Chapter 6

The Storehouse

After the night he found the earth in the corner of the clearing filled in level, Xiao Han could not look Old Wang straight in the face. The old man woke the servants as always, tapping his cane along the veranda of the servants' quarters; as always he reeled off his litany about the wrist over Xiao Han's sweeping; and of the clearing he did not utter a single word. There is nothing so wearying as holding an answer ready before a man who does not ask, and so Xiao Han carried that weariness up to the clearing every night and buried it in his horse stance.

When more than a month had passed in horse stance, his legs could hold out not merely a quarter of an hour but a full hour. His thighs had grown firm, the soles of his feet had learned how to press the earth, and his knees no longer trembled as they pleased. But that was all. The first line of the sword formula, the words bidding him sink the qi into the dantian, remained as remote as a foreign tongue. No matter how deeply he breathed in, his belly was only a place where breath went in and out; nothing came into being there that might settle.

When his master said he had stood three years in horse stance, it had been at his teacher's side within the mountain gate. His teacher would have taught him how to govern his inner energy, and the food and medicines of the sect would have sustained his body. A fifteen-year-old servant of the servants' quarters had none of these. Stand three years with nothing but firmer legs, and three years hence, before the flames, all he would be able to lift was a water jar.

Sitting with his back against the rock and gazing up at the night sky, Xiao Han rummaged through the memories of his former life. Among all he had seen and heard at his master's side in thirty-five years, what was there that might plant energy in a fifteen-year-old body? His memory wandered for a long while, then stopped before a small case that had been pulled from a heap of ashes.

The storehouse of Qin Manor was an earthen-walled building crouched low behind the inner hall, between the crocks and the well. Not only rice, grain, and firewood but the gifts that came in each season and household goods no longer in use were stacked there layer upon layer, so that of the household's belongings, it was rare for anything that once went into the storehouse ever to come out again.

In his former life, Xiao Han had seen that case on the day after the fire was put out. The flames had swallowed half the storehouse, and the servants had toiled three days and nights picking out what was still usable from the ashes. Then, from beneath a collapsed shelf, a small case had come out with its lacquer half melted away. On its lid was carved the emblem of the mountain gate, and inside were three pills burnt pitch black.

When he presented the case to his master, his master looked down at it for a long time, then spoke quietly. It was something his teacher had given him when he came down the mountain, but having no use for it he had put it away and forgotten it for more than twenty years. Then he handed the case back to Xiao Han and told him to throw it away. There was no regret in his voice. What the master of those days regretted was only the one person he had lost in the flames.

Xiao Han had not been able to throw the case away and kept it for some years in a chest in the servants' quarters, until he lost it one winter when he moved. He had not even known the name of the pills. He remembered only the blue light that had shown through the charred shells, and the cool energy that had touched his palm.

That case must now be somewhere in the storehouse. Not yet burned.

With that thought, Xiao Han hesitated for a long time. It was his master's property. For a servant to take a thing from his master's storehouse and secretly swallow it was, however one dressed it up in words, theft. In his former life Old Wang had dealt most severely with servants of light fingers, and Xiao Han himself, during his time as steward, had sent away no fewer than three servants with thieving hands.

But that case was a thing that would burn three years hence. His master had forgotten even that it existed, and after losing it had not regretted it. If it was theft for a servant to take first what the flames would take, then Xiao Han resolved to pay the price of that theft three years hence, before the flames.

The spring tidying of the storehouse was done each year on the day after the soy paste was made. It meant taking out the old grain and drying it in the sun, replacing the sacks the rats had gnawed, and herding the unused household goods to one side and stacking them. As it was hard work that meant being covered in dust, everyone among the servants wished to avoid it, and every year Old Wang chose two people by drawing lots.

This year the lots fell to Xiao Fu and the coachman's nephew. That evening Xiao Han called Xiao Fu out behind the woodpile.

"I will do the storehouse work in your place."

Xiao Fu's narrow eyes widened. Then they soon narrowed again with suspicion.

"What scheme are you up to now?"

