My Sect Is Down to Seven People

Chapter 72: Per the Dongzhou Boundary Map of the First Year of the Alliance

By the time the market broke up, only a thin film of rice water remained at the base of the third pillar along the wall. When the sun hit it, the ring of oil at its edge still glistened.

A Sui squatted, counting tally sticks. Shi Po had whittled them—wide at one end, pointed at the other—and she fed them one by one into a cloth sack. Each time the sack filled, she pressed down on its mouth, and when she finished counting she looked up and said: ”Forty. Not one more, not one less.”

Qian Duoduo flipped the empty pot into a basket, tapped it twice against the bottom to knock out the last drops of broth, and tipped them into his mouth, his tongue sweeping around his lips. Du Xiaochuan untied the stones weighting the four corners of the stall cloth, rolled the cloth into a bundle, and bound it with rope.

Qi Qi stacked the spirit stones in piles of ten at the bottom of the basket—eleven stacks—and covered them with cloth. He never needed to count twice when it came to what had sold out in a single fair: two pots of spirit meals, ten bottles of Qi-Gathering Powder. Sold out meant one hundred and ten stones, and he could spot a single missing stone at a glance.

After closing the stall, Qi Qi circled around to Uncle Wangʼs courtyard gate. Wang Shuan was splitting firewood in the yard, his axe raised halfway, when he heard the full account of what had been found on the ridge: the weir built just below the spring, the newly dug channel, the water running east.

Wang Shuan set the axe down. ”Whereʼs the weir?”

”Below the spring. Follow the stream upstream.”

Wang Shuan cast a glance eastward—but the glance landed on his own courtyard wall, not on the ridge. ”Then I canʼt go up there.” He picked the axe back up and struck twice more, wood chips flying onto his shoes. ”What does Sect Master Xu plan to do?”

”No word yet,” Qi Qi said.

Wang Shuan grunted and went back to splitting.

At the Monkey hour, Qi Qi returned to the mountain and reported the dayʼs money and the dayʼs talk in full: one hundred and ten in income; the grain shop weighed out two potsʼ worth of spirit rice for ten; balance on hand, two hundred ninety-two. Xu Yan entered a line in the ledger, the brush tip stopping cleanly on ”292.”

On the twenty-sixth, at the Dragon hour, the Accounts Room door stood open. Bai Xiaoman sat at the far end of the desk recording the silver ledger, her brush dragging a small tail after the characters for ”twelve taels.” She lifted it and blew on the wet ink.

Xu Yan lifted the account books down from the shelf and turned to the middle, drawing the land deed from between two pages. The paper had been folded twice, into quarters, the creases gone soft with wear and faintly springy to the touch. He smoothed each crease flat with the pad of his finger and read the lines down, coming to the boundaries entry.

”East to the boundary stele on the ridge, eighteen li from the mountain gate, per the Dongzhou Boundary Map of the First Year of the Alliance.”

He read it very quietly. When he finished, he went back and read that line from the beginning again.

”Per” meant: to hold that as the standard. The other three boundaries were set out in terms of things that stood on the ground—where the boundary stones lay, where the gully ran; you could walk out and see them. Only this one eastern boundary possessed a map attached after it.

Qingya did not have this map. He had gone through the boxes and crates in the Accounts Room twice a year, run his hands over stack after stack of old ledgers—no scroll in any of them was this thing. He had gone into the Old Storehouse twice this year, and there was nothing there either. The Old Sect Master could name the price of firewood from three years back in a single breath, yet he had never once mentioned a boundary map.

He remembered the sequence from that day in September: the clerk had carried in a wooden box. The first thing lifted out was the file copy of the debt notice; what lay pressed at the bottom of the box came out last—this land deed. The box was the Branchʼs box, the file copy was the Branchʼs file copy. The deeds, the maps, the files of Dongzhou—all of them were in that Branch office.

He ran the account through his mind: Luoxia to Linchuan by the official road, eighty li; by mule cart, five two-hour periods; fare round trip, four spirit stones; an inn, two stones a night. Leaving at the Monkey hour meant arriving that same day, but the business could only be done the next day, so he would have to stay two nights.

Eight stones. He set that figure aside for now and did not keep calculating.

”What is the Sect Master looking at?” Bai Xiaoman asked.

”The boundaries.”

”Which boundary.”

”The east. It says: the mountain gate, eighteen li east, per the Dongzhou Boundary Map of the First Year of the Alliance.”

Bai Xiaoman set her brush on the inkstoneʼs rim. ”Where is the map?”

”We donʼt have it.”

”The First Year of the Alliance—three hundred years ago?”

