Ch. 005| The Eastern College

Ge Zhiheng did not walk quickly.

The corridor was narrow—just wide enough for the two of them side by side. Lan Yingchen followed half a step behind, walking, the same sentence refusing to leave his head: you were found too early.

Ge Zhiheng had said it a moment ago—the shortest was eleven months. Lan Yingchen's own had been eight days. Over three hundred days lay between.

What that thing was, why it had been him—Lan Yingchen knew neither.

He did not ask. Ge Zhiheng did not explain.

After perhaps another fifty paces the corridor began to change. The timber overhead gave way to stone, the niches grew closer together, the light brightened a little. The white marble underfoot changed to another stone, pale grey, faintly grained.

At the end of the corridor stood a low arched door.

Two characters had been carved into the lintel—cut from the bluestone itself, the script something like Han-dynasty clerical writing. The edges had been worn smooth and round, and there was no telling what year they had been carved.

The Eastern College.

"In you go," said Ge Zhiheng.

Lan Yingchen stooped, bowed his head, and stepped through the arch.

---

Beyond it lay a courtyard. A quadrangle, four wings about an open centre.

It was genuinely old, not the imitation kind. The eaves sagged slightly, moss lay across the tiles, and a stretch of the timber columns along the gallery had been worn glossy by countless touches—the gloss of hands passing this way for several hundred years.

At the centre of the courtyard stood a well—a stone wellhead, a low rim, the rope coiled on a wooden frame. It looked as though one might truly draw water from it.

In three corners of the courtyard sat a small table and a small chair apiece. Three senior students—eighteen or nineteen by the look of them, Eastern faces—each at a different table.

One was writing with an ink brush, and not in any modern hand; the script was something older, and Lan Yingchen could not tell which.

One sat very upright, hands resting on the knees, eyes closed—not asleep, more as though sensing for something.

One was tracing some figure in the air with a fingertip; the moment it was finished it vanished, and then he traced it again.

None of the three looked up at Lan Yingchen or Ge Zhiheng.

"The courtyard," said Ge Zhiheng shortly. "Ordinarily you study, practise your hand, practise your forms here. The dormitories are on the west side, second floor. Come with me."

Lan Yingchen followed. But he walked slowly.

The student who was writing—as Lan Yingchen passed he stole a glance at the paper. The strokes resembled Chinese characters, but the structure was wrong. The radicals sat in none of their proper places; they looked reversed, or as though each character grew outward from its own centre.

The student with his eyes closed—as Lan Yingchen passed beside him he felt a very slight difference in the temperature of the air. A degree or two cooler than the rest of the courtyard. Not cold, but measurable.

The student tracing the figure—Lan Yingchen turned to look back. The finger drew a five-pointed star in the air; the star, once finished, vanished. Drawn again, gone again.

In the instant the figure completed and vanished, Lan Yingchen thought he felt a very slight vibration in the air—as though something had been laid down, and then taken away.

Ge Zhiheng walked ahead and did not turn. As though he knew Lan Yingchen would look, and allowed it.

---

The dormitories were on the second floor of the west wing. The stairs were of wood, and gave off a faint "mm" underfoot when trodden on—not a creak, but an old timber note that had been deliberately kept.

Ge Zhiheng pushed the door open.

The room was small. Two single beds, a desk for each, a wardrobe for each. One side had a window, and through it one could see part of the courtyard and the well. On one wall hung an old map; Lan Yingchen could not place it at a glance—neither Yunjin nor any single continent, more like a new map that had been assembled from others.

The bed by the window was Ge Zhiheng's—the bedding neat, the desk holding a few old books, a brush, a freshly ground cake of ink.

The other bed was clean: a white cotton quilt, a white pillow. At its foot lay a set of Eastern-style student robes—deep grey, plain, like the set Ge Zhiheng wore.

"That side is yours," said Ge Zhiheng. "The wardrobe's behind you. Once you've put your things away you can come down to the courtyard. Supper is over at the Main Court, half past seven."

Lan Yingchen set his satchel on the bed.

He took out, one by one, the letter from the inner pocket of his coat, the bronze mirror from the innermost compartment of the satchel, the paper notebook from the pen slot—and laid them out on the desk, in order.

---

Lan Yingchen glanced again at the old map on the wall.

There were markings on it—not a modern political map but something older, the outlines of the world drawn by hand in ink. He counted them off one by one: London's position bore a ring, Cairo bore one, Istanbul bore one, Lhasa bore one, and the jungle region of Central America bore one. Yunjin bore one too—and that position ought to be the Donghuan Earth-God Shrine he had passed through not long before.

