Ch. 024| Sand in the Dross

The ward-probing talisman was put to use the next afternoon.

That day it was his turn to refill the lamp oil, and Lin Que carried the pot up to the third floor. The scroll-warden sat as ever, the slanting sun coming through the window and weighing his eyelids down. Lin Que filled his way to the lamp nearest the black timber door and, under cover of trimming the wick, pressed that palm-sized ward-probing talisman to the edge of the frame.

The fine green line across the talisman's face brightened soundlessly, then dimmed again.

Only a breath. Lin Que withdrew the talisman into his sleeve, his expression unmoved. Back in his room he spread the talisman open—the green line had left several marks of varying depth: the scroll-warden's drowse ran heaviest in the stretch after midday, and the ward's flowing light slackened to its faintest along with it. The marks recorded barely a fraction; to trace out fully when the ward was weakest, he'd have to press it a few more times.

Still, that first set of marks was enough to show him two things: the scroll-warden's eyelids were heaviest in the half-hour after his midday meal, and the ward slackened along with them; but the moment a true-lineage senior sister like Bai Heng came up to retrieve something, the scroll-warden's drowse vanished clean away and the ward brightened to its fullest. To get through that door, he'd have to time it to when the warden dozed while also avoiding a true-lineage disciple coming up—a very narrow window.

But this time, Lin Que could not afford to wait.

Without the red-scale sand in hand, Qinghe could not draw the unbinding talisman; without the unbinding talisman, this door could not be entered. And over at the West Court, Senior Brother Chen's seclusion had already passed its ninth day.

Lin Que put the ward-probing talisman carefully away. The pressing matter was that one ingredient in the pill hall: red-scale sand.

---

The chance slipped out of Fang Qi's mouth.

That night Fang Qi rested from his cultivation, downed half a bowl of cold water, and started prattling again: how the pill hall was run off its feet these days, rushing to refine this season's monthly-allotment pills—the qi-nourishing pills the hundred-odd outer-gate disciples drew each month, all coming out of those few furnaces on the north slope; how they were short of hands, and the steward was pulling menials from everywhere to feed the coals and grind the herbs, and he'd nearly been pulled in himself, luck being that he'd ducked away quick.

"That work's hot and smoky—whoever goes has bad luck," Fang Qi said, shaking his head. "I'd rather sweep floors two more days."

Lin Que let him talk, but noted it in his heart—the red-scale sand was in the pill hall.

Early the next morning, he sought the steward out on purpose and begged this hard duty no one else wanted.

"You, a floor-sweeper from the Archive Hall—what fun are you looking for at the pill hall?" The steward eyed him sidelong.

"Sweeping floors gets you nowhere near furnace-fire; at the pill hall I might nourish a little qi," Lin Que said, brows lowered and meek, framing it just as anyone else would—everyone believed outer-gate disciples scrambled to soak up residual furnace-warmth. The steward couldn't be bothered to think twice, took up his brush and reassigned him, only charging that the sweeping duty not be neglected by day, and that the pill hall's work be gotten in early and late.

Lin Que agreed. Working one day as two, he did not fear.

---

The pill hall stood on the north slope of the outer gate, a row of low blue-brick buildings that drifted all day with the smell of herbs and coal-smoke.

The one in charge was an old steward of about fifty, two fingers missing from his left hand—of those who refine pills, eight in ten bear injuries. He raised his eyes and swept Lin Que from head to foot, asked nothing of his origins, and simply tossed him the two least-wanted tasks: feeding coal to the rear furnace, and dumping the spent pill-dross.

"Feed the coal by watching the fire's color—not too fast, and never let it break. The dross, dump it clean." Having said this, the old steward paid him no further mind.

Lin Que agreed and squatted by the rear furnace to feed the coals. Watching fire-color was work he knew well—three years a pill-boy, he'd watched a furnace's fire more often than he'd watched men's faces. He fed it unhurried and unbroken, the furnace-heat steady; the old steward glanced over now and then and found no fault.

