Chapter 80: Water Returns to the Field

On the sixteenth day of the Tenth Month, at the Dragon hour, only half the Medicine Hall's door stood open. The clay pot on the stove bubbled away, its bitterness pressing down the chill in the courtyard.

Shi Po sat on a low stool, his front open, a strip of cloth wound around his left ribs. It had been wrapped for over a month now, and washing had faded it to gray.

Cheng Banshan carried over a coarse porcelain bowl with his one hand and set it on the low table beside Shi Po. "Drink that first." He settled onto another stool, pressing his palm to Shi Po's shoulder to straighten him.

"Breathe in."

Shi Po inhaled. His left ribs expanded, the cloth band pinching into creases. Cheng Banshan pressed his thumb along each rib, one by one, asking as he went.

"Hurt?"

"No."

"Here?"

"No."

At the fifth rib, his thumb lingered a moment longer. "Nothing here either?"

"A little swollen."

"Swollen's good. It's healing." He pressed on down to the bottom of the ribcage, then rapped twice along the edge of the sternum with his knuckles. "Cough."

Shi Po coughed, shoulders rocking slightly, brows still.

"Xiaochuan."

Du Xiaochuan came in from outside, wiped his hands on his clothes, and moved behind Shi Po. He found the knot, untied the end first, then worked down, loop by loop. On the last wrap, the cloth had stuck to the skin. He paused, peeling it back slowly; the exposed flesh showed red. He folded the strip away and set it on the stool's corner—washed too many times, stiff enough to stand on its own.

Cheng Banshan leaned in, ran his fingers over the exposed skin, then sat back and drained the remaining water from the bowl.

"Can I stand now?" Shi Po asked.

"You can stand." Cheng Banshan said. "And carry, too."

Du Xiaochuan hadn't even gotten his grin out before Cheng Banshan's finger was in his face: "Don't get excited yet. Carry doesn't mean strain. If you can't lift it, put it down. Rest, then go again. You try to use it like it's the ninth day of the Ninth Month and I'll tie you right back up."

Shi Po grunted, pulled his clothes closed, and stood.

Cheng Banshan pointed toward the yard. "That big vat under the eaves—move it to the base of the wall, out of the wind."

The vat was two arm-spans around, filled more than halfway with rainwater. Shi Po walked over, bent down, wrapped both arms around its base, and with a flex of his legs the vat left the ground. He shuffled step by step; the dead leaves floating on the surface only spun in place, few spilling over. At the wall he set it down level and straightened up.

Cheng Banshan had watched the whole way from the doorway. He said nothing, turned back inside, and hung the furnace hook on his belt.

In the open ground before the Mountain Gate, Shi Po set his feet shoulder-width apart, knees slightly bent, hands hanging loose at his sides, and stood. The sun climbed and pressed his shadow down beneath him. A He brought a small stool to the doorway and watched for a while, then asked, "Shi Po, how many sacks can you carry now?"

"Don't know."

"Grandpa Cheng didn't say?"

"He said if I can't carry it, put it down."

A He chewed on that, got no flavor from it, and ran off to the kitchen.

The sixteenth and seventeenth on the ridge passed quietly. On the evening of the sixteenth, Qi Qi went up to check. The weir still stood, the channel still carried water east, the two red-robed men had simply rotated shifts. He came back and said only: "Nothing's moved."

On the eighteenth, before dawn, he climbed the ridge.

Dew soaked his pant legs to the knees. He dropped down behind the big boulder west of the spring source, tucked his bundle under his chest, and pressed his face to the grass. A crack ran along the bottom of the boulder, aimed straight at the weir.

At the Dragon hour, three men came up from the east. Cao Hu led, two crowbars across his shoulder; behind him two disciples, each with a shovel. At the weir, Cao Hu crouched first to study the water: grass bits floated against the channel mouth, caught by the weir's edge, moving fast. He watched a while, then stood.

