Chapter 251: The Pots Keep Cooking

At the Dragon Hour, the iron ring on the charcoal stove outside the Medicine Hall was hooked and dragged aside. White steam billowed up from the bottom, washing across Cheng Banshan's face. He probed down with a bamboo slip: ten Qi-Gathering Pills lay at the bottom of the furnace, not a single crack.

"Third batch of the Eighth Month," he said.

The formation hand held a tray up to the stove mouth while the bamboo slip flicked the pills onto it one by one. The tray's rim sat at a slight tilt, so he lifted his wrist—the pills rolled half a turn and stopped. Once all ten were out, he scraped the furnace bottom with the bamboo slip and folded the residue into a medicine paper, creased the top twice, pressed it flat with a finger, and set it on the last space of the row of paper packets on the Medicine Hall shelf.

The twenty-eighth day of the Eighth Month. Xu Yan recorded a line in the furnace log, the date filling the first column.

Du Xiaochuan crouched by the furnace door feeding in charcoal. He gripped a piece with the fire tongs, pushed it in, and flame licked up through the gaps.

"The market on the thirtieth—these ten go down," Xu Yan said.

"Down." Cheng Banshan clapped the furnace lid back on and pressed the rim with one hand. "The batch for the eighth—fire it on the first, Mao Hour."

The thirtieth day of the Eighth Month, market day.

They left the Mountain Gate at the Mao Hour, dew soaking their shoe tops. Qian Duoduo and Du Xiaochuan carried two pots out front, steam trailing a white streak down the road that only scattered once they crested the slope beyond the town gate. The market opened at the Dragon Hour. Shao Ming lifted the market gate off its hinges and stood it against the wall. Xu Yan spread the market ledger behind the counter, hung the scale hook, squared the hand scale. Bai Xiaoman stood beside the scale, flicking the beads of her little abacus once to test them.

At the Snake Hour, Miao Zhong came in first, a bundle of talisman paper tucked under his arm. Zhuo Ying arrived right behind him, her back basket full of sun-dried spirit herbs. Kuang Lun came last, a bundle in each hand. He set them on the floor and took a breath.

Shao Ming hung each item on the scale hook and called the weight. Xu Yan wrote a line, asked the price, recorded the price. As he wrote, he noted what each should bring next time in the margin: next to Miao Zhong's talisman paper he wrote "bring again next time." For Kuang Lun's two bundles he looked up and asked, "Same price as before?" Only when Kuang Lun nodded did he set the brush down. The three vendors each marked their prices, and the goods were locked into the cabinet.

Xu Yan blew the ink dry on the last line before he spoke.

"Seventh, Snake Hour. The Rank Evaluator will be hearing it in the market. Petitioners and co-signers, all present."

Miao Zhong pressed the talisman paper tighter under his arm. "I'll be there."

"Just the people?" he asked. "Anything we need to bring?"

"The petition's at the Branch," Xu Yan said. "Just show up."

Zhuo Ying brushed the grass flecks off her hands. "Will the market weigh that day?"

"The scale stays put away," Xu Yan said. "It's not a market day."

Kuang Lun nudged his two spirit herb bundles closer to the counter so no one would trip over them. "Those two from the Tower—are they coming?"

"The Branch sent the notice," Xu Yan said. "Whether they come is their business."

"We'll be there when we're supposed to be." Kuang Lun said.

Miao Zhong had already fished a slip of paper from his sleeve. He wrote the date on it, read it aloud to himself, then folded it and put it away.

"That day: answer what's asked, nothing more," Xu Yan said. "When they get to your part, say what you saw and heard that day, exactly as it happened."

Zhuo Ying looked at him. "I was inside by the door. I only caught a few lines."

"Then say those few lines."

"Fine," she said. "I remember them exactly."

Kuang Lun asked, "Who from Qingya was at the market that day?"

"Me, Uncle Shao, and Qi Qi," Xu Yan said. "The front room seats enough. Any more than that shouldn't be sitting."

Zhuo Ying glanced toward the counter. "That batch in my cabinet—does it move that day?"

