Chapter 69: The Price of Rice After Harvest

On the nineteenth day of the Ninth Month, in the Monkey hour, Shao Ming laid the last tile.

He crouched at the edge of the eaves, pushing tile after tile into place, each overlapping the next by seven and leaving three exposed, the tile mouths facing the eave gutter. When it was set, he flicked his wrist outward and a line of mortar squeezed from the seam. Qi Qi stood in the courtyard with his head tilted back. "Straight or not?"

Shao Ming tapped twice with the back of his trowel. "Come up and see for yourself."

Qi Qi crossed his arms and did not move.

Xu Yan climbed three rungs up the ladder and looked along the eave toward the east. The row of tiles ran from one end to the other, seams aligned. He reached out and pressed the outermost tile, three presses, and it did not budge.

Du Xiaochuan was up on the roof pointing the joints, working lime into the tile seams with a shaved-down bamboo slip, one press after another. The section he'd finished showed whiter than the rest. Cheng Banshan strolled out from the Medicine Hall, one hand tucked in his waist sash, the empty sleeve of the other side pinned under it. "Keep it thin. Too thick and it'll freeze in winter, then the whole shell comes loose in spring."

"One more pass," Shao Ming said.

"Enough." Cheng Banshan looked the eave line over from end to end, head tilted back. "This room in the West Wing won't leak this winter."

Shi Po was stacking broken tiles at the base of the wall—good ones in a pile by his left hand, cracked ones by his right. When the pile reached his knee, he wiped the dust off on his trouser leg with the back of his hand. Qi Qi jumped down from the roof, and the moment his feet touched ground he kicked one of the cracked tiles. "This one's still good for lining the drain ditch."

Shi Po grunted and moved it to the bottom of the other pile.

They knocked off at the Dog hour. The ladder came down, the mortar buckets were washed and stood against the wall, the trowels tied together with straw rope. Xu Yan gathered up the last handful of broken tile and passed it over. Shi Po took the pieces one by one and laid them flat, and when he finished he looked up at the eave line for a long while before wiping his hands clean on his trousers.

That night in the Accounts Room, Xu Yan drew the slip of paper out from the front of the ledger. It had been folded twice, the creases gone soft. He spread it under the lamp and read top to bottom: Tenth Month rations. West Wing tiles. Medicine Hall window paper. Winter clothing and quilt batting. Charcoal.

After "Medicine Hall window paper" there was a faint scratch mark, made with his fingernail on the seventeenth. After "West Wing tiles" there was still a blank. He set his nail down and drew it straight across, from one end to the other, very straight.

Bai Xiaoman sat at the desk, turning the silver ledger to a fresh page and pressing it flat. She looked up to watch him scratch. She'd seen the mark by "Medicine Hall window paper" before. The one by "West Wing tiles" was new.

"Two scratched off. Three left," Xu Yan said.

"Tenth Month rations, winter clothing and quilt batting, charcoal." She recited them along, tapping a finger on the desk with each item.

"The rice is at the grain shop. We'll know the price tomorrow," Xu Yan said, folding the slip. "At the twentieth fair." He tucked the folded slip back into the front of the account book and moved the oil lamp a little farther away.

The second furnace batch came out at the Tiger hour on the twentieth. Cheng Banshan pulled the furnace door open and lifted out ten bottles one at a time, standing them in a row on the workbench. He stoppered each mouth with a wad of paper, packed them into cloth pouches. The firelight caught half his face; the empty sleeve stayed pinned in his sash as always. He added herbs, damped the fire, and started the next batch.

Before dawn at the Dragon hour, four of them went down the mountain: Qian Duoduo carried two buckets of Spirit Meals, Du Xiaochuan a stack of bowls on his back, A He a bundle of bamboo tallies and the bag of medicine, Qi Qi the stall board over his shoulder. At the kitchen door, Qian Duoduo turned back and said, "A He goes this fair. A Sui stays home and watches the rice jar."

A Sui stood in the kitchen doorway, eyes drifting toward the bundle of tallies. "There's only half a jar of rice left."

"Half a jar still needs watching," Qian Duoduo said.

At the market, under the third pillar from the wall, they set up the board and laid out the bowls. A He dumped the tallies at the corner of the board and shouted in imitation of Qi Qi's pitch: "Spirit Meals—hot!" On the third shout his voice cracked, and half the street turned to look. The old man selling clay bowls scooted his stool half a foot closer, laughing until he coughed.

