Chapter 68: A Page of Notice

The West Wing roof had been making noise since the Dragon hour. Qi Qi was up top pulling off the old tiles, Du Xiaochuan following behind laying new ones. The pulled tiles slid down along the roof edge, clacking against the fresh ones below, the crisp sound carrying across the courtyard all the way to the Mountain Gate.

Shao Ming was below, sifting ash, then mixing it with water, stirring in one direction with a wooden stick. Huo Qing held a stack of new tiles on his left hand, climbing the stairs one step at a time to pass them up halfway. Shi Po sat on the low stool against the wall, stacking the good tiles in one pile, the cracked ones in another, and when the stacks reached chest height he'd run his hand along the edges to check they were even.

Nie Bo's broom swept up to the mouth of the slope, and stopped.

Someone was coming up. Blue cloth clothes, a document satchel wrapped tight in cloth slung over one shoulder, stopping every few steps to brace a hand on a knee. Everyone who climbed ten li of mountain road looked the same way: first at the slope, then at the gate. He stopped outside the threshold, shifted the satchel strap to the other shoulder, and looked up at the roof. "Qingya Sect?"

Xu Yan came out of the courtyard, dust still on his hands. He recognized the man—the clerk who'd stood behind Wen Su holding the register during the Autumn Evaluation.

"Sect Master Xu." The clerk cupped his hands from outside the threshold. He didn't enter the courtyard. He lowered the satchel and crouched outside the threshold to unwrap the cloth. "A notice from the Branch."

"Changing tiles at this time of year?" he remarked, glancing into the courtyard.

"Changing tiles."

"Autumn's ending. Not many good days left." He finished unwrapping and drew a single sheet from between two backing boards, handing it over with both hands. The paper bore a seal, a deep, heavy red, with the date notation only going to the month.

Xu Yan took it. First the seal, then the characters. The eighteenth day of the Ninth Month, just past Snake hour.

"Shall we discuss it on the mountain, or here?"

"Here's fine." The clerk pulled a thin register from the satchel, also wrapped in cloth. "The Branch's receipt register. If the Sect Master writes 'Received by Qingya Sect,' adds the date, I'll take it back with me."

Xu Yan tucked the page under his arm and took the register. Line after line of other sects' handwriting filled it—some neat, some crooked—with a few fingerprint smudges still visible at the page edges. He turned to the current page, dipped the small brush the clerk handed him, and wrote "Received by Qingya Sect," adding "the eighteenth day of the Ninth Month" beneath. The brush went back to the inkstone's edge.

"This page—does the Branch require a response?"

"No response needed." The clerk wrapped the register back in cloth. "There'll be another page with the rules on the tenth day of the First Month. You'll sign again then."

"So someone has to make the trip again in the First Month."

"That trip will likely be someone else." The clerk shouldered the satchel. "Dongzhou Ninth Rank to Seventh Rank—one page per sect. There are still a few in town I haven't delivered."

"The Chixiao page—is that yours too?"

"Not mine. The Branch sends two routes." He stepped back down the slope. "This page is delivered, receipt signed. I'll ask the Sect Master not to see me off."

Qian Duoduo came hurrying from the kitchen with a bowl of tea, walking so fast the tea sloshed over the rim. "Have a drink before you go. It's a long road."

"I won't sit." The clerk waved him off. "If I head back to town now I can make it before dark. Late means paying for a room, and that comes out of my own pocket."

He cupped his hands and turned down the slope. Descending was faster than climbing. A few steps took him halfway down, and at the bottom he glanced back once at the roof. Nie Bo's broom swept a half-circle around where the man's feet had been, and once he was far off, it swept forward again.

Xu Yan stood outside the threshold and unfolded the page. He read it through once, then again from the beginning. The characters were block-printed, one item per line, half an inch of space left at each line's end. When he pressed the paper closed again, his hand lingered a moment on the corner.

"Call the people on the roof down," he said. "Main Hall. Horse hour."

