Chapter 91: Ten Antidote Pills

"The charcoal cost—put it on my account."

Xu Yan stopped outside the Medicine Hall door. Shao Ming leaned one shoulder against the doorframe, standing just inside, his outer robe hanging crooked, no belt at his waist. The fire in the room burned low, the coals glowing red. Du Xiaochuan crouched by the stove, fire tongs laid across his knees.

Xu Yan flipped the ledger in his arms to the Eleventh Month. "Two dan of charcoal, twenty pieces."

"I know the number." Shao Ming said. "The medicine cost seventy pieces, you put that on my account. This one should go there too."

"The medicine cost seventy pieces—that's medicine you took yourself, and you asked for it to be recorded." Xu Yan's finger tapped the page. "The charcoal belongs to the Medicine Hall."

"The charcoal burns for me too."

"A dan and a half went in, seven days and seven nights, and whatever it turns out, you're the one taking it." Xu Yan said. "By that math, the whole furnace is yours."

Shao Ming lowered his head and thought for a while, then still said, "Then all the more it should go on my account."

Xu Yan half-closed the ledger and looked up at him. "How many Spirit Stones do you have on you?"

Shao Ming said nothing.

"Not one." Xu Yan said it for him. "Putting it on your account means adding a debt to the books that can't be repaid. I don't record debts like that."

"I'll have a day when I can repay it."

"If it can be repaid, I'll record it." Xu Yan opened the ledger again and ran his finger down the page. "One dan of charcoal at the wharf costs ten, a dan and a half is fifteen. You have no Spirit Stones, but you've got hands and feet. When you can lift your arms again, go to Luoxia Wharf yourself and carry a dan and a half back, stack it against the back wall. Bring it back, and this debt is cleared."

"A dan and a half."

"A dan and a half." Xu Yan wrote down a line: the twenty-eighth day of the Eleventh Month, one and a half dan charcoal, charged to the Medicine Hall.

Shao Ming stood inside the door for a while. "The ledger says Medicine Hall. In my own ledger, it goes on my account."

"That ledger in your head, I don't keep." Xu Yan tucked the ledger back into his robes.

The curtain to the inner room rustled, and Cheng Banshan's voice came out: "Done talking? If you're done, shut the door. The fire dislikes the wind."

Shao Ming pulled the door shut, retreated two steps, then stopped. Through the door panel he asked, "Mao Hour the day after tomorrow?"

"Mao Hour the day after tomorrow." The answer came from inside. "Go back and sleep."

Xu Yan walked toward the Front Courtyard. The rasp of sword practice came from under the veranda, drawing in and pushing out, steady even across two courtyards. Snow on the eaves had melted some, dripping down the tile mouths one drop at a time onto the step stones. Back in the Accounts Room, he looked over the line he'd just written, then flipped back, back to the first page of the Eleventh Month—the lines about starting the furnace in the Ninth Month and paying debts in the Ninth Month were all in this book. He pressed the ledger under the inkstone, then went to the Kitchen to get something hot to drink.

Over at the Medicine Hall, Shao Ming returned to the West Wing, pushed the door halfway open, and sat down. Under his narrow bed sat a Clay Jar—the one used for boiling the poison-suppressing medicine these past months, a black ring around its mouth. He glanced at it, moved his feet away, and did not touch it.

On the Thirtieth, before dawn, Cheng Banshan pushed aside the inner room curtain and came out.

He first tucked his empty sleeve into his belt, then bent to check the fire's color at the furnace mouth. The bottom layer glowed red, the flames licking to one side.

"Du Xiaochuan."

"Here." Du Xiaochuan stood up from the bricks beside the furnace. A layer of charcoal marks covered the bricks, stretching from the furnace feet all the way to the base of the wall. He crouched down and counted from the beginning, counted to the end, then counted again.

"What are you counting it for?" Cheng Banshan said.

"Two counts, same number."

Cheng Banshan didn't ask further. With one hand he lifted the iron hook, caught the ring on the furnace lid, and moved the lid aside, knocking it against the brick with a clink.

The smell came first—bitter, astringent, with a layer of charcoal air pressing underneath.

At the bottom of the furnace lay ten pills, dark-cyan, the size of fingertips, a fine texture of cracks on their surfaces, like skin slowly cured by fire. Du Xiaochuan crouched down and counted them one by one, then looked up: "Ten."

