Chapter 249: Co-Signing

On the sixteenth day of the Eighth Month, the market stayed shut.

Shao Ming went down into town once; the market gate wasn't opening either, so he circled around to the back. The new patch of mud on the rear wall was still dark—a square, even patch, a full shade darker than the old wall beside it. He pressed a hand to it. No grit came off under his fingernails. Coming back up, he ran into Xu Yan at the foot of the mountain gate and said only, "It's dry."

Xu Yan made a sound of acknowledgment and turned a page in the ledger. The market opened on days ending in five and ten; the sixteenth through the nineteenth were shut up tight, goods locked behind the counter. Up on the mountain, routines held: before dawn Huo Qing practiced that single thrust at the wooden target under the veranda, the hole at the bullseye a little deeper; Bai Xiaoman spread five pebbles across the front courtyard and gathered them again; the spirit rice went into the pot in the kitchen, and Qian Duoduo rapped the pot's rim twice with his wooden ladle, calling the two children to eat.

On the seventeenth, at lamp-lighting, Bai Xiaoman sat in the Accounts Room and checked the market ledger from the fifteenth's fair against the market box, reading page by page aloud to Xu Yan. She read slowly; when she reached entries from rogue cultivators she gave no names, only what they carried: "the one with the bamboo back-basket," "the one missing half a finger on his left hand." Xu Yan answered each line. At the end, she added a line beneath the last row: Balanced, reconciles. The market box was locked back in the cabinet, the key in her hand.

On the eighteenth, at the Dragon hour, the charcoal stove at the Medicine Hall's door reached its appointed day. Cheng Banshan held the alchemy flame steady with one hand, pressing down the furnace chamber, while the formation hand lifted the stove lid and brought the tray in close. Heat surged up along the door frame. He crouched to inspect the bottom of the furnace: ten pills lay in the ash, not a single crack. Xu Yan spread the furnace log on the desk in the Medicine Hall's inner room; the ink was freshly ground, and the brush came down writing "the eighteenth day of the Eighth Month." Cheng Banshan scraped the pill powder from the furnace floor with a bamboo slip, wrapped it in medicine paper, wrote "the eighteenth day of the Eighth Month" on the packet too, put it in the wooden box, and set the box back on the rack.

"Can the next batch come out on the twenty-eighth?" Xu Yan asked.

"It'll be ready. Seven days, not one pill more." Cheng Banshan straightened the box on the shelf and glanced back at him. "Where the ingredients are—you know better than I do."

Xu Yan let that line pass, writing in the furnace log. Qian Duoduo passed the door carrying a basin of water, poked his head in: "Firing up on the twenty-first?"

"The twenty-first." Cheng Banshan closed the furnace door.

"Then once the fair on the twentieth sells out, the ingredients get bought that same day," Qian Duoduo said. "Don't come the twenty-first and tell me there's no material."

"There's material." Xu Yan recorded a line in the furnace log: Alchemy materials, charcoal—twentieth day.

On the nineteenth, at lamp-lighting, Xu Yan stopped Qi Qi under the main hall veranda.

"Tomorrow after the fair breaks up, run to the carriage office. Book one for the twenty-third at the Mao hour."

Qi Qi still had half a flatbread in his hand. "To the Branch?"

"To file the suit."

Qi Qi chewed twice, stuffed the rest in his mouth. "Just the two of us?"

"Just the two of us."

After speaking, Xu Yan trimmed a length of wick from the lamp under the veranda; the light brightened, falling on the stone steps in the courtyard. Back in the Accounts Room, he opened the ledger and checked it through: the copy of the confession, the land deed, the two promotion documents, the three judgments—all in their places. The roster still sat in the wooden box beneath the offering table in the Ancestral Hall, to be brought out the day of departure.

On the twentieth day of the Eighth Month, out the mountain gate at the Mao hour, in town by the Dragon hour. While it was still dark, Qian Duoduo and Du Xiaochuan had carried the two pots of spirit meals down, setting the pots by the third pillar along the wall on market street. At the Dragon hour the batch of Qi-Gathering Powder came out. Qi Qi ran down the mountain with ten bottles in his clothes, plus the small porcelain vial from the Medicine Hall—ten Qi-Gathering Pills held against his chest. By the Snake hour he was in town, and the vial went straight into the shop.

The market's door planks came down and leaned inside the doorway; the scale hung beneath the frame, the hand scale laid on the counter. Shao Ming worked the scale; Xu Yan kept the market ledger. The fair that day was crowded, the front room never empty. Qi-Gathering Pills sold at eight spirit stones apiece. The first buyer was a rogue cultivator with a bamboo back-basket—he dug out sixteen stones, took two pills, and tucked the vial into the very bottom of his basket before leaving.