Lunch was set out on two tables in the Main Hall. The three from the roof came down and washed their hands at the water vat first. Qi Qi flicked water from his hands toward Shi Po; Shi Po didn't dodge, wiped his face with a swipe, and crouched back on the low stool to even out the last stack of tiles before coming inside. A He and A Sui set out the bowls in pairs, lining up the chipped rims all facing the same way.

Once everyone was seated, Xu Yan brought out the page and spread it on the table's edge.

"A notice from the Branch. I'll read it."

He read it levelly, pausing between each line:

"Alliance Year 301, the third day of the Third Month: the Dongzhou Minor Sect Grand Contest, at the Martial Arena of the Dongzhou Branch in Linchuan City."

"Once every three years."

"All Dongzhou sects from Ninth Rank through Seventh Rank may register."

"Five entrants per sect."

"Top three finishers are promoted one rank without trial."

"Registration rules: issued the tenth day of the First Month."

He finished and set the paper down. No one spoke at once. Several pairs of chopsticks hung frozen midair.

"Promoted one rank—" Qian Duoduo counted it out first, setting down his chopsticks and folding fingers. "That means Eighth Rank."

"Eighth Rank." Qi Qi pushed his bowl aside. "Chixiao is Seventh Rank. Seventh Ranks can register too."

"Registering's one thing." Cheng Banshan unhooked the wine gourd at his waist and bit the stopper open with his teeth, then, without drinking, bit it shut again. "Last one was Alliance Year 298."

"How'd that one go?" Qi Qi asked.

"That one, I was on this mountain." Cheng Banshan hung the gourd back on his belt and didn't continue. He lowered his head and used his chopsticks to push a piece of Spirit Cake from his bowl to Shi Po's side. "Eat."

Bai Xiaoman set her chopsticks down and tapped her fingers along the table edge. "The Ninth Month has twelve days left. The Tenth Month, the Eleventh Month, the Twelfth Month, the First Month, the Second Month—" She stopped, then started over from the Tenth Month, got tangled at the Twelfth Month. "A hundred... a hundred-something days."

"If you can't count it, eat," Qian Duoduo said.

"How much Rank Silver does an Eighth Rank sect pay in a year?" Bai Xiaoman suddenly looked up. "Ninth Rank is seventy. What's Eighth Rank?"

No one at the table answered. Cheng Banshan held his bowl and looked at her, then at Xu Yan.

"The Branch's register has the figure," Xu Yan said. "If we go up, we pay more. We'll pay according to the register when the time comes."

"Then this needs to be written down." Bai Xiaoman filed it away, tapping the table edge once more.

"Five people per sect." Jiang Wan wasn't looking at Bai Xiaoman. She was looking at Xu Yan. "The rules don't arrive until the First Month. Saying now who goes—it's too early."

She finished and let her gaze move from Xu Yan's face over to Huo Qing's side, where it paused.

Huo Qing hadn't spoken the whole time. His left hand lay on his knee. He pressed down once, then flattened it back out.

Shao Ming finished his half-bowl of rice, pushed the bowl in, and said nothing either.

Shi Po scraped the bottom of his bowl clean and looked up. "Five people."

"Mhm."

"We've got ten."

Qi Qi laughed. "Picking five out of ten is harder than sorting tiles."

A Sui asked quietly, "So... are we going?"

Qian Duoduo set the ladle down on the table. "Eat. The food's getting cold."

Xu Yan folded the page and put it inside his robe. "First, get through the winter."

He paused, then added: "The contest—First Month. How many tiles are left?"

"Just a thin layer under the eave edge." Shao Ming pointed toward the courtyard with his chopsticks. "This afternoon we'll finish the inner slope. Tomorrow there's one stretch of eave left. I've sifted enough mortar."

"Back up after lunch."