Midway through, the neighboring furnace went awry.

That one was watched by a young disciple who, absorbed in chatting, failed to notice the air-vent had opened half a notch too wide, the fire in the furnace-mouth climbing inch by inch. Lin Que, squatting at the rear furnace, swept it with the corner of his eye—another quarter-hour of that surging heat and this batch of pills would scorch at the bottom.

He was a disciple who dumped dross and fed coal; by rights, even one extra word overstepped his place. But a wasted batch of monthly-allotment pills was a grave matter, charged to the account of the disciple watching the fire. Lin Que hesitated half a breath, then said low, "The air-vent."

The disciple started, turned, and only then saw the fire-color was wrong, scrambling to close the vent. The pill-warden steward came round from the far side of the furnaces, swept a glance over the furnace on the verge of scorching, swept another over Lin Que, who had already bent his head to feed coal, and said nothing.

By midday, the first batch of monthly-allotment pills came out of the furnace.

The pill-warden steward opened the furnace and took the pills, a hundred-odd to a batch, round and smooth and even—proper, respectable qi-nourishing pills. But Lin Que, squatting by the coal pile, felt the point of heat beneath his left eye stir.

That batch of pills was smooth enough, yet in one of its ingredients the medicinal potency ran half a measure thin—not a refining error, but a deficiency in the formula itself, as though that half-measure had been drawn out beforehand. Those who cultivated on them could nourish their qi, but reaching a certain threshold, they could climb no further.

As it happened, an outer-gate disciple came to draw the pills he was owed from last month. As Lin Que handed them over, the point of heat beneath his eye brushed across the man's channels—sure enough, this third-layer Qi Condensation disciple's channels went slack and loose at a certain point, like a man who'd climbed halfway up a slope and lost his strength. Those who took the monthly-allotment pills all stalled at that same place, year after year, taking it for their own poor foundation.

It was the same road as that seam in the Xuanzhao Breathing Art.

Lin Que lowered his eyes and fed his coal, saying not a word. If even the monthly-allotment pills had been left such a threshold, then within the Xuanzhao Sect the things that had been tampered with were likely far more than one Xuanzhao Breathing Art. But this thought was too large; he pressed it back down first. What mattered now was the red-scale sand.

---

The red-scale sand was kept in a small vermilion-lacquered box on the pill-warden steward's desk, used to refine certain batches of guide-pills, a mace drawn out at a time, each entry booked, weighed to exactness. Lin Que dared not so much as touch that box—a speck short, the accounts wouldn't balance, and the first to be questioned would be the newly arrived menial.

Stealing was out of the question.

But as Lin Que dumped the dross, the point of heat beneath his left eye stirred again.

The spent dross was dumped into a great ash vat in the north corner; when it filled, someone hauled it off to fill pits. To others' eyes it was a vat of waste. But to Lin Que's eye, among that heap of gray-black pill-dross were a few lumps flushed with the faintest red—red-scale sand not fully burned, not spent, the little bit of remaining activity mixed into the dross and dumped as refuse.

Those who refined pills prized wringing an ingredient dry; this scrap of residual potency in the dross they thought beneath them, and could not be bothered to recover.

---

For the next two days, Lin Que dumped dross with particular diligence.

The other menials shunned the ash vat as filthy and foul, dumping and leaving. Lin Que, though, squatted an extra quarter-hour each time; under cover of raking the dross level in the vat, he quietly gathered the red-flushed lumps into one spot and, when no one watched, pinched a small measure into his sleeve-pouch.

He was not greedy. He took only a fingernail's worth at a time—more, and the dross-surface in the vat would look wrong, and the old steward's eyes might well catch it.

The pill hall's ingredients were precious; even burnt dross was entered in the ledger. A menial who privately took the smallest speck, if searched out, faced flogging at least, expulsion from the outer gate at worst. Just last month a dross-dumper had hidden half a lump of unburnt spirit-charcoal in his sleeve and been bound on the spot and hauled off for a beating. That scene Lin Que had witnessed with his own eyes, and kept in mind.

