Chapter 247: The Confession

Only one lamp burned in the front room.

The shade was blackened on one side; the light spilled from where the glass was still clear, falling across the counter and onto the face of the man kneeling there. His hands were wrenched behind his back, hemp rope wound three times around his wrists, the rope slick with oil that gleamed under the lamplight. A patch of skin had been scraped off his forehead, and the skin worn through at his elbows had already scabbed over dark.

The smell of scorched wood drifted in from the back in waves, mixed with the dank odor of river water. The back wall had burned through at the top; white smoke rose from the break in fitful bursts. The remaining rafter ends beneath the eaves hung charred, jutting out toward the river. The empty baskets in the back room were nothing but blackened outlines now, collapsing at the touch of a foot. Two soaked burlap sacks lay by the doorway, water pooling from them into a small puddle just inside the threshold, forcing anyone entering to step around it.

The townsfolk had just dispersed. Seven or eight buckets had come back, stacked outside the grain shop, and Lu Shoutian stood there counting them one by one before finally carrying in his own.

Jiang Wan leaned against the near end of the counter, her sword propped beside it, the polishing cloth draped over the scabbard. Bai Xiaoman stood at the counter holding the blue cloth bundle of the market ledger. Qi Qi stood half a step behind the kneeling man, the end of the rope wrapped once around his own wrist.

Lu Shoutian set his bucket outside the door, lifted the hem of his robe, and stepped in, stopping by the lamp. Miao Zhong and Zhuo Ying followed him in and stood behind him at an angle, neither sitting nor leaning against the counter.

Xu Yan shifted the lamp half a foot toward the far side of the counter so the light reached both groups.

"Market Chief Lu, I'd ask you to bear witness," he said.

Lu Shoutian wiped his hands on his trousers. "I'm a mortal. I can't pass judgment on sect matters." He paused, then edged half a step closer to the lamp. "Whatever he says, I'll listen. Once I've heard it, I'll put my mark to it."

"That's enough," Xu Yan said, and turned.

"What's your name."

"Cen Si."

"Where do you work."

"Wanbao Tower." The man's throat bobbed. "The Linchuan shop. Shopkeeper Teng's shop."

"What do you do there."

"Haul goods, sweep, run errands."

"How many years."

"Over two."

"Who brought you in."

"Shopkeeper Teng."

Xu Yan's questions came unhurried, one at a time, and when the answer came he didn't press. The front room was so quiet you could hear water dripping outside the back wall.

"Who sent you tonight."

"Shopkeeper Teng."

"When did he tell you."

"The fourth."

"How did he put it."

Cen Si kept his head down, his voice sinking lower with each word. "He gave me two taels of silver and told me to come to Luoxia and burn down the back room of the Qingya Market."

"Did he say which room."

"He did. The back room."

"Did he say anything else."

The man thought for a moment, lifted his eyes briefly, then lowered them again. "He said don't touch the front. Don't hurt anyone."

Xu Yan turned that sentence over in his mouth but said nothing.

"You came to the market on the fifth."

"I did."

"To do what."

"Look at the back wall."

"Look at what."

"The top half's wood planks." He wiped his nose with the back of his hand, smearing it black. "The bottom's stone. Stone won't catch."

"How long did you look from the back."

"Not long. Someone came around front, so I left."

"You went back to Linchuan after that?"

"I rode back on the Tower's freight cart." He paused. "The night of the fourth, I came down on that same cart. It stopped by the water, and dawn hadn't fully broken when I got off."

"How did you get in tonight."

"By the river. The small path below the bank. I didn't come up until the crowd had gone."

"The oil."

"I brought it. Scooped it from the shop."

"You lit the fire and left."

"Lit it and left." He raised his head, urgency in his eyes. "I didn't mean for it to reach the eaves."

Jiang Wan spoke then, her voice low. "Half the eave came down. If anyone had been standing under it."

Cen Si didn't answer. He pressed his lips shut, hard.

Bai Xiaoman asked, "Did the ledger get wet?" The question was directed at the counter side, so Xu Yan turned back to look at the market ledger. She flipped through it page by page, showing him. "Not a page wet. Not a single item of stock touched."

"Sect Master Xu." Cen Si spoke up suddenly.

"Go on."

"Where are you sending me."

"To the Dongzhou Branch."

"...What place is that."

"The Sect Alliance's place. You set a fire in Luoxia; the one taking custody of you is the Branch, not me." Xu Yan spoke evenly. "Tomorrow we repair the wall. The day after, we send you off."

Cen Si swallowed. "Will I be beaten."

"No."

"And after I'm sent off?"

"I don't know." Xu Yan answered plainly. "How the Branch handles you, I can't write down. I don't write down what I don't know."

The front room fell quiet again. Miao Zhong's boot heel scraped against the threshold.

Xu Yan went around behind the counter and took out paper, a brush, and a small chipped dish. Bai Xiaoman went to the back of the grain shop and scooped half a bowl of water. He ground the ink in the dish and moved the lamp closer to the paper.

He wrote slowly, line by line, pausing midway to silently reread what he'd already set down.

When he finished, he looked up.

"I'll read it through. You listen. If anything's written wrong, or if there's anything that didn't come out of your mouth, speak up."

Cen Si nodded.

"Night of the tenth day of the Eighth Month, Alliance Year 302, rear wall of the Qingya Market, Luoxia Town." Xu Yan read. "My name is Cen Si, a shop hand at the Linchuan shop of Wanbao Tower. On the fourth day of the Eighth Month, Shopkeeper Teng gave me two taels of silver and told me to burn down the back room of the Qingya Market. On the fifth day of the Eighth Month, I came to the market and looked at the back wall. The fire tonight was set by me, and the oil was brought by me. Beyond this, I know nothing. The above is spoken by me of my own will."

