Chapter 254: Eighteen Stacks

When the charcoal stove lid came off, a surge of white steam shot up past the Medicine Hall's eaves and scattered.

Cheng Banshan held the alchemy flame with one hand, pressing it down over the furnace mouth until the fire shrank low, hugging the charcoal. The formation hand on his arm gripped the lid's edge and lifted, sliding the cover open half a foot.

Ten pills lay at the bottom of the furnace, not a single crack.

"Ten," he said.

Du Xiaochuan pushed up from the plank bed beside the furnace, legs numb; he had to stand a moment before they straightened. He moved the tray under the furnace mouth and braced its rim.

Cheng Banshan scraped the pills from the furnace floor one by one with a bamboo slip, the formation hand cradling the tray from below, then pinched each pill up and slipped it into a small porcelain vial, pressing prescription paper over the mouth. When the tenth went in, he scraped the furnace floor once more and came up with a thin layer of pill powder.

Xu Yan spread the paper on the table and waited for him to finish scraping, then folded it up and wrote "the eighth day of the Ninth Month" on the corner, setting it on the lowest shelf. A row of oiled-paper packets lined the shelf, one packet per day, arranged left to right. The paper on the rightmost packet was still fresh.

He opened the furnace log and wrote below the previous line: "The eighth day of the Ninth Month."

"These ten are for the tenth," Cheng Banshan said, pressing the mouth of the last vial flat, the paper smoothed down tight. "Did you write the labels last night?"

"I did. Ten labels, under the vials."

"Then we wait for the tenth." Cheng Banshan pulled the furnace door shut and glanced back at him. "Tomorrow, after the formation, have her come down. I'll take her pulse first."

"She says she can last."

"What I'm asking about is her hand." Cheng Banshan walked toward the inner room of the Medicine Hall and paused at the curtain. "One double-hour, four incense sticks. Test it today. Look at her face yourself."

Xu Yan didn't answer. He tucked the furnace log into his robe and left the Medicine Hall.

Snake hour. Up the Back Mountain.

The path behind the Ancestral Hall ran two li, a walk of two quarter-hours. The grass yellowed from their feet on upward; the higher they climbed, the colder the wind. Xu Yan, Shao Ming, Bai Xiaoman, and Shi Po went up together. No one spoke on the way. Bai Xiaoman walked behind Shi Po, stepping in his footprints the whole way.

The stone platform sat on the slope: a flat slab with five shallow grooves, each groove-edge carved with a tiny character: Metal West, Wood East, Water North, Fire South, Earth Center. Five carved lines ran from each groove to the center stone, all the same length.

Shi Po crouched down first and drew the chopping knife from behind his back. The tip had long since dulled. He worked it along the groove edges bit by bit, prying out the grass roots packed into the cracks, blowing each one away as it came loose.

Bai Xiaoman stood beside him, bent over, watching how deep he carved.

"Deeper?" Shi Po asked.

"Just down to the stone." Bai Xiaoman reached out a finger and tapped faintly at a groove's edge. "Roots crowd into the lines, and when the wind blows, dirt falls in after them. If the formation veins don't run clean, it lights slow."

Shi Po nodded. When he finished the fifth groove, he went over them all again from the start, then gathered the dug-out roots into a small pile just off the platform.

Shao Ming circled the stone platform, touching each stone in turn—Metal West, Wood East, Water North, Fire South, Earth Center—his fingers pressing into the rock, pausing, then moving to the next.

"All in place," he said.

Bai Xiaoman walked a circuit of the five carved lines, examined the groove patterns, and straightened up. "No need to warm it."

"No warming?" Shao Ming said. "The first time we lit it, we warmed it once."

"The first time, the formation veins hadn't seen spiritual qi in forty years. They needed a mid-grade stone to feed them." Bai Xiaoman said, "We lit it on the ninth day of the Ninth Month, Alliance Year 301. It hasn't broken since. The lines aren't empty."

Xu Yan filed that away: the nourishment of that mid-grade stone—this time there'd be no cost.

"Light it," Shao Ming said.

Bai Xiaoman walked to the center of the stone platform, pressed her palm to the Earth Center stone, closed her eyes, and drew a breath.

Xu Yan stood east of the platform and watched. The hand she had on the stone—her knuckles went white, bit by bit.

The light rose from below the halfway slope. It started thin, a layer spread over the stone platform, then ran downhill with the slope, spilling over the grass at its foot, over the tiles of the Ancestral Hall, over the square bricks of the Front Courtyard, all the way past the Mountain Gate's threshold, where it stopped. The gate archway stood sheathed in that light. Nie Bo stood beneath it, broom in hand, not moving.

The wind still blew, the grass on the slope flattening in waves. The light didn't stir.

"Full," Bai Xiaoman said, her voice low.

Shao Ming stood on a rock at the slope's mouth, looking down for a while. "Withdraw."

She pulled the formation back at once. The light retreated layer by layer, faster than it had come, drawing back to the stone platform and going dark.

Bai Xiaoman's face had gone a shade whiter, from her ears down her neck, and her hairline was damp. She pressed her hand to the Wood East formation stone to steady herself, standing without sitting.

"The old rock held," she said.

Xu Yan asked, "Which one ran rough?"

"Wood East." She said, "When I touched it, the lines carried a little heat—its own. Fire South was cold."

"What about the formation stones?" Xu Yan asked. "The two you said to keep in reserve the first time."

Bai Xiaoman took her hand off the stone and looked at her palm. A shallow mark crossed it where the groove's edge had pressed. She wiped her hand on her robe.

"Don't buy them," she said. "Even if we did, there's nowhere to place them. What I was checking was whether it could hold up today."

"Tomorrow it has to hold another double-hour."

