My Sect Is Down to Seven People

Chapter 90: Charcoal Marks on the Brick

On the twenty-third day of the eleventh month, at the Mao hour, the Medicine Hallʼs door was the first on the mountain to open.

The sky was still dark. A line of footprints crossed the snow in the front courtyard. Cheng Banshan tucked his empty sleeve into his belt, walked around to the back wall of the Medicine Hall, and lifted the straw mat covering the charcoal. Two shoulder-pole loads of charcoal were stacked against the wall. The snow-mist on top hadnʼt melted yet; to the touch, it was dry. He braced his one hand against the edge of the top basket and shifted it toward the door. The basketʼs base scraped dully against the threshold.

Du Xiaochuan came up from behind and reached out to take it. Cheng Banshan stopped him with a jerk of his chin. ”Stack it by the stove. Donʼt pile it high. Just within reach.”

Two stoves stood side by side inside the Medicine Hall. The one further in was for brewing Qi-Gathering Powder; it had been burning firewood these past days. The one near the door had once been used for boiling water and roasting herbs, and its firebox walls were caked with old black soot. Cheng Banshan took the fire tongs and scooped out the accumulated ash, filling half a dustpan. He dumped it onto the snow outside the door, where it melted a black patch the size of a palm.

The twenty-four Frost Bone Grass plants still lay on the worktable in three rows. He brought over the old wooden basin, filled the bottom with well water, and washed the roots one by one. When the water turned muddy, he changed it. He changed it three times. By the end, his sleeve was soaked halfway up. He bit the cuff, rolled it another turn up to the elbow, and kept working with only that one hand in the basin. The cleaned roots lay spread on a dry cloth, white and shining.

”Donʼt let soil from the roots get into the stove.” He spoke while washing, as if to Du Xiaochuan, or as if to himself. ”Once soil gets in, the bottom cakes over. One layer of cake and the fire wonʼt come up properly for three days.”

Then the knife. He used the back of the blade to line the roots up straight, then cut them piece by piece: roots into sections, stems into sections, leaves set aside separately. When he finished, the worktable held three neat little piles.

Xu Yan came in just as Cheng Banshan was lowering the first ingredient into the stove. The roots slid down the inner wall, the sound of water very soft.

”Eighty percent water.” Cheng Banshan listened to the stove with one ear, not turning around. ”Roots first, stems second, leaves last. Roots at the bottom, leaves on top, so the moisture spreads evenly.”

”Seven days,” Xu Yan said.

”Seven days. No opening the lid in the middle.”

”How many pills will come out?”

”Before the time is up, I donʼt ask about the count.”

The third ingredient went in, the lid closed, and the fire below was already blazing. Only then did Cheng Banshan turn around and set the fire tongs on the stove edge. The smell of herbs seeped through the seams of the stove—sweet at first, with bitterness pressing underneath.

”Put a vat of water by the door,” Xu Yan said.

Cheng Banshan looked up. ”Put it there. Fill it full. For these seven days, no one leaves the Medicine Hall unattended. The water stays right by the door.”

At the Chen hour, the Medicine Hall was full of people. Cheng Banshan wiped his hand on his trousers and pointed them out one by one.

”Xiaochuan, day shift. Mao hour to You hour.”

”Duoduo, night shift. You hour to Mao hour.”

”Iʼll sleep in the inner room and get up once every shichen to check.”

Shao Ming came in from the door and stood by the worktable. ”Elder Cheng, Iʼll keep the night watch.”

Cheng Banshan looked at him. ”Youʼll keep watch?”

”I canʼt sleep at night anyway.”

”If you canʼt sleep, then sit and watch the fire.” Cheng Banshan tucked his sleeve in again. ”Your own medicine, watched by yourself. Your hands shake.”

”My hands donʼt shake.”

”Your heart shakes.”

The Medicine Hall went quiet for a moment. Shao Ming said nothing more. He stepped back outside and stood there for a while. Then he turned and tossed a remark toward the inside: ”This medicine of mine—am I not even allowed to watch the fire?”

Cheng Banshan didnʼt turn around. ”Watch. Then go back and sleep. Donʼt come at night.”

Once Shao Ming had gone far enough, Cheng Banshan said quietly to Xu Yan, ”He can sit still. Sitting a whole night would be easy for him. But if he sits there, his eyes on the fire, his mind on that thing in his dantian—then no oneʼs watching the fire.”

