Chapter 242: Lamp Oil

The market on the thirtieth day of the Seventh Month broke up later than usual. The spirit meal cauldron had been scraped to the bottom. Qian Duoduo clapped the lid on, wiped his face, and hefted the empty cauldron onto his shoulder pole for the trip to the grain shop.

The grain shop's scale beam hung higher than a man's head. The shop hand let the hook down and slung the sacks up one by one. Qian Duoduo stood on tiptoe to read the scale marks. Each sack done, he called out a line: "Spirit rice." "Spirit rice." "Coarse grain." Three sacks went over the scale twice with the same counts. He stacked his spirit stones on the counter and slid them across, then flicked one that had strayed onto the counter's edge back into the pile.

"Fifty stones for the rations," the shop hand said.

"Fifty it is." Qian Duoduo cinched each sack mouth shut. "The Eighth Month's."

"Rice didn't go up for the Eighth Month."

"I'm thinking of steaming an extra pot around the tenth." Qian Duoduo set the carrying pole down and propped a leg over it. "Spirit cakes too—two trays."

The shop hand scratched the date onto the wooden tally with a charcoal stick, head down. "How many pots you steam's not my affair. Just weigh your rice right."

"The two kids said they'd like to come down and have a look." Qian Duoduo lifted the pole to his shoulder. "At the lanterns."

Xu Yan was leaning the last door panel against the base of the wall in the market when he caught that line. "The mountain road's long. Longer at night."

"I know." Qian Duoduo shifted the pole to his other shoulder. "I only mentioned it."

Out of town in the Wei hour, back to the mountain gate in the Shen hour. Nie Bo was sweeping at the foot of the gate, his broom pushing the leaves toward the wall. The charcoal stove outside the Medicine Hall sat cold; Du Xiaochuan stacked the freshly hauled charcoal beside it and looked up. "We'll light it on the first." Under the eaves, Huo Qing's thrust went out and back, and the pit in the target deepened another fraction. At the kitchen doorway, Qian Duoduo stacked the three grain sacks behind the rice vat, pressing the sack mouths with his fingers. "This coarse grain gets used first."

At lamplight on the thirtieth, the Accounts Room desk held three things: the market ledger, the market cash box, and the account room's oil lamp. Bai Xiaoman pulled a low stool to the far side of the desk and settled across from him, her boxwood abacus resting on her knees. She ran her fingertips over the beads once, just to hear the click.

"Start from the top." Xu Yan lifted the lid off the cash box and tilted the mouth slightly toward himself so the lamplight reached inside.

"Ink Pool Gate, Miao Zhong." Bai Xiaoman read. "Nine bundles of spirit herb, seven sold; three rolls of talisman paper, all three sold."

Xu Yan counted spirit stones out of the box, stacking them in neat columns on the desk into a little pile. "Call out the amount they're due."

The abacus clicked four times, and Bai Xiaoman gave the figure. Xu Yan checked it against the small characters on the ledger page, nodded, then slid two stones back out of the pile and set them aside. Those two had their own line, a price the consignor had added himself.

"There are still two bundles of the spirit herb in the cabinet," Bai Xiaoman said. "Do those count here or not?"

"They don't. Only sold goods put money in the box. Unsold goods stay in the cabinet."

"Then if someone asks, 'I consigned nine bundles, why am I only getting paid for seven—'"

"Show him the ledger. Which bundle sold, which is still in the cabinet. Open the cabinet door and count."

Bai Xiaoman set the paper slip on top of that stack—"Ink Pool Gate" written on it—then asked, "On the tenth, when we go down the list name by name, who answers?"

"Whoever answers, signs. If he can't write, a thumbprint. If there's no name at all, I read the line recorded for him—'the one with the bamboo basket, missing half a finger on the left hand'—when I read it, he calls out, and I draw a mark under that line."

"And if he doesn't answer?"

"Skip him for the time being, wait for him to come. The money stays in the box. We don't press."

