Chapter 96: A Bowl of New Year's Feast

On the thirteenth day of the Twelfth Month, at Dragon hour, ice flowers had formed on the window paper of the Accounts Room. The sun slanted through the door from the east, and the patterns slowly melted into water that ran down the paper and pooled at the windowsill.

Shao Ming came in and pulled the door shut behind him. He held the celadon bottle—empty now for three days—upside down and gave it two shakes. Nothing came out. He set it on the corner of the desk.

"Elder Cheng said to deliver one sentence today." He stood there. "Nothing else."

Xu Yan closed the account book and took the Ledger from inside his robe, opening it. Three lines followed in succession:

[Debit: Heritage, one point.]

[Audit: Shao Ming. Early Foundation Establishment.]

[Audit: Old poison in the dantian—cleared.]

"Cleared," Xu Yan said.

"Elder Cheng already said so."

"I wanted to see it once more myself."

Shao Ming didn't leave. He stood by the desk and waited until Xu Yan had finished reading the line, closed the Ledger, and tucked it back inside his robe. Then he asked, "What do you see?"

"There's no more black on the path through your dantian." Xu Yan said. "Last time I checked you were Qi Condensation Ninth Layer. This time it's a Foundation Establishment page. First time I've turned to it."

"Keep the bottle." Shao Ming picked up the empty bottle from the desk corner and tucked it into his robe. "Elder Cheng says no fighting for three months. What am I supposed to do in those three months?"

"The Kitchen needs rice carried. The Medicine Hall needs someone watching the furnace. There's no end to the work on the mountain in the Twelfth Month." Xu Yan said. "Elder Cheng's exact words were: sit and make this layer solid. Sitting is also cultivation."

Shao Ming nodded, walked to the door, and rested a hand on the frame. He looked back. "Last time I sat, people laughed at me."

"This time, sitting is a choice you made yourself."

"I know." He pulled the door shut.

Xu Yan picked up his brush and added a line to the Ledger: the thirteenth day of the Twelfth Month. Asked Shao Ming. Old poison cleared. Elder Cheng examined him; I looked as well. When he finished, he pressed the paper flat and let the ink dry.

The well-wishers kept coming all the way to the year's end. Every two or three days another group would arrive: a woman from Luoxia Town carrying a basket of mountain chestnuts, two Rogue Cultivators with sash bags over their shoulders standing in the front courtyard, cupping their fists, saying they'd stood under the eaves that day. Qian Duoduo ladled out a bowl of hot rice water for each of them. When they'd finished, they set the bowls on the threshold of the Main Hall and left. The bottoms of the bowls were still warm.

On the fifteenth, at Snake hour, the market was packed. By the third pillar against the wall, the pot had just been uncovered. Steam rose to the old tile eaves and folded back down onto people's faces.

Lu Shoutian pushed out of the crowd and stood in front of the stall, hands tucked into his sleeves. "One bowl."

Qian Duoduo ladled one out and handed it over. "Market Chief isn't doing rounds today?"

"Doing them." Lu Shoutian took a sip. "After this bowl." He pointed with his chin at the pot. "Shift it back half a foot. Don't leave it sitting in the middle of the road."

Qian Duoduo laughed and nudged the pot back. Two Rogue Cultivators who'd come for the market squatted by the stall, eating and asking questions. "That one on the mountain really broke through to Foundation Establishment? The one who tried ten times?"

"He broke through," A He said. "Sat a whole day."

"They say it was the eleventh try."

"Eleventh." A Sui counted the empty bottles standing in the basket again.

Lu Shoutian turned his bowl half a circle in his hands. "The whole town's talking about that one of yours on the mountain."

"Uncle Shao?" A He said eagerly.

"The one who sat for a day." Lu Shoutian said. "I was standing under the eaves that day too. Didn't say a word."

Qian Duoduo laughed. "You did. You told that person below to shut up."

Lu Shoutian coughed and pulled two Spirit Stones from his robe, setting them on the stall board. "One bowl, two stones."

He finished the spirit meal, wiped his mouth, and said, "That Linchuan man who bet two stones? He went back to Linchuan the day before yesterday. Before leaving he was in the wine shop saying that round didn't count. Says he'll come back in the spring." He gathered his sleeves and went off to chase away a peddler whose carrying pole was blocking the intersection.