Qi Qi crouched by the pillar, ladling bowl after bowl. When he finished he jabbed A He in the lower back. "Loud enough, slow with the ladle—you want people standing there with empty bowls waiting?"

A He's face went red, but his hands moved faster, and the ladling came out even.

By late Horse hour, everything was sold. A He dumped the tallies on the board and counted them into piles of ten, then looked up. "Forty sticks." Two batches, eighty spirit stones. Ten bottles of medicine, thirty. Qian Duoduo put the spirit stones into a cloth pouch one by one, hefted it, and tucked it inside his robe.

The grain shop stood at the northeast corner of the market, the scale beam hanging higher than a man's head. The shop hand poured Spirit Rice into a measure, scraping the top level as he spoke: "Twenty from here on. It's the post-harvest price now. Five spirit stones a batch of Spirit Rice."

Qian Duoduo was still holding one of the bamboo tallies. "On the fifteenth, a sack was sixteen."

"That was before harvest."

"How much for a sack?"

"Twenty."

"Coarse grain?"

"Ten."

Qian Duoduo ran the numbers in his head, then asked one more thing: "A month's rations?"

The hand scraped the measure level again. "Two sacks of Spirit Rice, one of coarse grain. Fifty."

A He was counting on his fingers beside him. "A batch is five, two batches..." By the third finger he'd lost it. Qi Qi pressed a hand down on the back of his head. "Stop counting. Fifty. Last month it was forty."

Qian Duoduo counted out ten spirit stones for the two batches of Spirit Rice. His fingers slowed half a beat as he counted, but he still counted them out one by one, all of them.

"Going to keep rising?" Qi Qi asked.

"Ask again after the year-end." The shop hand pushed the measure back, pulled out a cloth, and wiped down the scale beam.

Back on the mountain in the Monkey hour: buckets empty, tallies gone, the cloth pouch under Qian Duoduo's robe bulging. Xu Yan stood waiting on the steps at the Mountain Gate. Qi Qi reported as he climbed the slope, item by item, unhurried: "Post-harvest price. Five spirit stones a batch. Twenty a sack. Coarse grain ten a sack. A month's rations fifty."

Xu Yan waited until he finished, then asked one question: "Did you weigh out any coarse grain?"

"No. He only weighed the two batches of Spirit Rice."

"Mm." Xu Yan glanced at Qian Duoduo, who pressed the pouch a little tighter against his chest. "Even if we'd weighed it there'd be nowhere to put it. The jar's still half full."

At the Dog hour in the Accounts Room, the Daily Ledger gained a new line: "The twentieth day of the Ninth Month: Income one hundred ten; Expenditure, two batches Spirit Rice, ten. Balance on hand: one hundred ninety-two." Bai Xiaoman added nothing to the silver ledger. "Silver's still twelve taels."

Xu Yan answered with a grunt, spread the slip flat, and added two small lines under "Tenth Month rations": Coarse grain, one sack, ten. Spirit Rice, two sacks, waiting on Uncle Wang's rent rice.

A month's rations had gone from forty to fifty. He ran the numbers in his head: net income a hundred per fair, so the extra ten—five more bowls sold in a fair and it was covered. It added up. He swallowed the number and did not write it down. Some accounts can't be scratched onto paper, and writing them would do no good.

On the twenty-first, at the Dragon hour, Shao Ming sat cross-legged below the stone steps in front of the Ancestral Hall as usual. A He held the yellow paper and recited the formula. He didn't stumble at "don't block the heart's gate"—he carried the whole thing through in one breath. Shao Ming listened and said, "Passed."

A Sui recited behind him, fast, not a single character wrong. Shao Ming shook his head. "When she breathes, she's half a beat slow."

At the Dragon hour, in the Main Hall, two long tables were pushed together. Cotton batting spread out, coarse cloth laid on top. Bai Xiaoman cut with the scissors, calling out measurements as she went, marking the cloth with charcoal after each call. A Sui and A He threaded needles and sewed, one from each end, the stitch lines climbing row by row.

Qian Duoduo came from the kitchen with a length of hemp rope, three knots tied in it. "For measuring people."