"Willow Bank Gate, Zhuo Ying. Dried spirit herb, recorded from the Second Month; every sale's been ticked."

"Azure Brook Sect, Kuang Lun. Spirit herb from the Twelfth Month, all sales ticked; two medicine cauldrons, neither one sold."

"The cauldrons don't count," Bai Xiaoman said. "Same as the spirit herb."

"Right."

The slips at the corner of the desk soon formed a short row.

The rogue cultivators' lines had no names. Bai Xiaoman paused at the first one and looked up at Xu Yan.

"Read it as written."

"The one with the bamboo basket, missing half a finger on the left hand. Three bundles of spirit herb, two sold; the next trip he brought two bundles, both sold." She finished and tapped a finger on the page. "There's a small note under this line."

"Read it."

"'One bundle retrieved, price struck through.'" She stared at that small line, then suddenly clicked one bead back on the abacus. "Then it's not two bundles sold. It's one."

Xu Yan said nothing, only counted the rogue cultivators' share out of the box. Bai Xiaoman redid the calculation, and only when the figure matched did she look up. "Last time I read it together with the line above. My eyes skipped over it."

"There'll be a lot of people on the tenth. Eyes skip easier then."

"I'll read slower."

"Slow's fine." Xu Yan said. "Reading it wrong is what worries me."

On they went, line by line: the one with the animal hides, four hides, one sold, three still in the cabinet; the one with the herb basket, two bundles of dried mugwort, one untouched, the end of the line left blank. One rogue cultivator had doctored his own price label once—the old price struck through, a new price written beneath. Bai Xiaoman's eyes lingered on that strikethrough as she read all the way to "sold at the new price" before clicking the abacus down. When she came to a blank line, she clicked the bead back herself and added nothing.

"Reading line by line, I can't find a single name," she said, tamping the paper corner down as she reached the end of a page.

"That's how rogues are recorded." Xu Yan said. "By what he carries. He comes every market day, and he's here."

When she reached the last page, Xu Yan's hand came away from the bottom of the box, his fingertips skimming the wood grain, finding nothing.

"That's all?"

"That's all."

The last line of the ledger ended, and below it was blank. The little row of paper slips on the desk anchored stacks of spirit stones from one end to the other, each stack matched to a line. Xu Yan gathered the slips one by one, stacked them in ledger order, and bound them once with hemp cord.

"It balances." Bai Xiaoman closed the abacus with a snap.

"It balances."

"Last month I was afraid it wouldn't." She kept her hand on the abacus. "That eighty stones in the Sixth Month that went into the market book by mistake—the moment you pointed it out, my heart started pounding."

"This time you caught it yourself." Xu Yan said. "I didn't point at that one."

Bai Xiaoman looked down at her hands, then up. "On the tenth—what if the money in the box isn't enough to pay out?"

"Whatever's in the box reflects how much sold," Xu Yan said, closing the box halfway. "Sell how much, pay how much. What we pay out is their goods' money, not mine."

"And if it's off by a single fen?"

"Off by one fen, and a whole year of my bookkeeping's for nothing." He said it flatly. "So tonight we go through it twice."

"Twice." Bai Xiaoman flipped back to the first page. "Let's do it again, then."

The second pass went faster. She read, he checked; halfway through, Xu Yan reached over and pinned the page, pointing out she'd skipped a date. She filled in that line and kept going. When the last line had been read and the money counted section by section, still no error.

On the first day of the Eighth Month, at the Dragon hour, the charcoal stove outside the Medicine Hall was lit. Cheng Banshan pinched alchemy flame to the kindling, closed the furnace door, and glanced back at the brush in Xu Yan's hand. "On the night of the tenth, the market's putting up lanterns?"

"Yes."

"Where does the lamp oil money go?"

"Qingya's running ledger."

"Long as it doesn't go into the market box." Cheng Banshan hung the furnace hook back on his belt. "How long will the reading go that night?"

"Until no one comes."

