Ch. 031| The Threads at Both Ends

The herb-lodge's Solomon's-seal had run out.

This was the pretext Lin Que had waited several days for. He mentioned to the old man who managed the medicines that the Solomon's-seal and the ophiopogon were near the bottom, that the herb-stalls in the market below the mountain had them, and that he was quick on his feet and could make the round trip in half a day. The old man was hard of hearing but not muddled; he narrowed his eyes at him for a while, and in the end nodded: the injured could not do without medicine, the buying errand was a nuisance in itself, and if someone was willing to run it, so much the easier.

The old man wrote out a list and counted out several strings of spirit stones as the medicine-funds. Lin Que took them, eyes lowered, showing not a trace of eagerness.

This trip down the mountain—the buying was real; but what was not written on the list was the important part—to detour to that talisman shop at the far end of the market, and to seek out a ruined man watching a house down the mountain.

Lin Que folded the list and tucked it into his robe, keeping his pace exactly like an ordinary buying-run, neither fast nor slow. What had to be done, he did beneath the pretext of the buying.

---

Down the mountain, the better part of an hour on foot, and there was the market.

Lin Que first bought all the medicinal stock on the list—the Solomon's-seal and ophiopogon, stall by stall inspected, weighed full, paid for, bound into two bundles on his back. Deft of hand, not the slightest delay. The spirit stones left from the funds he counted out one by one, exact to the coin.

Only with the proper business done did he head, medicines on his back, toward that talisman shop at the far end of the market.

The shop was still the same shop. Qinghe sat behind the desk tracing out a talisman; hearing footsteps, she raised her head.

She was somewhat thinner than a month ago, in a set of green cloth washed pale, her temples bound neat, her brows and eyes still that cool, scholarly comeliness, only with a trace of nursed-out weariness pressed beneath her eyes. Seeing clearly that it was Lin Que, the hand holding her brush paused, then unconcernedly put the brush away.

"How is it you've come down the mountain?"

"The herb-lodge is short of medicine—the buying errand." Lin Que set the medicine-bundles by the door. "Thought I'd stop by."

Qinghe gave an "Mm," rose to pour him tea, her movements light; but pouring, her mind wandered, and the tea filled and she added half a measure more, until it brimmed over the bowl's rim. She came back to herself, set down the pot, and, not looking at him, said: "That unbinding talisman—did it work?"

"It worked." Lin Que held the tea-bowl, his voice dropping a little. "That door—I got in."

Qinghe's hand tracing the talisman stopped.

---

"The full Xuanzhao Breathing Art—I've seen it." Lin Que set down the tea-bowl. "That crucial aperture at the sixth layer has had a stroke drawn out of it—the same technique as the broken last stroke of your family's Green Seal-Script. Practice to that layer and crash into it, and you deviate; this year three have already fallen."

Qinghe's face paled a shade.

"Not only the art." Lin Que went on. "The qi-nurturing pill the outer gate issues by the month is also short half a flavor from the root. That flaw, together with the annotated scroll for mending the sixth layer, is all locked behind that ebony door. Steward He, who keeps the archives, turns away every request for the scroll with 'borrowed out.'"

"Steward He…" Qinghe rolled the brush-shaft between her fingers, slowly reciting the name once, her gaze turning cold. "A man of the Archive Hall."

"And on your end?" Lin Que asked.

Qinghe did not answer at once. She rose, drew an old wooden box from beneath the desk, opened it—inside was a sheaf of yellowed talisman-manuals. She drew out one and set it before Lin Que—the manual-record of the Xu family's ancestral Green Seal-Script, with, at the corner of the last page, a line of faded small-character annotation.

"I've compared them." She pointed a fingertip at that line. "The technique that cut the last stroke of my family's talisman is not something an outsider could work out. To break it so precisely, one must first have mastered the brush-momentum of the Green Seal-Script through and through—and in all the world, those who understand the Xu family's Green Seal-Script are few to begin with." She paused, her voice cold and steady. "I turned over every old record in the house and found only one thing: over thirty years ago, the Xu family took in an outside-surname registered disciple, who studied the Green Seal-Script two years, then committed some offense and was expelled from the Xu family, his name struck out. Where this man went after that, no one knows."

Something stirred in Lin Que's heart: "You mean the one who cut the meridians… is that expelled man from back then?"

"I dare not say for certain." Qinghe put the manual back into the box. "But one who understands the Green Seal-Script, who bears a grudge with the Xu family, and who has the means to reach a hand into the Xuanzhao Sect—these few things laid together, the men who fit are not many."

She closed the wooden box; the brass clasp snapped down with a click. She raised her eyes and met Lin Que's gaze square on. Neither made a sound.

"This expelled man—what is his name?" After a while, Lin Que asked.

Qinghe did not answer; she opened the box again and turned to the middle of the record—there a page was missing, the tear clean and even. "The few pages of Green Seal-Script formulas he studied, together with the column bearing his name, were torn out and blotted clean." She pressed a fingertip to the tear. "I turned over every old record in the house, and all that's left is this line of annotation at the corner of the last page, not wiped clean, mentioning him in passing."

Lin Que stared at that clean, even tear and made no sound. Torn so clean, blotted so smooth—whoever did it must have foreseen, long ago, that one day someone would come to turn over this manual.

---

"There's one more thing I must trouble you with." Lin Que weighed his words as he opened. "There's a ruined cultivator surnamed Du in the outer gate—deviated and had his cultivation ruined, and now he's out of the gate, watching a house for someone down the mountain. I want to find him."