The first day went smoothly. The second nearly went wrong: he was squatting, gathering the sand, when another menial come to dump dross rounded the back of the vat out of nowhere. Lin Que's hand paused, and he swept up the wooden rake to rake a few strokes, scattering the gathered sand back beneath the dross-surface; the menial took him for someone raking out charcoal cores, and left once he'd dumped. Only after the footsteps had faded did Lin Que gather the sand up again.

Two days' gathering, and the small packet of red dross-ash in his sleeve-pouch was just about enough for Qinghe to grind one round of ink.

Back in his room, Lin Que poured the dross-ash out under the lamp to look it over. There were many impurities; it would need one more washing—work he knew well, learned back when he cleaned death-black pills. He found a chipped bowl and rinsed the dross-ash clear with water: the first pass floated off the surface charcoal-dust, the second skimmed the half-floating waste-ash, and by the third a thin ring of red-tinged fine sand settled at the bottom, so faintly red it could scarcely be seen. Under the lamp he swept it once more with his left eye—that trace of red was still alive, fainter than fresh sand, yet ground into ink it would surely serve for Qinghe to set one round of brush.

Not much. But enough.

Lin Que wrapped the pinch of cleaned red-scale sand in oil-paper, wrapped that again in a clean sheet of cotton paper, and tucked it into the innermost fold of his robe against his body. The thing was precious, could bear neither damp nor a single search of the person; gathered over two days and washed three passes to get this one pinch, he could by no means stumble at the finish.

---

On the third day of dumping dross, something went awry.

Lin Que was squatting by the ash vat as ever, raking the dross, not minding his back. Only when a shadow fell across the rim of the vat did he startle—the pill-warden steward stood behind him, he knew not since when.

"Squatting here half the day." The old steward's voice was not loud, his maimed left hand held behind his back. "A vat of waste dross—what's there worth raking?"

Lin Que's heart sank, but his face did not fluster. He let go and stood, holding up the wooden rake. "There are charcoal cores in the dross that haven't fully burned; dumped in with the rest to fill pits, smothered underneath, they'll re-ignite. Rake them out and heap them apart, and you spare yourself trouble."

The words were half true—there were indeed unburnt charcoal in the dross, and re-ignition was a real thing; every pill-boy knew it. Framing sand-raking as charcoal-raking, the pretext fit seamlessly.

The old steward did not take up the words. He bent, picked a lump Lin Que had just let slip—flushed with faint red—from the vat, rolled it in the palm of his maimed hand, and held it up to the eye that saw more clearly.

"Charcoal cores," he repeated, half a smile on his lips. "You can even tell which lump in the dross wants raking. Three years a pill-boy?"

Lin Que's heart clenched—he had never once mentioned being a pill-boy.

"I did odd work at a pill shop, that's all." He blurred the pill-boy down into a floor-sweeping odd-hand, not taking up those two words, "three years."

The old steward gave no verdict, tossed the lump back into the vat, and turned toward the furnaces, leaving one line behind:

"Come again tomorrow. Those few vats of dross at the rear furnace—you rake them. And in passing—the day after, the pill hall wants someone down the mountain to fetch a few fresh herbs from the market town. Your legs are quick; go along."

---

Lin Que held the empty coal basket and did not move at once.

A newly arrived menial caught red-handed after three days of dumping dross—an ordinary steward would have kicked him off with a curse of "shirker." This old steward only left "come again tomorrow," and in passing set him a descent duty besides. Whether he truly hadn't minded, or had seen something and was holding it, pressed down and unsaid, Lin Que could not tell.

But this pinch of red-scale sand in his sleeve—he'd been fretting that the ten-day leave hadn't come, that he couldn't get it down the mountain. This buying-trip the day after went to the very market town below.

Lin Que shouldered the coal basket and walked toward the rear furnace. The fire-color must not break.

【Ch. 024 End · the outer gate of the Xuanzhao Sect · the Archive Hall / the Pill Hall】