"Start at the top," he said. "Pry inward from the edges. Don't drag the base stones out with them."

A crowbar went into a seam. Two men leaned on it; the first stone shifted, lifted, and was carried up the slope and stacked. The moment the stone left its seat, water welled through the gap—thin as a thread, hugging the weir's foot, running west.

Qi Qi didn't move. He rested his chin on the back of his hand and kept his eyes on the three men.

Second stone. Third. One by one they came out, and the sound of water thickened. The sun climbed over the ridgeline. Cao Hu stripped off his outer robe and draped it over a stone; the red cloth rose and fell among the rock pile. They rested once, squatting on the slope with their water, and one disciple showed Cao Hu the blisters on his palms. Cao Hu said something; the man grinned and wiped his hand on his pants.

Then back at it. By nearly midday, only the bottom two rows remained. The water no longer agreed to go all east; half leaked through the gaps, running down the weir's foot into a thin stream that cut a shallow gully through the slope's soil.

Cao Hu straightened and glanced toward the ridge.

Qi Qi pressed his face down, forehead to the roots, motionless.

The glance didn't last. Wind swept down from the ridge, laying the grass east in one wave; by the time it stood back up, Cao Hu had already crouched again and called out: "Faster."

The last stone came free at the Monkey hour. When it loosened, the water lost its barrier and burst through, white and churning, out the weir's mouth and down the old creek bed, running west. Yellow mud churned from under the stones, spreading in the water, settling after a stretch.

The three men stood at the creek side and watched. Water passed before their feet—westward, down toward the foot of the ridge—its sound smoothing as it went: first splashing loud against the rocks, then, a dozen steps on, dropping into a creek bed dry for a month, the noise going dull.

Cao Hu crouched, washed his hands in the stream, stood, and dried them on his clothes. He used the shovel to level the dirt where the weir's foot had been, gathered the crowbars from the slope, and settled them on his shoulder.

"Let's go."

The three headed east along the ridgeline. On the slope lay the piled, dismantled stones. The weir's mouth stood empty. Not a drop in the channel.

At the Dog hour, the lamps inside the Mountain Gate had just been lit. Qi Qi came down the fork road, pant legs wet, shoes caked with mud, and stopped in the Main Hall.

"Started at the Dragon hour, finished by the Monkey hour."

"Fully dismantled?" Xu Yan asked.

"Fully. Stones stacked on the slope. Channel mouth blocked off—not a drop going east." Qi Qi swallowed. "The water's moving slow. That stretch of creek below the ridge's been dry a month; the soil's loose. Water soaks in as it goes—loses a chunk every few steps."

"So it won't reach the fields tonight."

"By morning."

Qian Duoduo came from the kitchen with a bowl of hot soup and pressed it into Qi Qi's hands, a few greens floating on top. "Three days, just like I said." He wiped his hands on his apron. "I counted every one of them."

Jiang Wan came over from the East Courtyard and stood by a veranda post, looking at Qi Qi's soaked pant legs. "Legs numb?"

"Numb."

"Was down there all day?"

"All day." Qi Qi took a sip of soup and bared his teeth. "That ground behind the boulder's harder than the flagstones at our gate."

Jiang Wan asked nothing more and went back to the East Courtyard.

At midday on the nineteenth, Wang Shuan came up the mountain.

Nie Bo was sweeping in front of the Mountain Gate, fallen leaves gathered into a small pile, the broom moving slow. Wang Shuan stopped at the gate and waited for the broom to shift half a step aside before slipping around it and calling in: "Sect Master Xu—water's here."

Xu Yan came out of the Accounts Room, brush still in hand, not yet set down.

The two took the fork east of the Mountain Gate down. Three li of mountain path, Wang Shuan walking fast, talking as he went: "Arrived after midnight. I heard it first. Got up, took the lamp out to look—the whole creek bed was full of water."