By the firewood stove, Bai Xiaoman carried in an armload of wood. Cheng Banshan said to her, ”This firewood stove is yours for these seven days. During the day, keep your eyes on the stove mouth. At night, sleep in the outer room of the Medicine Hall.”

”At night—”

”Duoduo will keep watch and call you if more wood is needed.”

”Iʼll wake the moment Iʼm called.” Bai Xiaoman unloaded the wood in the corner, squatted down to poke the fire in the wood stove, poked twice. ”Then the Qi-Gathering Powder these days—”

”Keep producing as usual.” Cheng Banshan said, ”Those ten bottles for the market—not one less. Medicine is medicine. Merchandise is merchandise.”

Du Xiaochuan crouched on the brick floor by the stove, a charcoal stick in his hand. ”Elder Cheng, when should I add more?”

”When the fire burns white, too early. When it dims, turns red, add.” Cheng Banshan gestured at the stove mouth with his one hand. ”When the flames lean to one side, level them with the tongs. The lid stays shut. Open it and half the energy of the whole brewing escapes. Add two pieces of charcoal at a time—too many smothers it, too few and it collapses.”

Du Xiaochuan drew a line on the brick.

”Whatʼs that for?”

”One line per shichen. When itʼs time to hand over the stove, Iʼll know how much has burned.”

Cheng Banshan looked at that line but said nothing. He lifted the curtain and went into the inner room.

The first day was the quietest. The only sound in the Medicine Hall was that sound inside the firebox, the flames licking up the walls, wave after wave, neither high nor low. By afternoon, Du Xiaochuan heard a difference: before it had been ”whoosh,” but now the tail carried a faint ”hiss.” He stood and leaned closer. The firebox glowed red-white, and a thin crust had formed over the charcoal. He didnʼt dare open the lid. He crouched back down and drew another line on the brick.

Bai Xiaoman kept watch by the firewood stove all day, her fingertips smoked gray, pushing the wood a little further in every so often. At noon, Du Xiaochuan suddenly needed to relieve himself. He called toward the wood stove, ”Xiaoman, keep an eye for a second.” She set down the wood tongs and came over, stood in front of the charcoal stove watching it, and only returned to her own stove after he jogged back. Two stoves, one burning wood, one burning charcoal. The wood stove crackled and popped; the charcoal stove only breathed low and soft. Ears accustomed to the wood stove couldnʼt judge the charcoal stove by sound—that one could only be watched with the eyes.

At the You hour on the twenty-third, the shift changed. Qian Duoduo dragged a low stool over to the stove, pulled the charcoal basket to his feet, and laid the fire tongs across his knees. The door of the Medicine Hall stood half open; the snow outside fell none that night. He sat like that the entire night, never moving except to rise twice and add charcoal. The red glow from the stove mouth lit half his face. Every so often he leaned forward to check the color of the fire, then sat back, the stool leg scraping once against the brick.

On the twenty-fourth, at the Shen hour, Qian Duoduo made the next dayʼs batch in the kitchen. The rice went into the pot, brought to a rolling boil, then lowered to a simmer with the wooden lid on to cook slowly. The vegetables he cut and arranged in a basin, ready to stir-fry in the morning. He wiped his hands and returned to the Medicine Hall for the night shift, his clothes still carrying the kitchenʼs heat. The moment he entered the Medicine Hall, that herb smell hit his nose and he wrinkled it.

When adding charcoal, he didnʼt look at the tongs. First he pressed the back of his hand a foot from the stove mouth to test the heat. Only when it was hot enough to scald did he turn his head to check the color of the fire. From the inner room came a single word: ”Right.”

”Itʼs cold at night,” Du Xiaochuan said.

”All this meat on me—not afraid of cold.” Qian Duoduo sat down.

At the Mao hour on the twenty-fifth, the sky still black, Qian Duoduo handed the fire tongs to Du Xiaochuan and said only, ”When it dims, add. Donʼt be greedy.” He hoisted the pot of spirit meals and ten bottles of Qi-Gathering Powder and went down the mountain with Shi Po, A He, and A Sui. There werenʼt many rogue cultivators at that market. By afternoon, everything was sold out: the pot went for forty spirit stones, ten bottles for thirty. A He counted the spirit stones into the cloth pouch one by one, slow, not letting a single one slip past. After packing up, Qian Duoduo bought five more spirit stonesʼ worth of spirit rice from the grain shop for the next market, carried it up the mountain, set the load down in the kitchen, and returned to the Medicine Hall to sit—didnʼt even drink a mouthful of water first.