When he finished, no one in the room responded. Lu Shoutian's chin drew back slightly.

"Any mistakes."

"...No."

Qi Qi asked quietly from the side, "We're just sending him off like that?"

"What he said is more than what beating would get us," Xu Yan said.

"Qi Qi, loosen the rope a notch."

Qi Qi untied the outermost loop. "He'd better not try running once it's loose."

"He won't get far."

The man's right hand came free enough to reach the counter, though Qi Qi still held the end of the rope. Xu Yan tapped the end of the confession with the brush handle. "Thumb."

Cen Si extended his thumb. Xu Yan inked it and pressed it down beneath the final line. The finger came down heavy, ink squeezing out around the edges.

"A heavy press leaves the same print," Xu Yan said.

He passed the brush to Lu Shoutian. The old man gripped it low on the shaft and drew his mark slowly, one stroke at a time. When he finished, he looked at his signature and raised his head. "Sect Master Xu, will my mark still count tomorrow?"

"It will. You're marking what you heard, not what I said."

"Then I'll be in town tomorrow. If anything comes up, send someone to call me." Lu Shoutian set the brush down on the edge of the dish and stepped back out of the lamplight.

Miao Zhong took the brush, wrote his name, made his mark, and laid the brush down flat. "Sect Master Xu, when this goes up, will it be enough?"

"Whether it's enough is for the Branch to judge. I wrote down what he said."

Zhuo Ying wrote her name, made her mark, and glanced toward the counter. "My goods are in the front room. If a single item's missing, I'm taking it up with the market."

"The market ledger records it. Not one item missing," Xu Yan said.

He took out another sheet of paper, wrote "Copy" at the top, and began transcribing character by character. The lamp wick had burned short, so Bai Xiaoman retrieved the oil pot from the cabinet and added half a potful, brightening the room.

"What's the copy for?" she asked quietly.

"The original goes to the Branch. The copy stays here." Xu Yan didn't look up. "The books need a record. What's handed out doesn't come back; you have to keep a duplicate in your own hands."

When he reached the passages mentioning "Shopkeeper Teng," Xu Yan remembered that day in the Sixth Month, the fifteenth, when Jin Buhuan had paused at the door on his way out and said, "This market won't last past the Ninth Month." The memory came and went. His hand didn't stop, and he didn't follow the thought further.

When the transcription was done, he separated the two sheets, folded the original once, and tucked it close against his chest. The copy he held up to the lamp, waiting until the ink was dry before folding it away into his sleeve.

"Uncle Shao, Qi Qi, you two stay tonight," he said. "The goods in the front room and the accounts in the cabinet—not a thing gets moved. That lamp on the counter stays lit."

Shao Ming nodded once. "Mm."

"I'll take the first half of the watch," Qi Qi said.

"I'll take the second." Shao Ming dragged the bench from in front of the counter over to the door and sat down.

"If anyone knocks, don't open up. If anyone asks, say the market's being watched, and nothing more."

Bai Xiaoman scooped a bowl of water from the back of the grain shop and set it by Cen Si's feet. Cen Si looked up at her. She wiped her hand on her skirt. "Your hands have oil on them; wipe them on your trousers. When you finish the water, leave the bowl on the ground."

Miao Zhong stepped up to the threshold and looked back. "Sect Master Xu, I thought tonight was only about settling accounts."

Xu Yan didn't answer that directly. He only said, "The fifteenth market day—the market opens as usual."

"The tenth's fair just ended," Miao Zhong said.

"The fifteenth opens as usual."

Zhuo Ying tugged at her sleeve. "Tomorrow morning we return to the sect. When the sect asks about the confession, I'll tell it exactly as I heard it tonight."

"Whatever you've said," Xu Yan said.

The two of them walked off toward the market street, their boots hollow against the wet ground. Jiang Wan picked her sword up from the counter, the scabbard giving a light knock against the counter's corner.

"Let's go," she said.

Qi Qi took a lantern from the stack stored by the door, lit it, and pressed it into Bai Xiaoman's hands. As the door panel swung shut, Shao Ming braced it from inside, leaving half a section open.

The three of them left town. Market Street lay dark, the flagstones scattered with puddles from the water-passing earlier, the ground tacky underfoot. The lanterns under the eaves had all been taken down; only the window paper of the east room behind the grain shop's rear courtyard leaked a faint yellow glow.

River wind came in from the direction of the wharf, carrying the smell of charcoal ash. The flagstone road gave way to a dirt track, and the mountain path's stones were cold. Jiang Wan walked in front, Bai Xiaoman behind her with the lantern, its light reaching three feet ahead; Xu Yan brought up the rear.

From Market Street to the mountain path, the three exchanged few words. Jiang Wan didn't bring up the wharf, and neither did Xu Yan.

At the first rise, Bai Xiaoman turned around. "Sect Master, the matter of the two taels—does writing it down actually do any good?"

"The paper bears his thumbprint and three witnesses' marks," Xu Yan said. "Whether it does good isn't for me to say."

"And if it doesn't do any good?"

"Then we write another one." He paused after answering. "Accounts are settled entry by entry, never all at once."

"Tomorrow at the Dragon hour, we exchange spirit stones for silver—buy brick, buy rafters, buy tile." He went on. "The wall came down today. Tomorrow it has to go back up."

Bai Xiaoman gave a small "Mm." "Will one spirit stone be enough?"

"One exchanges for ten taels. Enough."

She shifted the lantern to her right so the light fell among the three of them.

At the first bend of the mountain path, Xu Yan looked back.

The front room of the market still showed a single light.