"Ten." Cheng Banshan took the celadon bottle from the table and set it upright at the table's edge. With a bamboo slip he scraped the pills toward the furnace mouth, then picked them up one by one and flicked them into the bottle. The last one rolled at the bottle's mouth; he pressed it in with a finger.

He picked one out again, turned it between his fingers, brought it to his nose and smelled it, then scratched its surface with a fingernail. The cracks did not open. Only then did this one drop back into the bottle.

The wooden stopper pressed down, and the old cord on it looped onto his belt. The bottle hung, knocking lightly against his hipbone with a soft tap.

He put the furnace lid back and hung the iron hook on the furnace ear. "This furnace is done."

"Do we clean it?" Du Xiaochuan asked.

"Clean it. Scrub it clean and let it dry."

"You stayed with the fire to the very end." He looked back at Qian Duoduo.

Qian Duoduo stood by the furnace, his face a layer of black, his eyes red as if he'd rubbed them with his hands. He opened his mouth, and his voice came out much smaller than usual: "It never went out."

"It never went out." Cheng Banshan said. "Go sleep."

"What about the wood stove..."

"This one's finished. The wood stove doesn't need watching anymore." Cheng Banshan glanced toward the door. "Girl."

Bai Xiaoman came out from the outer room hugging her bedding, her hair a mess, her eyelids swollen. Cheng Banshan said, "Go back to the West Wing and sleep. Nothing for you today."

"What about the wood stove?"

"Start it tomorrow morning."

Jiang Wan stood at the door, not coming in. "Ten?"

"Ten."

"How many days?"

"Ten days. One a day."

She nodded and left. The light outside pulled her shadow past the threshold for a moment, then drew it back.

Shao Ming stood under the eaves, his eyes on the veranda pillar, not looking inside. When Cheng Banshan came out and passed him, he paused: "Tomorrow morning, Mao Hour."

Xu Yan lifted the straw mat against the Medicine Hall's back wall and counted the charcoal stacked beneath. "A dan and a half went in."

"Half a dan left." Cheng Banshan said. "Keep it. The Twelfth Month gets cold."

At the end of Mao Hour, Qian Duoduo loaded up a pot of Spirit Meal and ten bottles of Qi-Gathering Powder. Xu Yan led Shi Po and A He and A Sui down the mountain. Qian Duoduo hadn't closed his eyes all night, but his feet moved faster than usual, the carrying pole creaking under the weight. A Sui walked behind him, counting on her fingers.

"First Day, one pill. Second Day, one pill."

"Count to the Tenth." Xu Yan said.

A Sui turned both hands over and looked at them, then started counting again. A He counted the one she'd missed for her, and got an elbow in the ribs for it.

They reached town at Chen Hour, and people were already coming into the Market Fair. Qingya's stall was under the third pillar along the wall, where the old tile eaves above leaked snowmelt in a few places, leaving the ground wet in patches and dry in patches. Qian Duoduo set up the pot and shouted, and half the street heard it: "Hot, two pieces a bowl."

Shi Po lined up the ten bottles of Qi-Gathering Powder on the step in front of the stall, all bottle mouths facing outward. A Rogue Cultivator in an old padded jacket took out three pieces and bought a bottle, then squatted by the base of the wall; his companion also asked for a bowl of Spirit Meal and squatted beside him, cupping the bowl in both hands. A He carried a bowl around from the pot, and on his way back slipped his hand into the wooden box, collecting Spirit Stones one by one. On the fifth stone he looked up at Qian Duoduo.

Just past noon the pot scraped bottom. The last bowl sold to an old Rogue Cultivator with a bamboo back basket. He stood under the eaves holding the bowl and drank it slowly. When he'd finished, he handed the bowl back and asked, "That one on your mountain—is he still making his breakthrough?"

A silence fell over the stall. Qian Duoduo knocked his ladle against the rim of the pot: "Medicine's being taken, he's resting. Beyond that, I won't say."

The old Rogue Cultivator made a sound, hoisted his back basket, and left.

When they packed up, A He tipped the Spirit Stones out of the wooden box and counted again: one pot, forty; ten bottles, thirty. Done counting, he carried the box to Xu Yan. Xu Yan found a clean stone step in the Market and sat down, recording the ledgers stroke by stroke.