They were halfway through the meal when the roof started up again. Qi Qi set down his bowl first; Du Xiaochuan followed him out. Shao Ming drained the last sip of soup before rising, and at the doorway he rolled his sleeves up his forearms. Cheng Banshan picked up his bowl, then flipped over the notice on the table and glanced at the back. "One side printed, one side blank."

"No reply needed," Xu Yan said.

"Then leave it blank." He headed back toward the Medicine Hall, pausing at the threshold to look back. "Qi Qi—scrape your shoe soles on the threshold twice before you get on the ladder."

"Scraped, Elder Cheng."

Monkey hour, the Accounts Room.

Sunlight filtered through the window paper, turning the desk surface white. The West Wing's noise rose and fell; in the quiet gaps you could hear Qi Qi up on the roof calling, "Watch out."

Xu Yan pulled open the drawer. The notice from the twelfth day of the Third Month lay under the old ledgers, its corner already yellowed. He drew it out and set it on the left side of the drawer; today's page went on the right, with a stack of old ledgers between them. He pushed the drawer in, then pulled it open for another look, and only then slid it shut.

The door cracked open. Bai Xiaoman leaned half her body in, hugging the silver ledger to her chest. "Sect Master, I've posted the silver ledger through today."

"Read it."

"In: twenty taels. Out: eight taels. Balance: twelve taels." She spread the book on the desk, her finger pressed on that line. "It hasn't moved in a while."

"Mhm. It stays put."

Bai Xiaoman didn't leave. She looked at the account books on the desk, then at the drawer that had just been shut. "Before the third day of the Third Month—should we set aside a sum in the accounts?"

Xu Yan looked up at her.

"I was thinking," she said, "if we register, we have to go to Linchuan. A carriage ride costs four, an inn for one night costs two. It can't be just one trip."

"And where would this money come from—which column?"

"From... from income."

"Income from one market is a hundred and ten, plus buying rice." Xu Yan turned the account book over, pressing his palm on the cover. "This winter's rations, the charcoal—still all blank. Setting aside money is easy. Setting aside rice is hard. First get through winter. The contest can be figured once the rules arrive."

"Then should I leave a blank page in the silver ledger?"

"Leave one blank page. Write 'the third day of the Third Month' at the top. Nothing else."

Bai Xiaoman nodded and left with the book, turning at the door. "I'll write it small on that page. Save paper."

The door closed. Xu Yan drew out the winter-supplies list tucked into the front page of the account book, spread it flat, and ran his eyes from top to bottom.

Tenth Month rations: blank, waiting on Uncle Wang's rent rice. West Wing tiles: blank. Medicine Hall window paper: one stroke marked. Winter clothing and quilt batting: blank, measurements not yet taken. Charcoal: blank. At the very bottom was the small line added on the tenth: Fifteenth, first market.

He rotated the brush half a turn on the inkstone, dipped it, and scraped it twice on the stone's edge. There was still more than half a line of blank space at the page's bottom.

The Ninth Month had twelve days left. The Tenth Month, the Eleventh Month, the Twelfth Month, the First Month, the Second Month—five full months, one hundred fifty days. Plus three more.

He wrote on that line: "One hundred sixty-five days until the third day of the Third Month."

When he finished, the brush tip paused on the page. He didn't start a new heading beneath the line, didn't add any names. All ten of them were in the Ancestral Hall roster, each name written in their own hand. But having a name on a roster and standing on that platform were two different things. Without the rules, everything was empty talk.

He folded the list in half, then in half again—that line folded into the very center, pressed beneath everything else. The list went back into the front page of the account book, lying flat against Fang Henian's old slip.

The noise in the courtyard rose again. Tiles slid down the roof edge, clacking against the stack below. Xu Yan pushed the drawer back into place, stood, and looked through the window at the courtyard. Shi Po sat on the low stool, stacking the tiles one by one, and when the pile reached chest height he ran his hand along the edges, layer by layer, checking level.

He closed the account book and walked out to the middle of the courtyard.

Qi Qi was holding up a tile on the roof. Seeing him, he called down: "Clear below."