My Sect Is Down to Seven People

Chapter 26: The East Wall Hidden Cavity, Second Compartment

The old storehouse door had a stiff hinge; you had to lift up on it before you pushed. The moment it opened, dust poured down from the beams and settled over both of them.

Bai Xiaoman stepped back half a pace and waved a hand in front of her nose.

”Smells of mildew,” she said. ”And thereʼs rat droppings under the crates.”

Xu Yan went in first. His foot came down and the dust rolled away to either side, leaving a clear shoe print. He crouched and pressed a finger into the lid of a crate. His knuckle sank in halfway.

”One finger,” he said.

”One finger of what?”

”Dust.”

She rolled her sleeves up to her elbows and followed him in, counting as she walked. ”Seven lanterns, two of them still have paper. Two empty crates. One drum, half the skin torn away. Three curtains, two of them rotted from the hem up to the waist.” She stopped in front of the pile and looked back at him. ”Things we can use go on the east side; things to break down for material on the other. Split it that way?”

”Split it.”

They cleared out the eastern half of the room, and soon there were two small piles. Whenever the dust stirred, it drifted through the air, and the sunlight slanting in through the doorway caught every mote.

”Everything in this room is older than that stack of old ledgers in the Accounts Room.” Bai Xiaoman shook out one of the curtains and stepped back, covering her nose. ”The curtainʼs got frozen water stains, line after line. All water.”

”Take the curtain apart; the hemp can be twisted into rope,” Xu Yan said.

”Wonʼt sell for much.” She crouched down and turned the lanterns over one by one. ”Seven lanterns, seven pairs of bronze hooks. Pull the hooks off and sell them as scrap bronze in town. Wonʼt get much per pair, but weighed together theyʼll bring a few coppers.”

”Write it down.”

She took the little ledger out of her clothes, opened it to a page, and pressed a mark into the paper with her thumbnail. ”Seven lanterns, seven pairs of bronze hooks. Iʼll write it up later.”

They turned the two crates inside out. One held three pairs of ruined shoes; the other was half full of paper that had rotted to mush, crumbling to powder at the slightest pinch. Xu Yan didnʼt throw it all out. He pulled out the few pages where the writing could still be made out, spread them on his knee, read one line, set it down, drew out another.

”What is it?” Bai Xiaoman asked.

”Incense money,” he said. ”From the Founding Patriarchʼs time. One page per year, and it stops after only a few pages.”

”Stops.”

”No writing after that.”

Bai Xiaoman came over for a look, then arranged the salvaged pages by year, squared the edges, and stacked them into a neat pile.

”The Patriarch kept it up for only a few pages and then stopped,” she said. ”We canʼt even fill a page a year now.”

”Thatʼs why weʼre short on money.”

”Short on money and still keeping a record of incense offerings. The Patriarch was a strange one.” She tucked the stack away in the corner of the crate. ”Donʼt break these down. Keep them in the crate.”

”Stand that drum up,” Xu Yan said.

The drum lay on its side in the corner, skin-down. Bai Xiaoman gripped the rim and lifted. Something shifted inside the drum body with a thump, sliding to the bottom.

She stopped, held the drum with both hands, and shook it. Another noise, dull this time, not sharp.

”Thereʼs something inside,” she said.

Xu Yan came over to look. The drum skin was nailed to the wooden shell along the rim, and the nails were half rusted through. He went out of the storehouse and over to the kitchen, where he fetched the small iron awl heʼd borrowed the previous time, then crouched down and began prying at the nails. The rusted ones wouldnʼt budge. He worked two loose, and the drum skin sagged open along a seam. He reached inside and felt around until his fingers closed on a roll of something.

He drew it out: a roll of oiled paper so brittle that it flaked at the slightest bend.

”Did this drum ever get played, back in the day?” Bai Xiaoman asked.

”Iʼve been on this mountain ten years. Iʼve never heard it sound.”

The two of them spread the oiled paper out on a door panel and peeled it back layer by layer. Inside was a diagram. Half of it had rotted into brown pulp; a touch was all it took to crumble it. The remaining half was still legible.

