Chapter 99: First Through the Gate

The ten-li mountain road below the sect gate still held ice on the shaded half. Xu Yan shifted the oilcloth bundle to the inner side of his chest and pressed it through two layers of clothing: the roster was there, the ledger too, knocking against his ribs with every step.

Behind him, Qi Qi's feet crunched in a broken rhythm—half a foot down, then the other half. "Doesn't it hurt, knocking like that?"

"It hurts. Better than losing it on the road."

"Who'd dare take your books." Qi Qi moved around to the front. "I'll go first. The cliff's on the inside, and all the ice is on that side."

The dark had closed in until only the road beneath their feet remained. Qi Qi tested each step with the ball of his foot, shifted half a step once he was sure, and Xu Yan followed his footprints. Halfway down, the second cockcrow sounded from below, and a gray-white pallor crept over the horizon. Frost on the roadside dead grass melted to water, soaking the hems of their trousers, clinging cold to their ankles.

They reached Luoxia Town at the start of Mao hour. The carriage yard's gate was already open, a mule cart hitched outside, the mule blowing twin streams of white breath. The carter wiped his face on the cart shaft and came down to take their bundles.

Xu Yan felt out four Low-grade Spirit Stones and set them in his palm. "Round trip."

The carter counted them, tucked them into his waistband. "Back on the seventeenth?"

"Seventeenth." Xu Yan said. "On the sixteenth, at Horse hour, send someone to the carriage yard to give word."

"One word and I'll hold the cart for you." The carter tossed the reins onto the cart and climbed up first. "Eighty li, five double-hours. Sit front or back, doesn't matter—just the two of you."

The cart had two rows, each seating three abreast, empty enough to lie across. Qi Qi wedged the dry rations bundle behind his lower back and folded his arms.

"Sect Master." He spoke up suddenly. "Ten names on the roster, and yours isn't one of them. You bring the roster to register, will they even accept it?"

"The rules require the sect master to bring a paper roster and register five from the Ratings Register." Xu Yan said. "It doesn't say the sect master has to be on the roster himself."

Qi Qi thought about it. "So you take us there, but you can't go up."

"I can't." Xu Yan's answer was flat. "And no one can stand in. The rules state: after registration, no changes, no substitutes."

Qi Qi leaned back against the rear seat and didn't ask again.

Along the Official Road, the fields had already been harvested through the winter, wheat stubble showing through white frost. Two grain carts came from the opposite direction, the carters shouted, and they passed each other. The mule kept its unhurried pace, wheels clattering over frozen earth the whole way.

At Monkey hour, the cart stopped at the carriage yard outside Linchuan City. A dozen hitching posts stood against the wall, old straw heaped at their bases. The carter handed down their bundles: "Seventeenth, Mao hour. I'll be waiting here."

The two of them walked into the city carrying their ration bundles. The wind through the gate arch was stronger than outside; old red paper on the walls had faded to a pale pink. From the carriage yard to the Market was a little under half an hour. At the alley mouth, the wooden sign still hung there, its characters worn illegible.

The innkeeper looked up from behind the counter. "Stayed here before."

"One room." Xu Yan said. "One night, two stones."

"Upstairs, second door on the right, two plank beds." The innkeeper carried up a pot of hot water, set it on the table, and didn't mention payment.

Xu Yan thanked him and undid his bundle. Qi Qi broke the flatbread into small pieces, dropped them in a bowl, poured hot water over, and pressed them down with chopsticks to soften. The room was quiet—just the sound of soaking bread and a door closing downstairs.

"This bread's hard." Qi Qi said.

"Soak it." Xu Yan said. "Back on the mountain, I'll have the kitchen cook something hot."

After eating, Xu Yan spread the oilcloth bundle on the inner plank bed and opened it corner by corner. By lamplight he paged through the roster from front to back: the paper hadn't dampened, the ink hadn't bled. At the pages with names, he paused, didn't look long, closed it, wrapped it tight again, and set it where he could reach it with one hand.

The lamp went out. Qi Qi turned over twice on his bed, took off one shoe, put it back on.