The twins went first. A He stretched his arms out and stood ramrod straight. Qian Duoduo looped the rope around his shoulders and tied a knot at his chest. "Needs more length."

"I'm still growing."

"When you grow, we'll cut it and resew." Qian Duoduo pulled the rope back and tied one more knot in the same rope.

Bai Xiaoman measured herself. "Leave a finger's width here. In winter I'll have another layer under it."

Shi Po stepped up to the table and squared his shoulders. Qian Duoduo opened the rope to its widest setting. "This one needs two widths of cloth."

Shi Po looked down at the rope circling him. "Waste of cloth?"

"Cloth is fixed; people aren't. What you're using up is cloth, not rice." Shi Po stood straight and said nothing more.

Huo Qing came down from the West Slope to be measured, wood chips on his shoulders. Qian Duoduo moved around to his right side and his hand paused. That arm hung limp, the sleeve lying thin and flat against it. Huo Qing said, "No need to waste cloth on that side."

"The cloth's accounted for. There's enough." Qian Duoduo let out a finger's width on the right side and called the measurement.

Jiang Wan came over from the East Courtyard, stood at the table, raised her arms, back and waist perfectly straight. Qian Duoduo circled her once and blinked. "Your shoulders are wider than the last setting I used."

"Sew it to your measurement," Jiang Wan said. "Don't stuff it too thick inside—I won't be able to move my arms." She glanced at the line of stitches A Sui was sewing, made no comment, and walked away.

Xu Yan was measured last. The rope went around him once. Qian Duoduo said, "Sect Master's needs another half-inch. In winter you'll still be sitting out in the night."

"Keep it to the usual," he said.

"The usual means I measure, I sew, and I'm the one who decides." Qian Duoduo tied the knot and ignored him.

Cheng Banshan was the very last. He came from the Medicine Hall, hands still stained with herbs. Qian Duoduo measured around to the left side, and when the rope reached the empty sleeve, Cheng Banshan suddenly flicked the dangling fabric behind his back. "Measure it as it is. One less sleeve and I save cloth? I don't need to save."

Qian Duoduo's hand stopped on the rope. He didn't ask again, just reported both numbers to Bai Xiaoman. She wrote them down, added a small line in a separate note, then looked up at Cheng Banshan once before lowering her head again.

"What about Nie Bo's?" A Sui asked.

"The old robe hanging by the door of the Low Hut. I measured it against the rope yesterday," Qian Duoduo said. "Won't be far off."

They sewed from the twenty-first until the Dog hour, and then again all through the twenty-second. The last piece was Cheng Banshan's—a sleeveless vest with sleeves joined, the empty one made one inch shorter according to the line Bai Xiaoman had written. A Sui stuffed a small handful of cotton batting into the half-sleeve so it wouldn't dangle so hollow and loose.

Cheng Banshan took it and tried it on, tucked the empty side into his sash, and walked two steps. "Fits." He glanced at A Sui and added, "Stuffing that much cotton in—a waste." But he did not pull the sleeve out. He kept it tucked all the way back to the Medicine Hall door.

On the twenty-second, at the Dog hour, A Sui carried a quilt to the Low Hut by the Mountain Gate. She stopped at the door, looked at it, and said, "Nie Bo, quilt batting." She set it against the door frame and took two steps back. The door did not open. She walked to the courtyard gate and looked back—the space by the door was already empty.

Under the lamp in the Accounts Room, Xu Yan spread the slip out. His nail pressed down after "Winter clothing and quilt batting" and drew across. Halfway, his finger slipped, so he went over it again, and the mark came out thicker than the one beside it.

Two items still sat there: Tenth Month rations. Charcoal.

He blew out the lamp and stepped outside. Jiang Wan sat on the steps, sword held to her chest, the sheath lying across her knees.

"Finished scratching?" she asked.

"Three scratched off."

"What's left?"

"Rations. And charcoal."

Jiang Wan glanced toward the Mountain Gate. "If Uncle Wang's rice doesn't come, that line of yours won't get scratched off until spring."

"Wait two more days," Xu Yan said.

She shifted the sword, moving half a foot of step to the side, and said nothing more. Xu Yan stayed standing. He looked up at the new tiles on the eave line—black in the darkness, catching what little starlight the sky had.

Two items still weighed on the slip. The first was the Tenth Month rations. The rice had to wait for Uncle Wang's rent rice.