Then on to the grain shop. The shop hand behind the counter clicked his abacus beads without looking up: "Spirit Rice, twenty a sack. Coarse grain, ten."

"Two sacks of Spirit Rice, one of coarse grain." Xu Yan said. "Fifty."

The shop hand opened each of the three sack mouths one by one to show him—the rice was new, the coarse grain had not much bran mixed in. Xu Yan counted out fifty pieces from the wooden box and pushed them over. The shop hand clicked a bead, tied the sack mouths tight.

"Add another five pieces of Spirit Rice for the next pot."

The shop hand scooped out five pieces' worth from the bin, poured it into a cloth pouch, and tied it. Xu Yan counted out five more and took the pouch in his hand.

"Once we're into the Twelfth Month, prices will climb." The shop hand said.

"We'll buy a full thirty days today." Xu Yan recorded the entry on the back of the slip of paper at the sack mouth.

Shi Po stacked all three sacks onto his shoulder. A He reached out to help, but Shi Po pressed his hand down: "You'll crush your feet." The three walked behind. Qian Duoduo came last, carrying the empty pot, yawning the whole way. Halfway up the ridge he insisted the pot was heavier than it had been on the way down.

They reached the Mountain Gate at Shen Hour. Nie Bo was sweeping snow inside the gate, the push of the broom sounding in waves. A He ran over and said, "We're back." He nodded without stopping the broom.

You Hour, the Accounts Room. Xu Yan wrote down the last entries on this page of the Eleventh Month: one pot, forty; ten bottles, thirty; minus five for Spirit Rice; net sixty-five. Twelfth Month rations, fifty. All together: one thousand two hundred thirty-five pieces. The previous entry, from the Twenty-Fifth, had been one thousand two hundred twenty. He started another line and wrote: Thirtieth, ten antidote pills, one and a half dan charcoal, charged to the Medicine Hall.

When he finished, he pressed his finger against the bottom of that line, blotting the ink dry.

Bai Xiaoman slept until just before lamp-lighting, then got up and ran to the Accounts Room door to look at the three sacks of rice, asking if it was enough. Xu Yan said it was. She counted the sacks on her fingers: one sack made four pots, two sacks made eight pots, coarse grain added in—thirty days, with two days' worth left over. Done counting, she laughed, and said this time at least they wouldn't have to go down the mountain by the Tenth to buy more grain.

The first day of the Twelfth Month, Mao Hour. The Medicine Hall door stood open, no fire lit inside, colder than outdoors.

Du Xiaochuan brought in a bowl of warm water and set it on the table, a wisp of white steam at the rim. Cheng Banshan untied the bottle from his waist and stood it on the table, one hand bracing the bottle while his thumb pushed the stopper free. Then he tilted the bottle over the tabletop and knocked out one pill. Dark-cyan, looking black in the dim light.

Shao Ming reached out and picked it up from the table, squeezed it between his fingers, put it in his mouth, lifted the bowl and drank two mouthfuls. His throat moved. He swallowed.

"One a day, for ten full days." Cheng Banshan said. "The poison-suppressing bowl stops."

"Tonight's bowl at Xu Hour, too?"

"Stopped starting this morning. The two can't be taken together."

Shao Ming answered, his eyes on the bottle on the table. Cheng Banshan pressed the stopper back in and hung the bottle at his waist.

"The bottle stays with me. One a day. Come receive it at Mao Hour."

"And after all ten?"

"After all ten, I'll take your pulse."

"These ten days—will you still teach the breathing technique?"

"I will." Cheng Banshan pushed the stack of poison-suppressing herbs on the Medicine Hall cabinet further back. "You keep teaching the twins as usual. Don't use this as an excuse to lie down."

Shao Ming nodded, stood there a moment, then asked, "The first few days—what will it be like?"

Cheng Banshan's finger was still on the stopper. He pressed it once, shifting the cord's knot half an inch lower.

"The first few nights will be hard."

"How hard?"

"If it gets bad at night, don't tough it out alone. Xiaochuan sleeps next to you. If something's wrong, have him come knock on my door. Knock."

Shao Ming answered again, took two steps out of the Medicine Hall and stopped, pressed a hand against his stomach, then lowered it and headed for the West Wing.

Xu Yan wrote a line in the ledger: the first day of the Twelfth Month, first antidote pill. Outside, the sky was still dark. From the Front Courtyard veranda came the rasp of the sword again—short, blunt.