"No. It stays locked," Xu Yan said. "What was said on the tenth day of the Eighth Month—that's what stays said."

At the start of the Horse Hour, all ten Qi-Gathering Pills sold out. The first to pay was that rogue cultivator with the bamboo basket. Eighty spirit stones entered Qingya's account. Xu Yan picked enough alchemy materials from Kuang Lun's spirit herbs for one furnace batch—twenty stones—dropped them in the market box, recorded under Kuang Lun's name. Shao Ming took a cloth sack to the wharf and came back with a load and a half of charcoal sagging in it.

At the end of the Horse Hour, before the gate was even barred, a rogue cultivator who regularly came to weigh goods poked his head in and asked if the scale would be open on the seventh. Shao Ming unhooked the scale hook. "That's not a market day. Scale's closed." The man said "Oh," took two steps away, then turned his head. "So something's happening at your place on the seventh?" Shao Ming said, "Something is." The man asked nothing more and went on into Market Street.

Bai Xiaoman hoisted the market box onto the counter and lifted the lid. Using the small abacus on the lid, she reconciled each sale one by one. Done, she raised her eyes. "Adds up." Xu Yan wrote in the last line of the market ledger: "Closed—adds up."

The market gate went up. Market dispersed. Qian Duoduo went to the grain shop. The shop hand tied the sack mouths with hemp cord, cinching each one down.

"Ninth Month?"

"Ninth Month. Two sacks of spirit rice, one of coarse grain. Fifty stones," Qian Duoduo said.

The hand cinched all three mouths tight and stacked them on the counter.

"Tenth-day market—still setting up?"

"Setting up." Qian Duoduo counted out fifty stones and pressed them on the counter.

They left town in the Wei Hour and were back on the mountain by the Monkey Hour. Qian Duoduo handed a hundred stones over to the Accounts Room. Xu Yan counted them and wrote a line.

The first day of the Ninth Month, Mao Hour. The sky over the Kitchen was still black when Du Xiaochuan squatted at the stove door. Cheng Banshan spread the coals, damped the fire, clamped the lid down. This batch needed seven days.

The second through fourth days of the Ninth Month. Days on the mountain ran as usual. Huo Qing was under the veranda before first light, stabbing at the wooden target—once, once—the pit at the bullseye deepening a fraction each time. Shi Po worked the split firewood piled in the Front Courtyard. One stroke of the axe and the wood split down the middle; he bent, picked up both halves, stacked them neat. A Sui squatted at the Kitchen door shelling a dustpan of beans—shelling a handful, glancing up at the sun.

Fourth, lamp-lighting time. At the table in the Main Hall, Xu Yan laid out the plan for the seventh: he, Shao Ming, and Qi Qi would go down the mountain, open the market gate at the Dragon Hour, listen at the Snake Hour, and return once it was done.

"The pots?" Qian Duoduo asked.

"The pots keep cooking," Xu Yan said. "It's not a market day. No stall."

"That cabinet of goods in the market—stays locked?" Shao Ming asked.

"Locked. Every vendor's goods remain under their own name." Xu Yan set down his bowl. "That day: no scale, no pricing, no settling. One thing only—listening."

The fifth day of the Ninth Month. Another market day.

They went down before dawn. Two pots of spirit meals set up under the third pillar by the wall, beneath the old stretch of tile eave. The sun climbed and people pressed in layer after layer. This market, fewer people asked the price. More asked other things. Two men at the back muttered to each other that the two pots looked fuller than last time. Qian Duoduo heard it and said nothing; his ladle stirred twice in the pot.

"Making it through the ninth or not?" An old man with empty carrying baskets asked, two others behind him.

Qian Duoduo kept one hand on the pot lid and tapped the ladle once against the rim. "We've got to get through first."

"'Get through first'—does that mean you've got backing or not?"

"The backing's up the mountain." He pushed a bowl forward. "Two stones."

The man took the bowl, laughed once, and produced two stones.

A rogue cultivator who regularly came for Qi-Gathering Powder crouched by the stall, tucking a bottle into his chest pocket while asking Qi Qi, "Seventh—your market open?"