Before Chen hour on the sixteenth day of the First Month, they stood beneath the Branch gate tower. The gate wasn't fully open yet; a clerk was taking down the door panels one by one and leaning them against the wall, and with each panel removed, the lamplight from inside widened.

"Registration." Xu Yan said.

The clerk stepped aside. "Market Office, inner room. First through the gate. You're early."

Inside, two long tables had been pushed together in the Market Office, a thick register spread open on top, the lamp still burning. Another clerk sat behind the table, brush in hand, looking up at them.

Xu Yan set the oilcloth bundle on the table, opened it layer by layer, and slid the roster across.

"Paper roster." The first clerk flipped through it page by page to where the writing began, pressing a finger down. "Ten names."

The second clerk turned the thick register to its middle and held a page down. "The ninth day of the Ninth Month, Alliance Year 300. Qingya." Pinned to that page were ten thin slips of paper, each bearing a name written by its owner.

The two clerks cross-checked across the table. One read a name aloud and tapped the roster; the other picked up the corresponding thin slip, examined it, nodded, and the next name was read.

Xu Yan stood on this side of the table, looking at those slips. Shi Po's characters were crowded together, crooked; Huo Qing's all slanted right; A Sui's strokes were large and loose, the last one trailing out of its box.

When all ten names had been matched, the first clerk closed the roster and pushed it back. "Everything checks against the Ratings Register. Which five are you entering?"

Xu Yan set the roster aside and pulled from his chest a half-sheet of paper folded in quarters. He unfolded it and read from it: "Jiang Wan, Huo Qing, Shi Po, Bai Xiaoman, Qi Qi."

The clerk's brush hovered over the paper. "After registration, no changes. After the deadline, no additions. If one can't compete, that round is forfeit."

"No changes."

The clerk wrote, head down. At the rank box, his brush paused. "Ninth Rank."

Xu Yan watched "Ninth Rank" land on the paper and said nothing.

When finished, the clerk turned the paper around and pushed it toward him: sect, rank, sect master, five Registered Disciples, and the date at the bottom. Xu Yan read it through and saw his own name written under "Sect Master."

"The seal." The clerk brought the seal box over from the corner of the table, lifted the lid, pressed the Branch seal onto the paper, raised it, and blew twice. A bit of red paste had sunk into the paper's grain, bleeding slightly.

"Keep the slip safe. If you lose it, it won't be replaced." The clerk said. "Registration closes on the twenty-fifth day of the First Month. Within four days after, if anyone raises an objection, the Branch sends a copy to your mountain, and the named person must appear in person."

Xu Yan took the Entry Slip. The ink wasn't dry.

He stepped aside, rewrapped the roster in the oilcloth, tucked it against his chest, then held the slip flat on his palm, unfolded. A line was already forming behind them—a middle-aged man in a faded gray-green robe stepped forward, set his own roster on the table, and glanced at Xu Yan's hand.

"Qingya?"

"Yeah."

"First in line." The man said. "That business with the boundary stele on the ridge in the Tenth Month—our team lead came back and told us about it."

"Measured by the rules." Xu Yan said.

The man nodded, said no more, and bent over his own roster.

There was a covered walkway outside the Market Office. Xu Yan stood beneath it waiting for the seal to dry, sunlight slanting down from the eaves, the red slowly deepening on the paper. Qi Qi came over quickly from the far end of the corridor.

"The gate's locked."

"Which gate?"

"Martial Arena." Qi Qi said. "New lock, iron-colored, no rust on the clasp. I walked the perimeter—the wall's half a head taller than our courtyard wall. From the top you can see the viewing stand: wooden eaves, four pillars, an old lantern hanging from the eave corner, its rope bleached white by the sun."

Xu Yan nodded. "As long as we can see it."

"When does the gate open?"

"The nineteenth day of the Second Month—the day of the draw."

Qi Qi grunted to show he'd noted it, his eyes still turned toward the east side of town.

Xu Yan folded the slip in two and tucked it against his chest. Forty-seven days until the third day of the Third Month. He did the math and set it aside in his mind; he didn't write it in the ledger.