"Mm." She nodded. "One double-hour."

"Head down," Shao Ming said.

Xu Yan stayed at the rear, watching Bai Xiaoman walk on her own. She led the way, each step planted firm before the next, Shao Ming half a step behind her, Shi Po last.

At the first bend, the path narrowed, slope on one side, ledge on the other. Bai Xiaoman stopped and looked back at the stone platform on the slope.

"Tomorrow morning, I'll hold it."

Shi Po answered from behind: "I'll wait below." He slid the chopping knife back behind his waist.

Those two sentences, and that was it. Going down, the Mountain Gate was already visible at the halfway point. They'd walked this path who knew how many times in a year. Today they walked it slow.

Wei hour. Front Courtyard.

The square table had sat under the veranda for a year without moving; the top wore a layer of dust. Shi Po and A He carried it out, one at each end. A He was short, so his end dipped low; Shi Po lowered his own end to match. They set it in the middle of the Front Courtyard and squared it. Four long benches came out from under the West Wing eaves and went on either side, two north, two south.

Shi Po brought a basin of water from the kitchen side, soaked the cloth, wrung it out twice, and wiped the tabletop first, then the four corners. The wood at the corners had worn round; the grime in the cracks had to be dug out with a fingernail. He cleaned each corner, then wiped the whole thing down again.

Jiang Wan came over from the East Courtyard and stood on the steps, giving it a look.

"Tighten all the bench legs," she said. "And don't leave water marks on the tabletop."

"They're tight." Shi Po crouched and tested each bench leg in turn, then tilted his face against the sunlight to check the tabletop. No water marks.

Jiang Wan said nothing more and turned back to the East Courtyard. A moment later sword-wind sounded from that side, one stroke, then another, unhurried.

Qian Duoduo poked half his body out the kitchen door, ladle still in one hand. "Sect Master, should I brew tea tomorrow morning? Set out two pots on the table, nice and hot."

"No need to bring any up," Xu Yan said. "She'll bring her own water."

"Not even one sip?"

"No."

"Oh." Qian Duoduo switched the ladle to his other hand. "Then I won't brew any. I'll fill the water vat. The mountain's drinking water needs topping up."

Qi Qi crossed the Front Courtyard, saw the table, walked a circle around it, and pressed a palm on its edge until it stopped wobbling. Then he headed toward the Mountain Gate.

A Sui sat on the Ancestral Hall's threshold, hands on her knees, counting on her fingers one by one.

"One day until the Autumn Evaluation," she said.

A He set his broom back behind the door and came over to crouch beside his sister.

"You've counted three times."

"Three times and it's still one day." She folded down the last two fingers and looked up. "Tomorrow."

"Tomorrow, no running down the mountain," Xu Yan said, passing the table. "Stay on the mountain."

"Oh." A Sui answered, then lifted both hands from her knees and pressed them against the threshold wood.

Sound came from the veranda side: one, then another—Huo Qing practicing that single thrust at the wooden target. The pit in the bullseye was deeper than last month, the exposed wood dark at center fading to light, ring after ring.

Xu Yan stood in the middle of the Front Courtyard and looked around once: square table set straight, four long benches in line, ground swept, tabletop wiped clean. Tomorrow the Rank Evaluator would sit right behind that table.

Before lamp-lighting time, smoke rose from the kitchen first, and dinner was laid out in the Main Hall. No one at the table talked about the Autumn Evaluation. They talked about who would rise first tomorrow, who wasn't on gate duty, whose pot needed to go on half a double-hour early.

Dog hour. Accounts Room.

The oil lamp sat at the corner of the desk, wick trimmed low—bright enough for the desktop, not enough to reach the account shelf.

The cash box was iron and sat beneath the account shelf, its lock clasp long broken, two lengths of hemp rope tied around it. Xu Yan crouched down, untied the rope and wound it loop by loop around his hand, then lifted the lid.

Spirit stones lay piled inside, crowded together, uneven in size, some with corners chipped off.

He scooped out a handful and stacked them on the desk. Ten to a stack. By the fifth stack, he switched hands; by the eighteenth, the desktop was spread with a full array, and the stones left in the box still stood heap after heap—you couldn't tell any were missing.

Eighteen stacks. Ten per stack.

He paused, then counted again from the left. This count went slower: he picked up each stack, spread the stones flat in his hand, looked them over, and set them down. At the ninth stack, someone crossed the Front Courtyard outside—the footsteps sounded like Shao Ming, heading toward the Mountain Gate. He didn't stop.

The wick popped, jumping to one side; the room dimmed for a moment, then brightened again.

He reached the eighteenth stack. The desktop showed the same array. The two counts matched.

One hundred eighty.

The old cloth pouch sat in the lowest compartment of the account shelf, coarse cloth washed pale, the mouth creased twice from years of folding. He opened it wide and scooped the stacks in one by one. With the last stack in, he lifted the pouch and bounced it lightly on the desk to settle the bottom. A few stones pressed hard against the base; he reached outside and smoothed them flat.

He gathered the mouth, took the hemp rope, and wound it twice: once around the opening, once around the section below. Both pulled tight, the knot tied at the side.

He opened the ledger, paged back to the entry for the seventh day of the Ninth Month, and began a new line beneath it:

"The eighth day of the Ninth Month. Rank Silver one hundred eighty stones. Two lightings. Bagged."

The brush tip paused after "Bagged," waiting for the ink to dry, before he closed the ledger and put it back on the shelf.

Outside by the Mountain Gate, the broom still swept, back and forth, from one side of the archway to the other—lost to hearing for a moment, then returning.

Xu Yan turned the wick lower.

He closed the cash box lid and retied the hemp rope the way it had been. The cloth pouch went on top of the cash box, mouth facing inward.