Qinghe raised her eyes: "What do you want with a ruined cultivator?"

"He's a man who came down from that threshold alive." Lin Que said. "The dead can't speak; he can. Back when he forced the layer, he too went to beg for that annotated scroll, and Steward He answered him 'borrowed out' as well. What he knows may be more than I do."

Qinghe thought a moment: "At the east end of the market there's a great household surnamed Qian; some time ago they took on a gate-guard, said to be a ruined man out of the Xuanzhao Sect. Down-and-out in looks, and sparing of words." As she spoke she dipped ink and wrote an address on a slip of paper, pushing it to Lin Que. "Perhaps it's him. Go and see for yourself."

Lin Que took the slip, gave his thanks, and rose to leave.

"Lin Que." Qinghe suddenly called him back.

He turned.

Qinghe took from the desk a freshly traced talisman and held it out. The talisman was drawn plain, with a point of green brightness at its core. "I've mended you a new ward-probing talisman—more potent than the last one." She paused, her voice softening a little, then quickly pulling back that coolness. "In that place up the mountain, mind how you act. Since that man can reach a hand into the Xuanzhao Sect, to probe him is to probe under his very eye."

Lin Que took the talisman; his fingertip brushed hers inadvertently, and both paused for half a breath.

"You mind yourself too." He put the talisman away. "That blue-robed man—has he come again?"

"Twice." Qinghe's expression sank. "Both times he circled outside the shop, didn't come in. He's waiting for me to show a flaw—waiting for the day I can't help myself and draw out that original talisman." The corner of her lip twitched, cold. "I just won't."

Lin Que looked at this stubborn set of hers and said nothing more. She had her own fight to fight, and leaned on no one's shelter.

---

Out of the talisman shop, medicines on his back, Lin Que headed for the east end of the market.

The Qian residence was not hard to find—blue-brick high walls, an imposing lintel. He did not go by the front gate, but rounded to the alley by the side gate, and from afar spotted a man crouched at the wall's foot.

He was a fellow of just over thirty, in a set of washed-old short garb, head bent, mending a loosened broom. His complexion was ashen-blue, and on the backs of his hands, at his neck, the dark patterns of an old qi-deviation injury faintly showed. That whole aura of his was floating and scattered, without the least shadow of cultivation left—a thoroughly ruined man.

Lin Que knew this kind of qi. Senior Brother Chen, now lying in the herb-lodge, was at the very beginning of this same sight.

He softened his steps and drew a little nearer.

The fellow seemed to sense someone; he jerked his head up, his eyes first startled, then heaping up twelve parts of wariness, staring hard at Lin Que, the broom in his hand thrust crosswise before his body, his voice hoarse and urgent:

"Who are you?" He shrank back toward the wall's corner. "The Xuanzhao Sect… has the Xuanzhao Sect sent someone again?"

"Again."

Lin Que kept this word in his heart, but on the surface set his manner very slow, unslinging the medicine-bundle from his back and setting it on the ground, showing it to him openly: "Don't be afraid, Senior Brother Du. I brew medicine and do odd jobs at the herb-lodge; I've not come to make trouble for you."

He crouched down, level with Du's eyes, his voice low: "Senior Brother Chen of the west court deviated forcing the sixth layer a few days ago, and now lies in the herb-lodge. I'm the one tending his injury."

Hearing the words "Senior Brother Chen" and "deviated," the broom Du held crosswise slowly lowered. Beneath that face full of wariness surfaced something hard to name—as though he had long expected it, and yet as though he'd been cut by a knife.

"…He fell too." Du said hoarsely, his throat rolling. "The sixth layer. Another one."

"The physician says his meridians are badly hurt." Lin Que led the words on. "I hear Senior Brother Du came through this same way back then; I'd like to ask—can such an injury be nursed back later?"

What he asked was about nursing an injury, not about matters within the gate—this was a pretext at which Du could lay down his wariness.

Du stared at him a long while, and his taut shoulders at last loosened. He gave a laugh uglier than crying: "Nursed back? I've been ruined three years, and not the least qi-sense has returned. Tell him… not to hope for it."

He paused, then suddenly dropped his voice, his eyes darting for an instant toward that high wall of the Qian residence, as if afraid someone might overhear:

"Go back and tell him—whether the injury nurses back or not is a small thing. The important thing is: don't stir the notion of forcing the sixth layer again. That layer is simply not one meant for a man to pass. Back then I just wouldn't believe in the curse of it, and that's how I fell to this state."

"Not meant for a man to pass?" Lin Que pressed a line. "How do you mean?"

Du's mouth opened, then as if gripped by something, snapped shut. He gripped the broom tight again, and that thing that had just loosened in his eyes shrank back; warily he sized Lin Que up anew:

"…I know nothing. Go."

Lin Que pressed no further. Pressed too hard, this gap would not be pried open but would rather alarm the people within the residence. He hefted the medicine-bundle and stood, saying mildly: "Sorry to have troubled you. As for Senior Brother Chen—I'll do what I can."

Reaching the alley mouth, Du's hoarse voice suddenly came again from behind, pressed very low, all but scattered by the wind:

"—If you truly mean well by Senior Brother Chen, then persuade him to accept his fate. Don't go investigating. Those who investigate that threshold—not one of them comes to a good end."

Lin Que's step paused, and he did not turn his head.

Behind him, the man Du had already bent his head again to mending that loosened broom, as if those few words had never left his mouth.

【Ch. 031 End · the Xuanzhao Sect's outer gate · the market below the mountain → the Qian family's side-alley】