Auntie Sang set two packets of medicine in front of Chen Xiuyuan, then laid a wooden slip marked with notches on top.
"Don't mix them up. The packet on top is for your injury, and the one underneath makes up for your losses. Ask Elder Shi how to use them when you get back."
Chen Xiuyuan reached for them, but the cloth around his right arm suddenly tightened, forcing him to switch to his left hand. Ge Ping, sitting beside him, noticed and moved the packets closer for him. He did not dare straighten his own left hand either.
The two looked at each other and both laughed.
"Your turn now," Ge Ping said.
"Haven't you been back at work for a while?"
"Light work. She keeps a closer eye on me than Elder Shi."
Ge Ping gestured toward his wife. The woman was checking his compensation for missed work with Shi Yuan. Hearing her husband's remark, she glared at him past several people. Ge Ping immediately turned away and pretended to study the medicine.
Chen Xiuyuan stopped teasing him, picked up the wooden slip, and read through the marks one by one as Shi Yuan had taught him. The dry rations lost at Broken Stream, the materials for repairing his small basket, the work he had stopped doing while recovering-each had its corresponding amount. Since the basket had already been repaired, only the bamboo strips and labor used were counted. They had not conjured up a new basket for him out of thin air.
"What about last night?" he asked.
"That's separate." Shi Yuan turned the ration board over. "Your clothes were torn, your wrist guard was damaged, and the work you won't be able to do with that hand over the next few days needs recording too. Collect what's been confirmed today. It doesn't mean you won't be compensated for the rest."
Seeing a small space still empty beside his name, Chen Xiuyuan did not rush to cross off all the marks. He collected an allotment of dry rations that would keep, according to what he actually received, and left the medicine packets untouched for Elder Shi to collect.
The people who had collected grain last night trickled into the courtyard. The first man to arrive carried an empty sack and began looking for Shi Yuan as soon as he entered. Only after seeing that his amount was still on the board did he relax. His child stood by the entrance, wearing a freshly tied straw sandal on one foot. At the sight of Chen Xiuyuan, the child shrank behind his father, then peeked out at him again after a while.
Chen Xiuyuan nodded toward that sandal.
The child looked down and touched its laces, then suddenly took a small ripe fruit from inside his clothes and held it out beside Chen Xiuyuan's knee.
"This is for you."
The fruit's skin had already softened from being held close. The child's father tried to stop him, saying it had been saved for the child that morning, but Chen Xiuyuan accepted it, wiped it on a clean corner of his clothes, and took a small bite.
It was so sour that the roots of his teeth tightened.
The child watched him and asked earnestly, "Is it sweet?"
"Have you tried it yourself?"
The child shook his head.
Chen Xiuyuan handed over the remaining half. The child's whole face scrunched up after a single bite. His father tried and tried to hold back, but finally laughed aloud and picked him up to collect their grain nearby.
Shi Yuan was laughing too, but his recordkeeping never stopped. He checked off each allotment as it went out. The two sacks of grain carried into the inner courtyard last night were brought out again and distributed in the original order.
Only after swallowing that mouthful of sour fruit did Chen Xiuyuan feel that the night truly was over.
Du Huai was held under guard at the other end. No one listened to his earlier talk of half price anymore. He called the owners of the goods over to testify, saying several baskets of medicine were not his, so Shi Qiren had the owners bring their original accounts for verification. Whatever could be verified was returned; whatever could not remained. The injuries and losses he refused to acknowledge were still recorded item by item. They were not dropped just because he had changed his story again.
After distributing the medicine, Auntie Sang came over carrying an old basket with a broken rim and asked Chen Xiuyuan whether he wanted to send his small basket along to be reinforced.
"Can you still carry it on your back?" Chen Xiuyuan asked.
"Do you think I took a blade last night too?"
She patted the bottom of the basket for him to see. "I lost the big one at Broken Stream and have been borrowing other people's ever since. Now that I'm getting back what I'm owed, I need things of my own. I'll be heading into the mountains again in a few days."
"What about the bridge?"
"The patrol said the nearby routes have been cleared. The bridge isn't repaired yet, so we'll go another way for now. Where the herbs are plentiful and where we can go-you can't take the word of someone who's never seen the routes."
Chen Xiuyuan nodded and handed her his small basket. The patched piece of coarse cloth was still inside. When Auntie Sang went to pull it out, he reached over and pressed it down.
"I'm keeping this piece."
Auntie Sang understood. She folded the cloth and returned it without asking further.
Before noon, Shi Qiren handed the remaining compensation checks over to someone else and came to fetch Chen Xiuyuan. Just as he was about to get up, Elder Shi arrived on his staff. After asking what medicine he had collected, the old man unwrapped the outer layer of cloth on his right arm and examined it again.
"No heavy saber practice until the wound has closed. Being able to move your fingers doesn't mean you can use the hand however you please."