Early in the Snake hour, a rogue cultivator in a bamboo hat held up a vial to his eye, turning it toward the light at the doorway to study the pill at the bottom. "Really no cracks?"

"Open it and look," Xu Yan said. "If one's cracked, I'll refund you."

The man pulled the wooden stopper, peered in, stoppered it again, counted out eight stones, and left.

At the Snake hour, Miao Zhong came through the door first, carrying a bundle of talisman paper and two bundles of sun-dried spirit grass. He set the talisman paper on the counter. "Look at the paper first."

Xu Yan lifted off the top sheet, examined the edges and corners, checked the grain on the back, and nodded. They weighed it; Miao Zhong named his price. Talisman paper, three stones a bundle; spirit grass by the catty.

"This bundle won't sell at the listed price. I'm marking it; next fair you tell me," Xu Yan said.

"At the listed price. If it doesn't sell, I take it back." Miao Zhong pressed the cord-end of the bundle against the counter.

Zhuo Ying came in behind him, two bundles of spirit grass tied tight, the cord wrapped three times around. She named her price; they weighed and recorded it.

Kuang Lun arrived last, three bundles of spirit grass in his back-basket, still carrying the mountain damp. He set the goods on the scale and only named his price after Shao Ming called the weight.

"Still the same scale," Miao Zhong said, watching the beam.

"Still the same one." Shao Ming drew the weight back; the beam leveled.

Xu Yan finished the last entry, set the brush on the inkstone: "The Rank Evaluator said in the Third Month that on the supply-cutoff matter there's only Qingya's word. Before the thirtieth day of the Eighth Month, whatever the other sects have seen—it can all be filed together."

Then he lowered his head, turned a page in the market ledger, picked the brush up again, and waited for the next entry.

The front room went quiet for a beat. The scale weight swayed gently, then stilled.

Kuang Lun spoke first.

"At the fair on the twentieth day of the First Month, I took Azure Brook Sect's spirit grass to the wharf to sell. The buyer looked the goods over and didn't want them." He paused. "He said, 'Anything consigned at Qingya Market—the Tower won't take it.'"

Miao Zhong picked up the second half: "I was right there. I heard it. Not one word off."

Xu Yan didn't interrupt. His finger pressed the edge of the market ledger page.

Zhuo Ying coiled the cord-end in her hand once around. "The seventeenth day of the Sixth Month, Tower Master Jin came himself to Willow Bank Gate. Broad daylight, standing inside our gate, his first words were 'Qingya Market won't last past the Ninth Month,' then he said don't send our goods this way—take them to the wharf to sell, and the buying price would be ten percent higher." She lowered her hand. "That fire at the back wall—my goods were in the front room. I stood in the doorway that night."

"I'm not here to speak for anyone," she said. "I stood inside that gate and heard it. I'll write what I heard."

"I'll co-sign," Kuang Lun said.

"Co-sign," Miao Zhong said.

"Co-sign," Zhuo Ying said.

There were more people outside waiting to weigh goods. Shao Ming moved the scale to the doorway, weighing batch after batch, voices kept low. An empty space opened up on the counter.

Xu Yan turned the ledger to its back and drew out a fresh sheet of paper from beneath the counter. The twentieth day of the Eighth Month, the moment the weighing paused in the front room—he began writing the joint testimony right there against the counter.

Those small lines of ink had been recorded after the fourth day of the Tenth Month, Alliance Year 301, upon their return to the mountain, noting down what had been said on the third: which sect, which day, in front of whom, and exactly what words were spoken. He copied from those notes first, then wrote from the accounts given by the three people's own mouths.

The first line came first. When it was done, he read it aloud: "Qingya Sect files suit; Ink Pool Gate, Willow Bank Gate, and Azure Brook Sect co-sign."

All three stood watching the paper.

For the first article, he wrote a line and read a line: "On the third day of the Tenth Month, Alliance Year 301, at the Wanbao Tower shopfront at the north entrance of the Linchuan Market, Shopkeeper Teng Mao said, in front of me and Qi Qi: 'The Tower has decided—Qingya's business, the Tower won't do.' That same day, the formation implements shop at the west end of the market said they had no stock, then sold a flint to a rogue cultivator who came in after us; the Medicine Guild said those two items had been cut off." He raised his eyes when he finished. "Is that accurate?"

"That article—none of us three was present," Miao Zhong said.

"That article is Qingya's own." Xu Yan added a line after this one: "Qingya's ledger records the date."