Six points.

But Lan Yingchen saw a seventh—somewhere in the southern hemisphere, on some island near the open ocean, in a geography he did not know well. The mark was the same ring as the other six, but beside it there was no annotation at all.

Lan Yingchen turned to look at Ge Zhiheng. Ge Zhiheng did not look up; he went on sorting his books.

Ge Zhiheng knew Lan Yingchen was looking at the map. He did not explain.

Lan Yingchen drew his gaze back and glanced over Ge Zhiheng's desk.

Books, brush, ink—nothing amiss.

But at the far inner edge of the desk stood a small bronze bell.

Half the size of a fist. Its surface worn smooth. No telling its age.

Lan Yingchen's breath caught for a moment.

The same old pattern as the one in his grandmother's sitting room. And the same old pattern as the one on the low table at the "Center" the day before.

He stared at it for longer than courtesy allowed.

---

Ge Zhiheng noticed.

He stopped sorting the books, turned to look at Lan Yingchen, then followed his gaze to his own desk.

"…The bell?"

"…Mm," said Lan Yingchen.

Ge Zhiheng gave the bell a glance. Then looked at Lan Yingchen again.

Lan Yingchen did not wait to be asked; he spoke first. "My grandmother has one just like it."

Ge Zhiheng looked at Lan Yingchen for about three seconds. He did not speak at once.

Then he said:

"This was left by my grandfather. Three generations back, and more."

Lan Yingchen made no reply. He did not know how to reply.

Ge Zhiheng did not carry on either. He turned away and went back to ordering the desk, as though that exchange had not taken place. But he ordered it a beat slower than before.

Lan Yingchen put the letter, the bronze mirror, and the notebook into the very bottom of the little cabinet at his bedside. Then he hung his satchel on the hook beside the wardrobe.

"Let's go," said Ge Zhiheng. "I'll show you where the other Colleges are, and we'll be back before supper."

---

Ge Zhiheng led Lan Yingchen across the courtyard and into a corridor Lan Yingchen had not walked before, up a flight of stairs, then up another.

The stairs were narrow, of wood. After climbing the height of perhaps five storeys Lan Yingchen began to feel a little short of breath—the air pressure was subtly wrong, and it had nothing to do with stamina.

"…The air's different here?" Lan Yingchen asked.

Ge Zhiheng nodded. "The higher you go, the closer you come to the 'core' of the White Tower at the centre of the Main Court. The air thins, but it won't trouble your breathing. The body simply remembers it."

Lan Yingchen did not fully understand, but he noted it.

The stairs ended at a small pavilion, open on every side, with a view out in all four directions.

Lan Yingchen stepped out and leaned against the wooden rail.

The Main Court lay below—from this height far clearer than it had been from the entrance a while ago.

The White Tower still stood at the centre. From up here its true height was even harder to judge—looking out from the pavilion, the tower remained somehow above, as though its top could never be reached however one looked.

Around the Main Court, Lan Yingchen could now see more clearly the different clusters of buildings in each of the four directions.

He pointed to a domed building of stone walls nearest the Main Court and asked, "What's that one?"

Ge Zhiheng glanced over. "The Forbidden Library."

"The Forbidden Library."

"It keeps the old books," said Ge Zhiheng. "The ones you may not enter and the ones you may are kept apart."

Lan Yingchen did not press further. The two words "forbidden" were enough to keep him from asking, for now.

---

The Main Court district held some smaller buildings too—grey stone walls, square roofs, like stone classrooms. Ge Zhiheng pointed to one of them: "Tomorrow's lesson is in there."

"…How many days a week?" Lan Yingchen asked.

"Ordinarily five days, five teachers in turn," said Ge Zhiheng. "But in the first week of term it's the same one all week. Level the foundations first; the rotation comes afterward."

"…One teacher, five days?"

"One."

Lan Yingchen wanted to ask why the first week was for levelling, wanted to ask which lineage that teacher belonged to, and held it back.

"Five?" he asked instead. "Why five?"

Ge Zhiheng gave him a glance. No answer.

He went on looking at the classrooms.

Ge Zhiheng saw that Lan Yingchen was trying to read the distances. "Inside the Academy, don't judge near and far by distance. Use direction."

