Ascension by Sword

Chen Ping'an found an inn in a bustling part of town. They still had to pay in gold and silver. Three nights' lodging for the three of them came to two taels and eight qian of silver. The inn clerk brought out a small steelyard and, with practiced movements, used tiny scissors to trim the silver into pieces.

The sight inexplicably reminded Chen Ping'an of the set of tools at the Yang Family Shop years ago. Besides trimming silver for transactions, they were used to weigh certain rare, costly herbs. Whenever he was little and saw the shop clerk make a production of bringing them out to weigh some medicinal plant, the child standing beneath the high counter with a huge basket on his back would press his lips tight, grip the straps over his shoulders, and watch with shining eyes. Then half a day's toil—wind, sun, and rain—felt like nothing at all.

His thoughts raced beyond his grasp. The steelyard was a measuring instrument, which led him to think of how Vast Heaven and Earth now measured time, weights, and lengths. Naturally, he recalled the group of Dragon Crossing the River Qi cultivators Song Jixin had mentioned at the Great Ditch Ancestral Temple. The steelyard on the inn counter, from its pan and ebony beam to its little white-copper weights, plainly looked like an ordinary object from below the mountain. Yet at a glance, Chen Ping'an saw that, like the books in Tiaomu City, it was not real. He gave it no further thought.

Pei Qian owned a complete steelyard set herself. Two of its weights even bore inscriptions engraved for her: "Never Lose Money" and "Only Make Money." That made this one feel almost like family, like meeting an old friend far from home, and she examined it