"Then bring an extra pot of oil." He walked into the Medicine Hall. "You don't stop reading a ledger halfway."

This firing would run seven days, opening on the eighth.

The fifth, market day. The gate opened at the Dragon hour, and Shao Ming hung the scale from the door lintel. Bai Xiaoman came down too, standing by the scale to put faces to lines—the one with the bamboo basket, the one with the animal hides, the one with the herb basket. One by one they passed the door; she watched, quietly matching each to the lines in the ledger.

"The one with the herb basket only weighed in last time, didn't consign anything," she murmured.

"Just remember it," Xu Yan said. "On the tenth, if he comes, ask him one thing first."

"Ask what?"

"Ask whether those two bundles of mugwort sold."

At the Snake hour Xu Yan went to the Luoxia Money House on Market Street. The man behind the counter took the spirit stones, weighed them on a small scale, then counted out the silver twice and slid it across. "Ten taels."

He tucked the ten taels into his sleeve and went first to the bamboo-and-paper goods stall in the middle of Market Street. Bamboo blinds were rolled up; lanterns hung on cords, their paper pasted thin enough to glow through. The stall owner passed one full load down to him and wound the cords around twice. "Paper's thin on these. They'll hold up a night or two indoors or out; a strong wind'll tear them."

"One night."

"One night's fine." The stall owner looked him over. "How many spots?"

"Under the door lintel, under the eaves, on top of the counter, along the street-facing wall."

"So you're hanging them where people walk." The stall owner cinched the cords. "High spots and low spots. Up to you."

Xu Yan paid for the lanterns and went on to the grain shop. Oil was sold by the pot; the shopkeeper hoisted the pots out from behind the counter, weighing each one on the scale and naming a price. Xu Yan counted the silver out of his sleeve and at the end was left with a handful of scraps and a few copper cash. He doubled back to the bamboo stall and traded for a packet of lamp wicks.

"Use this for hanging lanterns." The stall owner eyed what little money he had left and pulled a coil of fine hemp cord from under the stall. "Thin, holds tight. Paper lanterns sag when they get heavy."

Xu Yan rolled the cord up, stuffed it under the load, and handed over the remaining coppers. Ten taels, gone exactly.

Back at the market, Shao Ming took one oil pot in his hand and hefted it. "This pot won't last the night."

"Won't last, then hang fewer." Xu Yan said. "Two lamps inside, the outside row only one deep."

"Then I'll keep two on the counter when I hang." Shao Ming set the pot back down by the counter leg. "No light by the door, and counting money gets hard."

Lu Shoutian came over with his small scale tucked under one arm. He glanced into the carrying load, then looked up and down Market Street. "Hang the lanterns by the door. Don't hang them in the middle of the road."

"Noted," Xu Yan said. "On the tenth, the market stays open to the start of the Hai hour."

"How late you stay open's not my affair." Lu Shoutian tucked the scale tighter under his arm. "Hang them inside the door or outside, either way. Just not in the middle of the road. This road carries people by day and by night both."

"Paper ones?" he asked.

"Paper."

"Rain?"

"Rain, and they don't go up outside."

Lu Shoutian said nothing more. He walked off with his hands behind his back, stopping only when he reached the flatbread stall, where he turned and looked once more at the load of lanterns.

At the end of the Horse hour the market closed its doors. Shao Ming set the door panels back in place; Bai Xiaoman put the market ledger into her cloth bag. Xu Yan carried the lantern load into the front room. The oil pots went in a row against the counter leg, the hemp cord coiled on top of the pots, the packet of wicks tucked into the corner inside the cabinet. He shut the cabinet doors, latched the lock, and gave it two shakes. The doors didn't rattle.

"On the tenth, I'm coming down to read the accounts," Bai Xiaoman said from the doorway.

"Mm."

"I read one line, you count the money for that line."

"Fine."

"I read slow. Don't rush me."

Xu Yan tucked the key into his belt. "I count slow. Don't read fast."