The Qi-Gathering Powder sold out by Wei hour, and people still came asking. Qian Duoduo shook his head and said next market day. Shi Po carried the sack of spirit rice the grain shop had delivered up to the Market Entrance and squatted by the wall, waiting to head back to the mountain together.

On the sixteenth, at Snake hour, the snow at the Mountain Gate had been swept into two piles, one taller than the other. Sun Youfu came up the ten-li mountain road, the hem of his padded robe soaked through, two paper packets clutched to his chest.

Bai Xiaoman was in the front courtyard arranging her five pebbles. She looked up and saw him, hand freezing in mid-air.

"Xiaoman," Sun Youfu said.

"Shopkeeper." She swept the pebbles into her sleeve and stood up.

"I'm not here to drag you back." He held out the two packets. "One pack of red dates, one of Astragalus Root. For congratulations."

Bai Xiaoman didn't take them. She turned sideways and pointed west. "The Medicine Hall is this way. If you want to look, I'll show you."

Sun Youfu followed her. The Medicine Hall door stood open. The herb cabinet was filled shelf by shelf, herb dregs dried on a bamboo tray, and the alchemy furnace that had once brewed the antidote sat cold, its mouth polished bright.

He stopped in front of the herb cabinet and looked from the bottom shelf upward. "How are these herbs arranged?"

"I arranged them." Bai Xiaoman said. "By the Five Elements."

"That's not how a medicine shop does it."

"A medicine shop arranges by price."

Sun Youfu gave a short laugh and didn't answer. He squatted by the bamboo tray, pinched a bit of the dregs between his fingers, and brought it to his nose. "What are you drying these dregs for?"

"They belong to the Medicine Hall." Cheng Banshan came out from the inner room, his empty sleeve tucked into his belt, one hand carrying a furnace hook. "You've hit on something."

Sun Youfu straightened up and waited.

"Not telling."

Sun Youfu wasn't offended. He set the two packets on the table. "Not asking for free. The red dates are the best pack in town, and I picked the Astragalus Roots one by one. And those ten pills the mountain produced—were they also brewed by Elder Cheng's hand?"

"The pills this hand brews don't go into shops." Cheng Banshan leaned the furnace hook against the table edge and moved the packets to the inner side. "Gifts accepted. No meal offered."

"I'm not here for a meal." Sun Youfu glanced back at the herb cabinet. "Just came to look." At the door he stopped and said to Bai Xiaoman, "The book at my counter still hasn't been swapped out. That copy you made—not a single error."

"Third page has one." Bai Xiaoman said. "Aged Herbs at Fresh Price."

The faint smile on Sun Youfu's face receded. He tucked his hands into his sleeves and went slowly down the steps. Halfway down the slope he looked back once at the window paper of the Medicine Hall.

Xu Yan had been standing under the eaves outside the Medicine Hall the whole time, silent. Once the man was down the mountain, he asked, "Still remember?"

"I remember." Bai Xiaoman said. "I remember his books better than he does."

The market on the twenty-fifth went as usual—sold out. Xu Yan bought the First Month rations at the grain shop for fifty stones: two sacks of spirit rice, one of coarse grain, and had Shi Po carry them. At the butcher's stall he asked for a cut with skin on, wrapped it in paper, along with a stack of red paper and a string of firecrackers. This trip cost silver—two taels.

"How do we cook this meat?" Qian Duoduo asked, hugging the package.

"Stew it." Xu Yan said. "Stew it twice. Keep the broth from the first round for noodles."

"There's still those few jin of mountain chestnuts stored up on the mountain."

"Put them in on the thirtieth."

"The firecrackers?"

"Hang them from the beam in the Kitchen. If they get damp, they won't pop."

Back on the mountain, Xu Yan cut the red paper into strips. A Sui asked for the narrowest strip, wrote her name on it with a charcoal stick, and ran off to paste it on the door of the Low Hut by the Mountain Gate. Nie Bo was sweeping the snow in front of the door. He stopped his broom and looked at the paper. A Sui ran off the moment she'd pasted it, only turning back when she was halfway down the slope.

The thirtieth day of the Twelfth Month—no stall. Before dark, Shi Po swept the front courtyard, clearing a space wider than the path. A He hauled out a bamboo pole. Jiang Wan took the firecrackers down from the beam, looked them over, and handed them to Shi Po. "Go set them off farther away."