"Scheme, nothing. Do you not cough whenever you breathe in dust? In return, you take my laundry duty for five days."

"Five days is a lot. Three."

"Four."

"...And you're never going to say anything about the honey jar, right?"

"That matter is already closed."

Xiao Fu reckoned for a good while on his fingers, then nodded. One round of storehouse dust for four days of laundry, with the price of keeping last month's honey jar buried for good laid on top: the scales roughly balanced.

The next day, when the storehouse door was opened, Xiao Han gave the coachman's nephew the task of drying the grain sacks in the sunny yard and volunteered himself to tidy the shelves deep inside. The boy welcomed it, saying he liked the yard better than the dark storehouse.

Inside, the storehouse was cool and dark. The smell of old grain, the smell of rat urine, and the smell of rotting wood were mingled together. Xiao Han took up a lamp and went over the shelves one by one. A folding screen that had come in at the wedding, a cracked jar, a fulling stone no one used anymore, two or three worn scabbards said to have been used by his master in his youth.

In his former life, that case had come out from behind the rice crock on the innermost shelf. Judging by where the collapsed shelf had stood, it must originally have been on about the third tier of that shelf.

On the third tier dust had piled up as thick as a finger joint. Xiao Han brushed off the dust and groped about inside. An old wrapping cloth, a rusted candlestick, and a chipped bowl caught on his hand in turn, and at the very back, something smooth touched his fingertips.

It was a lacquered case. It was barely larger than the palm of one hand, and on its lid was carved the emblem of a mountain wreathed in waves. It was the emblem he had seen in his former life. Only then it had been melted and half crushed, and now it was as distinct as if it had been carved with a knife.

Xiao Han set down the lamp, steadied his breath once, and opened the lid. Inside were three pills wrapped in silk. They were the size of a fingernail, and beneath the lamplight they had a pale blue cast. When he brought his hand near, a cool energy brushed his palm. It was that very light which had shown through the charred shells.

Xiao Han took out only one. If he took all three, someone who opened the case someday would notice. One pill missing was a thing that could happen inside a case close to twenty years old. He wrapped the pill in a clean cloth and tucked it deep inside his robe, closed the lid of the case and returned it to its original place facing its original direction, and then stood the rusted candlestick and the chipped bowl before it exactly as they had been. He could not cover it over with dust again, but on the day the storehouse was tidied, no one would quibble over the dust having lessened.

That whole day Xiao Han tidied the storehouse more diligently than anyone. He replaced all the sacks the rats had gnawed, carried out and threw away the cracked jar, and restacked the things on the shelves according to size. Toward evening Old Wang, looking around the storehouse, tapped one of the shelves with his cane and remarked that this year even the rats would lose their way. Xiao Han bowed his head. The cloth inside his robe touched his chest, cool.

That night, Xiao Han sat in the corner of the clearing and unwrapped the cloth. Beneath the moonlight the pill gleamed bluer than it had in the storehouse. He looked down at it for a long while, then put it in his mouth.

At first it had no taste at all. It melted slowly on his tongue and went down his throat like cold water. The moment that coldness passed his chest, passed the pit of his stomach, and reached his belly, the coldness turned to fire.

Xiao Han braced himself against the rock and curled up. Something blazed in the very center of his belly. The heat spread out thin as thread and crept to his waist, to his back, to the tips of his limbs. It was as if someone were pushing heated needles along his meridians. He clenched his teeth. If he made a sound, it would be heard all the way down the mountain.

He could not tell how long he stayed curled up so. The heat receded little by little. As though gathered back in from the tips of his limbs, it collected again in the very center of his belly. And there it stopped.

Xiao Han steadied his breath. Sweat was soaking his back through. He slowly raised himself and stood in the corner below the rock with his feet apart. He bent his knees and breathed in.

Let the qi sink to the dantian.

The breath went down. It did not stop around his chest, but passed the pit of his stomach and went deep into his belly. And there, for the first time, was something that was not breath. A warmth the size of a bean. It was small enough to vanish if covered with a palm, but it was certainly there.

Xiao Han rested his breath upon that warmth and did not move for a long, long time.

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