Du Xiaochuan kept watch that day. The lines on the brick stretched downward one after another. The first two were long; later ones shorter; the last was barely a flick. A Sui brought in a bowl of hot water, squatted just inside the doorway, and looked at that row of lines.

”This fire canʼt go out?”

”It canʼt,” Du Xiaochuan said. ”Seven days.”

”Seven days.” A Sui set the water on the brick and watched the stove for a while. ”Then Iʼll come bring you more tomorrow.”

On the night of the twenty-fifth, Jiang Wan came over from the East Courtyard. She stood at the Medicine Hall door but didnʼt enter, asking only, ”Is the fire still steady?”

”Steady,” Qian Duoduo said.

She watched the stove mouth for a while, then went back to the East Courtyard.

On the twenty-sixth, in the afternoon, Du Xiaochuan hit his sixth shichen of watch duty. His eyelids sagged. He pinched his own arm, forced himself to stand, and felt weak in the legs. Bai Xiaoman over at the wood stove had come over at some point without him noticing. She stood in front of the charcoal stove, eyes fixed on the firebox. ”Iʼll cover you for two ke. Go outside and walk a circle. The windʼll wake you up.”

Du Xiaochuan didnʼt go far—just stood by the water vat outside the Medicine Hall door and scooped up a handful of snow to rub on his face.

Before the lamps were lit, Cheng Banshan came out to check the brick once. ”How many lines?”

Du Xiaochuan counted halfway before Cheng Banshan said, ”If you canʼt count them, donʼt count. Watch the fire. The brick is for the eyes to remember with, not for you to count.”

Xu Yan stood at the doorway looking at the two charcoal baskets: one had only the bottom covered, the other still a bit more than half full. He ran the numbers in his head: one and a half loads into the stove, half a load in reserve against the fire failing. By now, less than one load had been used. Three days left—if they tightened up, it would be enough. He went back to the Accounts Room and entered a line in the ledger: 23rd, antidote into the stove; one and a half loads of charcoal in the Medicine Hall, half a load untouched.

At the shift change on the night of the twenty-sixth, Qian Duoduo pushed the low stool against the wall and said, ”Tonight Iʼll keep watch standing.”

Du Xiaochuan looked back at him. ”Standing?”

”Standing.”

The sound from the veranda still rang out until lamplighting, carrying across the courtyard into the Medicine Hall, stroke after stroke, dull and steady. The shift-change words in the Medicine Hall grew shorter and shorter, until only ”handing it to you” and ”mm” remained.

At the Yin hour on the twenty-seventh, Qian Duoduo sat down after all. He hadnʼt slept soundly the night before, and his half-day of catch-up sleep during the day hadnʼt made up for it. The low stool leaned against the wall. He pressed his back to it. His head nodded once, came up, nodded again—and this time didnʼt come up.

When he woke, he didnʼt know how much time had passed. The Medicine Hall had grown a degree colder. The wind at the door seams crawled in along the brick floor; the tops of his feet went cold first.

A piece of charcoal had collapsed in the firebox. The red that had been there had sunk. The fire dimmed, so dim that only a little remained at the bottom, dark red fading to black, the heat at the stove mouth thinned. He grabbed for the fire tongs. His hand shook. The first grip failed, and the iron tongs clattered against the brick—a sound that in the night was terrifying.

The inner-room curtain stirred.

Cheng Banshan came out. He said nothing. He walked to the stove, bent down, and took the fire tongs in hand. The tong tips reached in, leveled out the collapsed charcoal, then plucked two pieces from the basket: one to set beneath, one on top. The fire inside pressed down for a moment, then brightened from below, a layer of white rising, the sound smoothing out again. Cheng Banshan didnʼt straighten up. He bent over, watching that red climb back up from the bottom bit by bit, until warmth returned to the stove mouth. Only then did he lean on the tongs and stand straight.

”Stand to keep watch.” Cheng Banshan stood the fire tongs by the stove. ”Stand, and youʼll make it to the Mao hour. Sit, and you wonʼt.”

Qian Duoduo stood there, unable to say a word. His lips moved. His hand came halfway up, then fell, and in the end he only squeezed out half a sentence: ”I fell asleep…”

”Mm.”

Qian Duoduo dragged the low stool to the far corner, dragged it far, then came back and stood by the stove mouth, eyes nailed to the fireʼs color. He didnʼt glance at that stool again.

Cheng Banshan picked up the fire tongs from where they stood by the stove and laid them on the stove edge.

”One breath broke, but the fire didnʼt.”