”Three hundred years.”

”Packed in a Branch box for three hundred years,” she said. ”The paper shouldnʼt even be liftable anymore.”

”Unliftable or not, itʼs still a map.”

The sun had climbed onto the window paper. Cheng Banshan came over from the Medicine Hall, herb hoe in one hand, shook the soil from the blade, and leaned against the doorframe. ”Youʼve been staring at that one sheet since the Dragon hour. Still at it now.”

”This eastern boundary—thereʼs a map hanging behind it,” Xu Yan said. ”Qingya doesnʼt have it.”

”Thirty-some years Iʼve been on this mountain, and Iʼve never heard of any map.” Cheng Banshan set the hoe upright against the wall. ”The Old Sect Master never even said where the boundary stele stands. Heʼd talk about anything—get him going on the price of rice in any given year and heʼd talk till dark—but this kind of thing, he didnʼt touch.”

”He didnʼt say it. Itʼs written on the paper.”

Cheng Banshan glanced at the paper. ”Written on the paper—and someoneʼs still got to give you the paper. That Branch box has a lock on it, and locks are for people who follow the rules.”

”So we go by the rules and ask.”

”Asking costs a few stones.”

”Four for the cart, four for two nights at the inn, one for the half-load of firewood owed to the neighboring stall along the way. Nine.”

Cheng Banshan unhooked the wine gourd from his waist, hefted it, and hung it back. ”Nine stones to buy one sentence—cheap. If they wonʼt even give you the sentence, then it gets expensive.”

On the twenty-seventh at the Dragon hour, Bai Xiaoman moved the running ledgers to one end of the long table and began copying, stroke by stroke, into a fresh book, her mouth silent, her hand never stopping. She had copied the counter ledger at Huichun Hall once and had done it faster than the proprietor himself could recite; by the third page her eyes were already on the next line.

”The boundaries entry,” Xu Yan said. ”Make a separate copy.”

”Including the word ʼperʼ—copy it exactly.”

”Exactly. Donʼt change a single character.”

Bai Xiaoman pulled over a fresh sheet, first pressed a line into the paperʼs edge with her fingernail, laid the deed at her left hand, and set the brush down. When she reached the eastern boundary line, the brush paused. ”Eighteen li—measured from where to where?”

”From the mountain gate to the boundary stele. Eastward.”

”Who measured it?”

”The Branchʼs people, the year the deed was drawn. Not us.”

She finished copying ”per the Dongzhou Boundary Map of the First Year of the Alliance,” the brush tip stopping on the last word. She lifted the sheet and held it up beside the deed to compare. ”What weʼve copied is just a piece of paper. The actual line on the map—itʼs still in their box.”

”The deed is words; the map is lines.” Xu Yan said. ”Words can bend around things. Lines canʼt. Make the copy, and when the day comes, read from it—donʼt misspeak.”

On the twenty-eighth, halfway through the copy, she crumpled a sheet. Xu Yan drew the crumpled paper out from under her hand and smoothed it flat: in the last few characters of the eastern boundary line, one word was missing—the ”per.” What remained read ”the Dongzhou Boundary Map of the First Year of the Alliance.” It still made sense when read aloud, but the most crucial part was gone. Bai Xiaoman looked at the spot where she had missed it, her ears flushing red: this was the very sheet she herself had said she would copy exactly. She refilled her brush and took a fresh sheet. ”Copying again.”

It was finished on the twenty-ninth at the Monkey hour. Two people checked it twice: once, she read aloud from ”East to” on down while Xu Yan followed character by character; once, they went the other way, from the last character back up, one going forward, one going back—any error would have meant a collision. Two passes, and not a single character was off.

The deed was folded twice as before and slipped back between the two pages of the ledger. The copy was wrapped separately in a sheet of old paper and pushed into the innermost compartment. Bai Xiaoman pressed her hand against the compartmentʼs edge once before letting go.

September 30, Mao hour market, Xu Yan went down the mountain with them.

Shi Po sat at the kitchen door whittling tally sticks, his chopping knife laid across his knees, shaving each bamboo slip smooth and flat. Each finished stick he tossed into a basket, where a layer already covered the bottom. A Sui squatted by the basket counting, and when she reached twenty, she started over. Cheng Banshan came out of the Medicine Hall and glanced over. All he said was: ”Wash your hands when youʼre done.”

The market sold out as usual. At the Horse hourʼs end they reached the grain shop: two pots of spirit rice for ten stones, one sack of coarse grain for ten. The shop hand wrapped it in an old sheet of paper, one corner still printed with the pre-harvest price. Qi Qi came back from the cart office and reported word for word: all the carts on the first had been chartered by the grain shop to haul the autumn grain to Linchuan—not one left. The earliest available was the Mao hour on the second. He had booked it: fare four stones round trip, payable the day of departure.