Article two: "Beginning the fifth day of the Tenth Month, Alliance Year 301, Wanbao Tower's buying agent at the Luoxia Wharf put the word out: anyone who sells to Qingya—the Tower won't take his goods. On the twentieth day of the First Month, Alliance Year 302, Azure Brook Sect's Kuang Lun brought spirit grass to the wharf; the agent refused it, saying, 'Anything consigned at Qingya Market—the Tower won't take it.' Ink Pool Gate's Miao Zhong heard it face to face at the wharf." He stopped his brush after reading.

"That day was the twentieth day of the First Month," Kuang Lun said. "I took the spirit grass out of the shop cabinet in the market myself and carried it to the wharf."

"At the scale," Miao Zhong said. "I was a board's width away. The board came up to my chest."

Xu Yan added another line below this article: The two stood on opposite sides of the scale, separated by a warehouse plank. He read it back to them; both nodded.

Miao Zhong asked, "The fire at the back wall—that doesn't go in?"

"That one went through the Linchuan Branch back in the Third Month, and the matter of the tenth day of the Eighth Month went through the Branch too." Xu Yan scraped the ink from his brush tip against the inkstone's edge. "This paper only covers the supply cutoff."

Partway through the third article, Xu Yan stopped the brush: "On the seventeenth day of the Sixth Month, Alliance Year 302, Wanbao Tower's Dongzhou Tower Master Jin Buhuan went to Willow Bank Gate and said..." He turned the brush tip half a circle against the inkstone. "—that Willow Bank Gate's people needn't send goods to Qingya Market, but should take them to the wharf to sell, with the buying price ten percent higher."

"The goods," Zhuo Ying said.

Xu Yan looked up.

"Not people. He didn't say don't send us. It was the goods." She pointed at the paper. "I still come as usual. He knows that too."

Xu Yan crossed out that phrase and rewrote: told Willow Bank Gate that its goods need not be sent to Qingya Market, but should be taken to the wharf to sell, with the buying price ten percent higher; below that he added a line: Heard directly by Willow Bank Gate Steward Zhuo Ying.

For the final line, he began a new paragraph: "All of the above articles are what each person saw with their own eyes and heard with their own ears." Below that he wrote his own name, and under his name a line for the date: Alliance Year 302, the twentieth day of the Eighth Month.

Miao Zhong came forward to take the brush and wrote his name at the tail of the document, then made his mark. After marking it, he looked at the names on the sheet. "Once this paper is filed, it'll be hard to speak well of the Tower after this."

"It's been hard for a while now," Zhuo Ying said.

Kuang Lun set the brush down. "Half the alchemy materials for the three of our sects come in from the Tower."

Xu Yan lifted the testimony clear of the counter to let the ink dry.

"Filed before the thirtieth day of the Eighth Month. Ten days left," he said.

Miao Zhong put the brush back in its cap and started a new line: "The Autumn Evaluation is nineteen days out. Sect Master Xu is racing to both."

Xu Yan pressed the corner of the paper flat with the back of his finger against the countertop. "It'll come together."

At the end of the Horse hour, the ten Qi-Gathering Pills were sold out. Xu Yan counted eighty stones into the money pouch; from Kuang Lun's three bundles he picked out enough spirit grass for one furnace batch—twenty stones—dropped it into the market box, recorded it under Kuang Lun's name, and locked the rest back in the cabinet. Shao Ming made a trip to the wharf and bought a load and a half of charcoal, fifteen stones, bound with hemp rope and set by the market door, to be carried up the mountain after the fair dispersed.

At the Wei hour the fair broke up, the stalls along the street rolled up one by one. Qian Duoduo washed the two pots; Du Xiaochuan counted the bowls—not one missing. Qian Duoduo went back to the grain shop and replenished two pots' worth of spirit rice, the cloth sack slung over his shoulder, saying the next fair would still be two pots. Qi Qi made his run to the carriage office and came back from the far end of the street, standing in the doorway to report: "Twenty-third, Mao hour. One cart."

Xu Yan folded the testimony in half, and half again, tucked it between the middle pages of the ledger, and pressed the raised paper edges flat.

Shao Ming locked the market gate, planks pressed back one by one. The three of them left town and took the mountain road.

Qi Qi walked at the back, carrying two empty baskets. Two ling leaves still sat at the bottom of one; he picked them out one by one and tucked them into his sleeve, saying he'd save them for kindling at the kitchen.

Shao Ming walked at the front, the charcoal on a carrying pole. After a while, he turned back to ask, "This paper—the Branch will accept it?"

"Before the thirtieth day of the Eighth Month, they'll accept it," Xu Yan said.

Shao Ming shifted the pole to his other shoulder and didn't ask again.

Halfway back, Qi Qi suddenly remembered: "The carriage for the twenty-third—I never said anything about paying."

"Pay on the day we leave. Four stones," Xu Yan said.

The ledger was tucked under Xu Yan's arm. The testimony lay against the copy of the confession.