At Dog hour the firecrackers popped. A chunk of snow slid from the eaves and landed dead center in the front courtyard. A Sui covered her ears and hid behind the door, then poked her head out after the second crack.

In the Main Hall, two tables were pushed into one. On the tabletop: a pot of stewed pork, a pot of spirit meal, a basin of stir-fried dried mushrooms, a pot of coarse grain rice. Qian Duoduo shelled a small bowl of mountain chestnuts and scattered them over the pork.

Jiang Wan took off her sword before coming in and hung it on the nail behind the door.

Qian Duoduo set out thirteen pairs of chopsticks.

A Sui filled a bowl of rice first, pressed two pieces of skin-on pork on top, and carried it outside. At the door of the Low Hut by the Mountain Gate, Nie Bo's broom leaned against the wall. He stood under the eaves. She set the bowl on the stone step. "Uncle Nie, time to eat."

Nie Bo stopped what he was doing and looked at the bowl. A Sui ran back. At the threshold she turned to look once more before sitting down.

Xu Yan counted the people around the table: twelve, himself included.

Cheng Banshan uncorked his gourd and let the wine smell spread. He was the first to pour, half a bowl for Shao Ming. "Three months of no fighting. Nobody said no drinking."

"Then it's not breaking the rule." Shao Ming drained it and showed him the bottom of the bowl.

"Shao Ming," Cheng Banshan said, recorking the gourd, "when was the last year you sat for New Year's Eve?"

Shao Ming thought for a while. "Can't remember. One year an innkeeper gave me a bowl of noodles."

The table went quiet. Qian Duoduo hurriedly stood to add more rice, saying as he did, "Half the rice moved in the Kitchen these past two weeks was carried by Uncle Shao."

"Rice isn't heavy." Shao Ming said. "The sitting was the hard part."

"Uncle Shao," A He asked, chopsticks between his teeth, "can you fly now?"

"No." Shao Ming said. "I sit."

The table laughed. Even Huo Qing's mouth twitched. He ate with his left hand, his bowl set where his right couldn't reach. He didn't eat fast, but he went back for seconds and gathered up the empty bowls scattered on the table, carrying them toward the Kitchen door.

Shi Po ate three bowls. On the fourth, he caught Qian Duoduo glaring and set down the ladle.

"The Sect Master should say a few words," Qian Duoduo said when he came back.

Xu Yan set down his bowl. "Eat. If the food gets cold we'll have to reheat it, and reheating costs firewood."

The table laughed again. When it died down, he raised his rice water. "The meat on this table tonight was earned by the mountain. Nobody's eating for free."

In past years, the Main Hall had this same table. Fang Henian sat at the north end, gave the twins the best cuts of meat, and drank only soup himself. Xu Yan didn't say it. He swallowed the thought and took a sip of rice water.

Jiang Wan waited for the laughter to stop, looked around the table, and spoke. "Next year this table won't be big enough."

"Then make two pots," Qian Duoduo said.

"Three pots," Shi Po said.

A He laughed so hard he spilled rice water on the table. Bai Xiaoman reached over to steady his bowl, the two of them crowding together.

A Sui pressed the last piece of meat in her bowl down under the rice. She didn't say who she was saving it for.

Before Hai hour, the Accounts Room.

Xu Yan lit the lamp and spread open the Ledger. Three markets in this half-month, sixty-five stones income each time. On the twenty-fifth, First Month rations: fifty stones out. New Year goods came from silver—two taels. Line by line, he calculated: Spirit Stones, 1,510. Silver, ten taels. Half a dan of charcoal still by the Medicine Hall's back wall. The First Month rations were in the Kitchen, and from the Kitchen beam hung a string of firecrackers, already spent.

One line further down, he wrote: Sixty-three days until the third day of the Third Month.

After writing that line, the brush hovered over the paper. He flipped to the roster page at the front and touched his finger to each of the ten names, one by one. The last was Du Xiaochuan.

At the corner of the desk lay the remaining half-sheet from cutting the red paper, its edge uneven. He pulled it over and smoothed it flat, dipped the brush again, and wrote on the first line:

The tenth day of the First Month, regulations.

When he finished, he read it through once from beginning to end and pressed the red paper beneath the Ledger. The corner kept curling up. He pressed it flat twice before it stayed.

Outside the window came scattered firecrackers from the town below the mountain. The Ledger lay against his chest, silent all night.