---

Ge Zhiheng leaned against the wooden rail and, pointing in the four directions, showed Lan Yingchen the five Colleges one by one: to the east, the Eastern College, where they now stood; to the west, that cluster of dark-green spired buildings, Gothic or like an early European monastery, the Western College; further south, golden domes, like a mandala pattern unfurling outward, the Indian College; to the south, desert-coloured arches topped with domes, in a Middle-Eastern manner, the Middle-Eastern College; further south still, ochre-red tribal buildings with carved timber, the African College.

Five Colleges, five directions, five architectural manners. From this height the distances were not alike. The Eastern College was nearest; the other four sat in an "unreally near" haze, their distances impossible to measure.

"The Colleges are only lodging," said Ge Zhiheng. "Lessons have to be taken in the Main Court district, and the students of all five Colleges take them together."

"…What are the lessons?"

Ge Zhiheng gave Lan Yingchen a glance.

"You'll know tomorrow morning."

He said no more.

---

Lan Yingchen did not leave the pavilion at once. He wanted to look at the White Tower a while longer.

The White Tower stood at the centre, white and catching the light. Its top was lost in a low bank of cloud. From this height the cloud lay closer than before, as though one could reach out and touch it, when in truth it was still very far.

Ge Zhiheng did not hurry him. He leaned by the rail and looked at the Main Court and the White Tower. As though he looked at them every day and never tired of it.

And then—a bell rang.

Not the pavilion's bell. Not the College's bell. The bell of the White Tower.

The sound was very low and very long, as though it came from the very "floor" of the whole Academy. One did not hear it with the ears alone; the whole body felt it.

Lan Yingchen felt a very slight vibration in his ribs—a vibration deeper than the bell's physical one, like the moment his own body fell into "alignment" with something larger.

His satchel was not on him. But Lan Yingchen knew—the bronze mirror lay at the bottom of the bedside cabinet. He could not see it from here, yet across the whole College he could feel it: that direction carried a little more weight than the others.

As though the bronze mirror knew the bell had rung.

Lan Yingchen glanced instinctively at Ge Zhiheng. Ge Zhiheng had his head tilted, as though counting.

The bell rang on. Lan Yingchen counted along in his head. At the fifth, it stopped.

"It rang five times," said Ge Zhiheng, as though annotating it for Lan Yingchen.

"And five means?"

"Notice," said Ge Zhiheng. "All five Colleges are within the Academy; the new intake's arrivals are complete."

Lan Yingchen did not respond at once.

Then it came to him.

"…Five, because there are five new students today?"

Ge Zhiheng gave him a glance. No answer. But Lan Yingchen knew the answer was yes.

---

Lan Yingchen thought back to the three distant figures he had glimpsed earlier at the entrance of the Main Court—the Western girl with the reddish-brown hair (she had gone to the Western College), the Middle-Eastern girl in the long robe (she had gone to the Middle-Eastern College), the African girl with the braided hair (she had gone to the African College). Plus himself—he had entered the Eastern College.

Four.

Plus Ge Zhiheng? Ge Zhiheng had said earlier that he had already been Seeing for three years. Ge Zhiheng was not one of "today's new students."

Then who was the fifth?

Ge Zhiheng seemed to read the question in Lan Yingchen. But he did not explain.

"Let's go," said Ge Zhiheng. "Down for supper."

Lan Yingchen followed Ge Zhiheng away from the pavilion and down the stairs.

Halfway down, Lan Yingchen turned and looked once more at the White Tower. The White Tower was still there, the cloud still at its top.

That sense of alignment in his ribs had not yet fully faded.

Down on the ground floor, in the courtyard, the three senior students of the afternoon were gone. The desk where the old script had been written was cleared, the cushion of the one who had sat with closed eyes was moved back to its place, and the spot where the five-pointed star had been drawn stood empty. A very faint wet trace lay by the well, as though someone had only just drawn water.

On the small wooden stand in the eastern corner stood a bronze bell half the size of a fist—Lan Yingchen had not noticed it all morning. The one on Ge Zhiheng's desk he had noticed; this one was smaller still, and worn older.

The bronze bell was moving.

Not swaying in a draught—it was trembling of its own accord, at a very low frequency. The rhythm of the trembling was the same as the White Tower's five rings a moment ago—"dong—dong—dong—dong—dong," then a short pause, then again, "dong—dong—dong—dong—dong."

Ge Zhiheng walked over to the stand and gave the bell a glance.

"It'll stop," he said. "Once the fifth new student has sat down in the Main Court."

Lan Yingchen did not ask how he could tell.

"Quickly," said Ge Zhiheng. "We have to sit down as well."

【Ch. 005 End · Eastern College Dormitory → the High Pavilion → Eastern College Courtyard】