The field spread at the mountain's foot, twelve mu. Yesterday's white-crusted mud now lay deep-colored. The creek mouth's gap had been widened to about a foot across, water surging through, spilling over the first field embankment and seeping down. A small breach had cut through the embankment; water ran through it into the second plot, soaking its mud too. The cracks that had split the mud were softening now, collapsing in patches, their edges dissolving.

Wang Shuan carried his hoe down and widened the breach further, sending water toward the plots on the west side.

"Twelve mu—one night won't soak it." He worked as he spoke. "Needs to soak till it freezes, stay frozen all winter, then when it thaws in spring, the soil loosens. The water can't be cut off."

"It won't be," Xu Yan said.

"We made it before the Eleventh Month." Wang Shuan straightened and looked up toward the ridge. "Ten days later and it'd be frozen—soaking would've been pointless."

Xu Yan crouched and put his hand in the water. Cold—his fingers went numb the instant they went in. He grabbed a handful of mud; it squeezed through his fingers, leaving a few gritty grains in his palm, a raw earth smell.

"You grab mud even more clumsily than me." Wang Shuan laughed from the embankment.

Xu Yan rinsed his hand and stood.

"These past days," Wang Shuan jabbed his hoe into the ground, "those red-robed ones from the ridge—every time they saw me they'd smile. Once I was down by the creek watching the water, and one of them kicked it muddy and said the water belonged to them. I don't understand your deeds and maps. I couldn't say anything back."

He tilted his chin toward the creek's upper reach.

"This morning I walked half a li upstream. Not one of them. Water just comes down from up there."

Xu Yan followed the creek east with his eyes. Water danced down over the stones, reached his feet, and turned through the gap into the field.

"What else does the field lack?" he asked.

"Fertilizer. The grass ash rotting on the threshing ground hasn't been spread yet." Wang Shuan said. "Once it's down, it just soaks all winter."

"There's a pile of wood ash behind the Medicine Hall, a month's worth. I'll have it sent down."

"Wood ash is good." Wang Shuan nodded. "Wood ash on the field is gentler than grass ash."

He stood on the embankment watching the water a while, then said suddenly: "Come watch when we transplant the seedlings in spring."

"I will."

The twentieth was a market day. The kitchen's pot went down the mountain before dawn—two pots of Spirit Meals, ten bottles of Qi-Gathering Powder, sold out by midday. After the market closed, Qian Duoduo restocked the two pots of Spirit Rice at the grain shop. That single sentence held everything about the mountain; no one mentioned the pile of stones on the ridge again.

At night, a lamp burned in the Accounts Room.

Two books lay open on the table: the daily ledger, and the silver ledger Bai Xiaoman kept. Xu Yan reconciled the two, then worked page by page from the start of the Tenth Month.

Carriage fare: one trip four spirit stones, two trips made. Inn: two a night, four nights. That half-stack of firewood at East Row Three of the Linchuan Market: one. Four markets: a hundred ten in per market, ten back out for Spirit Rice.

He dipped the brush and wrote: carriage fare first, then the inn, then firewood, each line dropping into the space he'd calculated.

Balance on hand: seven hundred sixty-five spirit stones, twelve taels of silver.

He paused, flipped back to the entry reading "three hundred eighty-two," pressed a finger to it, calculated once, then again. Same number both times.

The Eleventh Month's rations hadn't been bought yet, nor the charcoal. He started a new line for those two, adding no extra words.

Then he started one last line, working out the days he needed: the ten remaining days of the Tenth Month, thirty each for the eleventh, twelfth, first, and second months, plus the first three days of the Third Month. He counted through on his fingers once, afraid of error, and counted again.

The brush tip touched the paper, writing slowly: One hundred thirty-three days until the third day of the Third Month.

He set the brush down on the inkstone and trimmed the lamp wick. Outside, Shi Po still stood before the Mountain Gate—just a black figure in the moonlight, motionless, his shadow stretching as long as he was.