The ink lines were fine, each stroke laid down with pressure. At the top were the layers of mountains behind Qingya. Below the mountains were drawn the compound walls: the Main Hall, the Ancestral Hall, the Kitchen, the Medicine Hall, all there, with the Mountain Gate facing south. Outside the Mountain Gate ran a line that didnʼt follow the walls at all; it traced along the ridge, past the Mountain Gate, past the Ancestral Hall, around to the north, and back down the west side.

In the corner of the diagram was a vermilion seal, more than half missing. All that remained of it was two lines.

Bai Xiaoman carried the diagram over to the light at the doorway.

”This is the Mountain Gate.” Her finger touched down on the page. ”This is where weʼre standing now.”

Her finger moved upward. Past the Ancestral Hall, into the back mountain. It stopped.

There, in the back mountain, a circle had been drawn.

Nothing was written inside the circle. She turned the page over; the back was blank. She bent close again. Along the circleʼs edge, a line ran downward, around to the east side—and broke off.

”It breaks off here,” she said.

”On the rotted half.”

She pressed her finger into the circle and kept it there for a long moment.

”I can recite that line from the old ledger by heart,” she said. ”Activate the formation, the formation rises at one corner. The formation stone has cracks, no money to repair it. The diagram has just this one circle, and nothing written in it.”

”Make a note of it.”

”The diagram has no number,” she said. ”A diagram without a number is hard to account for.”

”Then we donʼt account for it yet.” Xu Yan rolled up the half-diagram carefully. ”Letʼs eat first.”

The voice from the kitchen rang across the courtyard: ”Foodʼs ready—come get it before it goes cold—”

Noon, the Accounts Room. The half-diagram lay under the inkstone, with only the back-mountain corner showing. The sunlight on the desk had crept half a foot. Dust still drifted in the light.

Xu Yan opened the thin ledger. The page was blank.

”In the storehouse—is there anything on the study of formations?”

[Debit: Heritage 5 points, Storehouse: Five Elements Formation Manual, one roll, Old Storehouse East Wall Hidden Cavity, Second Compartment, recorded under Bai Xiaomanʼs name.]

[Balance: Heritage 8 points.]

He stared at the two lines. Five points.

When heʼd traded for the Vajra Pillar for Shi Po, it had cost four points. Back then, the balance had been eighteen; after the four, fourteen remained. This time was different: fourteen had already dropped by one to thirteen, and now five more out. Five points was enough to audit five peopleʼs accounts. A whole market day of sold-out spirit meals wouldnʼt cover a single point.

Eight points. Still seven names short on the roster. Eight points was enough for seven peopleʼs audits, leaving one over.

He set the two transactions side by side in his mind, weighed them until they balanced, and only then closed the ledger.

The little iron awl was still tucked into his belt. He went straight into the old storehouse. The three bricks heʼd pried out last time still sat at the base of the east wall, with a scrap of mat covering them. He pulled the mat aside. The niche behind the bricks was empty, but the smell of oilcloth still hung in the wall.

Counting northward, the fourth brick had dried mortar jammed into the seam, and it rang solid when tapped. He worked the awl tip into the crack and pried little by little. The brick shifted, then tilted outward and came free. The second and third came out easier. They hit the ground with a dull thud and kicked up a small puff of dust. He shook out his hand. Black grime filled his nail beds, and he didnʼt even notice the patch of skin scraped off the back of his hand.

The second cavity was shallower than the first. Inside was another roll of oilcloth, wrapped tighter than the last one had been. Inside the oilcloth was a roll of silk, shorter than the formation diagram, bound twice with hemp cord and tied off in a dead knot.

He didnʼt unwrap it in the storehouse. He carried it out to the courtyard and spread it on the stone steps, pinning the four corners with four pieces of gravel.

Last time, when heʼd read the pillar training to Shi Po, heʼd spread it out the same way.

The writing on the silk was sharper than on the formation diagram. The first line was larger than everything below. The body was divided into three sections, each beginning with a two-space indent.