At Horse hour, Qi Qi went out of the city, down to the carriage yard to tell them: seventeenth, Mao hour, two people returning. He came back with two lengths of straw rope, said there was old rope piled by the yard's edge and he'd asked for it—good for padding the ration bundles.

In the afternoon they made a pass through the Market. At the alley mouth, someone had set up a pot selling hot noodle soup, white steam billowing. Qi Qi stopped after half a step, sniffed, and hugged his ration bundle tighter.

"Hot food when we're back on the mountain." Xu Yan said.

"I know." Qi Qi caught up, eyes pulled away from the pot.

The Chixiao shopfront was half-open. Cui Guang stood on the threshold, hands clasped behind his back, watching them walk up and then watching them walk past, wordless. Three empty baskets sat at the shop's entrance, bottoms up, airing in the sun.

Xu Yan had walked two streets before he realized he'd counted those three baskets. An Accounts Room habit. He didn't turn back for a second look.

At Dog hour, the lamp was lit again. Xu Yan spread the Entry Slip on the plank bed, five names in neat boxes, the writing precise. From his chest he took the small pocket ledger he carried and turned to two blank pages at the back, recording a line each: the five names, the date on the slip, the Branch seal. He wrote smaller than usual, worried about space.

Qi Qi lay on the other bed, shoes still on. "First through the gate."

"First through the gate doesn't mean one extra round." Xu Yan said.

"Still." Qi Qi tucked his hands behind his head. "Of every Ninth to Seventh Rank sect in Dongzhou, we were the first to hold the slip in hand."

"The slip's in hand. The ranking isn't." Xu Yan spun the brush shaft half a turn between his fingers. "The clerk said registration closes the twenty-fifth day of the First Month. Four days after that, anyone can raise an objection."

Qi Qi rolled over. "Who'd object?"

"I don't know." Xu Yan said. "We'll deal with it when it comes. Sleep."

The lamp went out.

At Mao hour on the seventeenth, before first light, they settled the room: two nights, four stones. The innkeeper brightened the lamp, counted them one by one, drew the bolt, and let them out.

The mule cart was already waiting at the carriage yard. The carter flicked the reins. "Back?"

"Back."

They reached Luoxia Town at Monkey hour. The cart stopped at the town gate—the round-trip fare had been paid on the fifteenth, so nothing was owed for this leg. From the town gate they walked up the mountain, entering the sect gate at You hour, just as smoke began rising from the Kitchen.

No lamp was lit in the Ancestral Hall. Xu Yan took out the oilcloth bundle, lifted the wooden box's lid, put the roster back inside, closed it, and pushed it under the Offering Table—the floor there was uneven, and it stuck halfway; he pulled it back slightly and pushed again before it slid flush to the wall.

Qian Duoduo was waiting in the Accounts Room, a kitchen sack hugged to his chest. The moment Xu Yan walked in he untied the sack's mouth. "From the fifteenth market, all seventy stones in here. Spent five on Spirit Rice—I recorded it in the kitchen book."

Xu Yan sat and dumped the sack on the table, counting them out one by one: seventy stones, not one missing. He turned to the page in the ledger and wrote the entries: the fifteenth day of the First Month—income seventy stones, expenditure Spirit Rice five stones; cart fare four stones; two nights at the inn four stones. At the bottom, Balance on Hand: 1,632 stones.

When he'd written that, he took the Entry Slip from his chest and laid it over the page. The slip was a finger's width wider than the ledger; he folded it in, but a strip of white still showed at the edge.

Jiang Wan appeared at the doorway at some point, outer robe draped over her shoulders. "Submitted?"

"Submitted. First through the gate."

She made a small sound of acknowledgment, stood for a moment, then turned and went back to the East Courtyard.

Xu Yan dipped his brush in ink and wrote at the page's margin: Registration deadline, the twenty-fifth day of the First Month.

He closed the ledger. That strip of white still peeked from between the pages. He pressed twice, but it wouldn't stay tucked.