Back on the mountain at the Monkey hour, the entry was made: September 30—income one hundred and ten; expenditure, spirit rice two pots, ten; coarse grain one sack, ten. Balance on hand: three hundred eighty-two. In the silver ledger, still twelve taels. Bai Xiaoman turned that page over to show Xu Yan: not one tael touched all month.

At the Dog hour, the lamps were lit in the Main Hall. All thirteen were present.

”At the Yin hour on the second,” Xu Yan said, ”Qi Qi and I go down the mountain. We board the Luoxia cart at the Mao hour, arrive in Linchuan at the Monkey hour, and stay two nights. On the third, at the Dragon hour, we submit a petition at the Branch office; on the fourth, at the Mao hour, we board the cart and return.”

He laid out the two points the petition would set in writing: someone had built a weir below the ridge spring; the stream had been diverted through a new channel east of the weir, flowing east, and Qingyaʼs fields had lost their water on September 22. And he would quote the boundaries entry from the deed, requesting the Branch to retrieve the Dongzhou Boundary Map of the First Year of the Alliance.

”Along the way,” he said, ”the one stone owed to the neighboring stall in East Row Three for the half-load of firewood—weʼll return it.”

The nine stones would be taken from the Accounts Room cash box, and every one accounted for upon return. He didnʼt say this aloud; Bai Xiaoman had already pressed a sheet of paper flat on the desk.

”Who writes the petition?” Cheng Banshan asked.

”I do.”

”Write it clearly. Where the weir is, where the water goes. Write what you saw and nothing else. If you didnʼt see it, donʼt add a single character.”

”Mhm.”

Shao Ming pressed his hands against his knees. ”Iʼll go too.”

”The mountain needs people,” Xu Yan said. ”The twinsʼ Mao hour lesson is in your hands, and the firewood too. Someone also has to keep an eye on Shi Po so he doesnʼt go hauling loads.”

”Then Iʼll stay,” Shao Ming said. ”You donʼt know the roads in Linchuan. Qi Qi does.”

Du Xiaochuan looked up from beside the door. ”The Branch receives petitions by first entering them in their register. Once itʼs in the register, they have to give an answer—that register of theirs, nobody can tear a page out of the back.”

”Noted,” Xu Yan said.

Huo Qing sat near the door, his left hand on his knee, and had not spoken the whole time. Now Qian Duoduo cut in: ”The shop diagonally across from East Row Three is Chixiaoʼs. The managerʼs surnamed Cui. Green robe.”

”We go to the office, and in East Row Three we only return the firewood money,” Xu Yan said. ”Once itʼs returned, we leave. We donʼt linger in front of the stall.”

”While Iʼm gone these two days, Senior Sister watches the mountain.” He looked out past the lamplight. ”For the market on the fifth, Qian Duoduo leads.”

”Iʼll lead,” Qian Duoduo said.

”How many days will you be gone?” A Sui asked.

”Two. Back on the fourth.”

Jiang Wan propped her sword against the table leg and said only: ”Mao hour, the second.”

After everyone dispersed, he returned to the Accounts Room and pulled out the winter-supplies slip. Of the five items, only charcoal remained—still blank, never crossed off. At the bottom he added two small lines: Second, Linchuan, cart fare four, round trip; inn, two per night. He calculated once more: cart four, two nights four, firewood one. Nine. A sold-out market brought in one hundred and ten; this trip would take less than a tenth of it.

There was not a single mention of water anywhere on the slip. Water cost nothing. The trip to demand water would cost nine.

At the Hai hour he went out carrying the lamp. The courtyard was dark; where the lamplight fell, grass grew in the cracks between the bricks, the blade tips holding white dew. He walked to the Mountain Gate. The eastern slope was a darkness without boundary; the stele eighteen li away gave not even a shadow.

Jiang Wan sat on the steps holding her sword, seated on the topmost step, the empty gate arch behind her.

”You leave on the second,” she said. ”Iʼll watch the gate.”

”Good.”

He raised the lamp a little, and the light fell on the scabbard of the sword against her knee.

”Hold the lamp steady,” she said. ”And donʼt fold the deed a third time. If it tears, the paper wonʼt have that sentence anymore.”

”Mm.”

He carried the lamp back across the courtyard. The light entered the Accounts Room and settled on the desk, where the paper glowed and the corner of that stack of old ledgers pressed down on the newly copied sheet.