He rolled the silk back up and retied the cord. Just as he finished, Bai Xiaoman came out of the kitchen with a bowl of rice, a pair of chopsticks clipped to the rim.

”Sect Master.” She stopped in the middle of the courtyard. ”Food.”

”Set it down.”

She put the bowl on the stone steps, her eyes falling on the roll in his hands.

Xu Yan held the silk out to her.

She didnʼt take it.

”What is it?”

”Something the Founding Patriarch left behind,” he said. ”A formation manual.”

”For me?”

”Itʼs recorded under your name.”

She wiped her hands on her clothes twice before she accepted it. The silk was cool to the touch, and when she unrolled it, it gave off the smell of old cloth packed away for years. The first line was bigger than the rest. She read it through from top to bottom, then spoke aloud:

”Those whose Five Elements are not complete may not study this.”

She finished reading and looked up at him.

Her finger stayed pressed on that line, the tip gone white.

”Everyone says I have a Five-Element Mixed Spirit Root,” she said. ”All five elements, but none refined. Would the person who wrote this call that incomplete—or complete?”

”Keep reading.”

”I stood behind the counter at Huichun Hall for three years. I couldnʼt compound a single packet of medicine without asking.” She stared down at the line. ”Iʼve had enough of this sentence to last me three years.”

”Keep reading,” Xu Yan said again.

She turned the page. She turned each page slowly. The silk was divided into three sections, each headed by small characters.

”Three chapters,” she reported. ”The first is breath cultivation. The second is laying a small formation. The third is activating the formation.”

”Which chapter do you understand?”

”The first. I recognize all the characters.” She paused. ”I just donʼt know where to put the five strands of spiritual energy. It says here, ʼThe Five Elements each return to their placeʼ—but it doesnʼt say where the place is.”

”And after that?”

”The second half—I wonʼt dare read it until you find the formation eye.”

Xu Yan relayed Cheng Banshanʼs words to her. ”Elder Cheng said that whoever activates the formation must have all Five Elements complete. If one is missing, that slot wonʼt respond. Having all five and having all five complete—the difference is in the word ʼcomplete.ʼ In forty years, no oneʼs managed to fill the gap.”

She read the first line of the silk again. Her lips moved but made no sound.

She rolled the silk up halfway, then unrolled it again, and suddenly stopped.

”Sect Master.”

”Hm.”

”How do you know I can learn this?”

Xu Yan straightened the awl at his belt, brushed the dust off his clothes with one hand.

”When you work the abacus,” he said, ”all five fingers move together.”

She looked down at her own hand.

”Thatʼs just working the abacus.”

”When the owner at Huichun Hall works the abacus, he uses one finger, column by column. Finishes one column, moves to the next.” Xu Yan said, ”Your five fingers each handle a column. You push up whole rows at a time.”

”Thatʼs just speed,” she said. ”Fast enough not to make mistakes.”

”I donʼt understand formations,” Xu Yan said. ”But on this mountain, the only thing that moves all at once is that pair of hands of yours.”

She crouched down, pulled the abacus out of her cloth bundle, and laid it across her knees. All five fingers came down together. A full row of beads slid up at once, clicking cleanly, all in line.

”Like this.”

”Like that.”

She rolled the formation manual up, stuffed it into her cloth bundle—abacus on one side, silk on the other. A corner of the silk stuck out. She pressed it down twice and couldnʼt get it to stay, so in the end she just gathered the bundle up and stood.

”Tomorrow at the Mao hour,” she said. ”Iʼll finish balancing Julyʼs accounts first.”

”Then study the formation.”

She carried the bundle toward the West Wing, stopped again in the middle of the courtyard, and looked back.

”If I canʼt learn it—I can still keep accounts.”

”Hm.”

She left. Xu Yan sat on the stone steps and ate the bowl of rice. At the bottom of the bowl was a small piece of scorched crust.

Back in the Accounts Room, he opened the ledger. Under the line for July 1—”Formation, one person”—he added a new entry: July 2, Formation Manual, one roll, Bai Xiaoman. When heʼd finished writing, he laid the brush back on the inkstone.