"Scale's closed," Qi Qi said. "Something on that day."

He said "something" with the same weight as Shao Ming.

They sold out before the Horse Hour—earlier than any market this season. Market dispersed. The grain shop restocked two pots' worth of spirit rice: ten stones.

On the road back, Du Xiaochuan walked ahead with the empty pot on his pole and suddenly said, "That market on the tenth—it's the first one after the Autumn Evaluation."

"Then the pots keep cooking," Qian Duoduo said.

"What I mean is—still two pots?"

"Two pots." Qian Duoduo shifted the pole to his other shoulder. "One pot fewer, and who eats those twenty bowls?"

The sixth day of the Ninth Month, Horse Hour.

Xu Yan caught Qi Qi in the Front Courtyard.

"Go down," he said. "Sit somewhere around the Luoxia Inn. Whatever you see, report back."

"See what?"

"How many arrive, where the cart stops, what it's carrying, which rooms they take." Xu Yan thought for a moment. "If you can't see clearly, say you can't see clearly. No guessing for me."

"Understood." Qi Qi tightened the cloth pouch at his waist. "I'll be back before lamp-lighting."

"When it gets dark, stay until lamp-lighting, then come back and report it straight."

Qi Qi went down the mountain. By the Wei Hour he was in town. He walked the street outside the inn first—noting where a cart could park, which direction was easiest to enter, the spot under the tree across the way where a man could sit. Only then did he double back and crouch under the tree to wait.

The Monkey Hour. A cart came in at the mouth of the street. The same driver as last time, not a word out of him. He reined in the mule, jumped down, wedged a stone behind the wheel, then lifted the curtain.

Wen Su climbed down first, in a plain gray robe, a water flask in her hand. Two clerks followed—one hugging a wooden box, the other with a cloth satchel slung across his chest, the frayed white edges of registers showing at the mouth of the bag.

There was also a chest strapped to the back of the cart, hemp rope lashed around its four corners in two passes over the cart rails. The two clerks went around, untied it, and carried it down, one at each end. As it left the cart bed it knocked once—something inside shifted, light, brittle, and then stopped.

The innkeeper came out from behind the counter, flipping through his book, said a few words, and gestured them inside. They didn't sit in the front room. They went straight up. The voices upstairs were low; Qi Qi only caught the innkeeper asking "how many nights," and one of the clerks—the one with the box—answering "four." After that came the clink of spirit stones dropping one by one into the box.

Qi Qi sat under that tree across the street. A layer of yellow leaves had fallen beneath it. He pushed them together with his feet, then kicked a few back apart—to make himself look less conspicuous. A shop hand came out and slung a basin of water across the street stones, glanced at him, asked nothing.

The day dimmed. Two more groups came to the door—travelers with bedrolls, asking the room rate. Told only the edge rooms were left, they turned and left. Later, the far window on the second floor pushed open halfway and a damp cloth hung out to dry. Qi Qi saw it and filed that away too.

The two clerks who'd carried the chest went up for a while. One came down, went to the cart, rolled up the curtain, tidied the inside, then went back empty-handed.

The sun tilted west, shadows stretched long along the street. Qi Qi stood and brushed off his trousers.

The You Hour. He came up the stone steps outside the Mountain Gate and raised a hand as soon as he entered, only speaking once he'd caught his breath.

"They're here. Arrived at the Monkey Hour. Three of them. A chest roped to the cart—carried inside. Last room at the far end."

"Who carried the chest?" Xu Yan asked.

"Two clerks. One at each end." Qi Qi said. "Carried it into the front hall before going upstairs."

"Any seals on it?"

"Two strips, crossed." Qi Qi thought. "Couldn't make out the writing."

"The driver?"

"Drove it off to the carriage shed. Didn't say a word."

Xu Yan grunted and sent him to the Kitchen for his meal.

Qi Qi had just reached the Kitchen door when Qian Duoduo stuck his head out, one hand dusted with flour, the other counting on his fingers in front of him. He finished, looked up.

"Three days to the Autumn Evaluation."