something bought with money — every man wanting his goods weighed would first have to ask how many cash it cost. Advance money, and Qingya became the buyer — unsold goods would pile up in Qingya's hands, until not one compartment of the cabinet stood empty.

That way, the scale inside this gate would be no different from the scale on that table at the wharf. Only moved ten-some paces, with the same old weights hanging from it.

The market rules were posted inside the door. Not a character of them would change.

At the Dog hour he checked the cash box. The iron box's lock hasp was broken; hemp cord held it shut. He untied it and lifted the lid. Spirit stones were stacked in neat rows. He counted ten at a time, then squared the stacks and counted again from the start. The two counts matched.

Nine thousand two hundred forty-seven. Ten taels of silver sat wrapped separately in a cloth, pressed into the bottom corner of the box.

He wrote the figure into the ledger: one line. Sixth Month Balance. Balance on hand: nine thousand two hundred forty-seven.

When he finished, he paused, dried the brush on the inkstone, and set it back on the brush rest. He closed the ledger and slid it back under the board at the foot of the ledger rack. The market ledger and market box went into the cabinet; the bronze key went back to his waist. He blew the floating dust off the lamp shade. The flame leaned, then straightened.

When he stepped out the door, there was still sound from the veranda.

Huo Qing stood before the wooden target, right arm hanging at his side, left hand holding the sword — thrust out, draw back. The hole at the target's center had been weathered by sun and rain; the splinters around its edge had multiplied. The sword tip landed — once. Again.

Xu Yan stopped beside the veranda pillar.

The lamp went out in the window of the East Courtyard. Wind came over the courtyard wall and blew the kitchen's oil-smoke smell into nothing.

He turned back into the Accounts Room and blew out the lamp.