"I know. I'll only look at the saber diagrams today."
The old man secured the cloth again before allowing him to leave with Shi Qiren.
Shi Qiren led him into the small room inside the gate where the household records were kept. Chen Xiuyuan had been here once before. When Elder Shi first brought him through the gate, the person who questioned him about his origins had sat behind this very table.
A freshly planed wooden board lay on the table.
Shi Qiren opened the old records, found his name, and let him look for himself. The original note saying his origins were unknown remained, as did Qin Chuan's name, with the black bag and unusual clothes recorded beside it. Many lines had been added afterward: the meat shed, the medicine shed, his comings and goings, and his traveling companions. The edges of the paper had long since curled.
"We've asked what needed asking. The mountain patrol hasn't found the companion you described."
Chen Xiuyuan's gaze stopped on Qin Chuan's name.
"If you meet anyone like him in the future, could you still keep an eye out for me?"
"That entry hasn't been crossed out."
Shi Qiren turned the old records to the temporary-resident section, picked up a carving knife, and carved Chen Xiuyuan's name onto the new board. When he reached the character Xiu, he paused and asked Chen Xiuyuan to clarify the strokes in the middle.
Chen Xiuyuan traced them on the table with his left hand. Shi Qiren corrected them accordingly, then blew away the wood shavings after completing the final stroke.
"From today onward, you have an official household registration in Blood Stone."
Chen Xiuyuan looked at it for a long while before asking, "Can I still use that work tally?"
Shi Qiren looked up. "Of course. The work you did before doesn't disappear just because your household registration has changed."
"That's not what I meant."
Chen Xiuyuan took the wooden tally from inside his clothes. The final stroke of Yuan was still crooked, and the little knife beside it had been carved by Shi Yuan. He placed it beside the new board. The two names lay close together, but their forms were rather different.
After looking at it, Shi Qiren reached out and pushed the old tally back to him.
"Keep it yourself. From now on, land allotments and communal supplies you collect will be recorded under your official household. As for whether you stay with Elder Shi or find another room, discuss that yourselves once your injury has healed."
"I'll stay where I am for now."
"That's fine too. But don't think having your name registered means you have to rush to the front in everything. Everyone saw your part in holding the gate last night. If there comes a day when you can't hold it, say so beforehand and let someone take over."
Remembering how he had gasped for breath, almost unable to keep going after the narrow gate closed, Chen Xiuyuan nodded in agreement.
Shi Qiren set the new board by the rack to dry and continued sorting other households' records. He did not have anyone stand up to celebrate. When Chen Xiuyuan walked out, the gatekeeper saw that he was still holding his old tally and asked whether something from before had been undercounted.
"No."
"Then put it away. What are you standing in the doorway staring into space for?"
A cartload of firewood was about to come in. Chen Xiuyuan stepped aside, waited for it to pass, then smiled and tucked the tally back inside his clothes.
When he returned, Elder Shi had already portioned out the medicine and food they had collected. Two bowls sat on the wooden table. Chen Xiuyuan moved his dry rations into the basket near the door. The old man glanced over and said the foot of that wall grew damp; anything stored there too long would spoil.
So he moved them farther inside.
"Shi Qiren said I could find somewhere else to live," Chen Xiuyuan said.
The old man looked up and waited for him to continue.
"I'd still like to stay here for now. When I leave in the future, I'll have a long way to go. With what I'm learning right now, I still can't do without you."
"If you resent my meddling, it's too late for that." Elder Shi pushed the medicine bowl toward him. "Drink this first."
Chen Xiuyuan picked up the bowl. The bitterness lingered until after lunch. He returned to his room to put away the tally and shifted the cloth bundle holding his phone aside, exposing the sheet of paper underneath on which he had copied his mother's words.
Window mesh, meals, letting her know he was safe.
He sat for a while, then opened his notebook, wrote today's date on a fresh page, and added a sentence: I have a place here where I can stay for good.
Only after finishing did he realize he had just held the pen in his right hand, and the wound felt a little tight again. He switched to his left hand to hold down the page and wrote no more. He put the notebook back beside his phone, but kept the old wooden tally in the pouch he carried.
When Shi Lei came that evening, he was sitting behind the house, drawing several saber sequences he had used during the night in the yellow earth.
"Weren't you told to rest?"
"I haven't picked up a saber. I can't work this part out."
Chen Xiuyuan pointed to two intersecting lines and explained how, while guarding the narrow gate, he had backed onto the high step and let the hem of the clothes behind him pass. After listening, Shi Lei told him there was no need to stand, then took a wooden strip and walked through it himself.
"You were still thinking of sweeping outward then?"
"Yes. Someone came through behind me, so I changed it to a downward withdrawal."
"You were right to pull back. If you'd only watched the hand in front of you, that axe to the side would have come in."
The wooden strip returned to Shi Lei's ribs. He asked Chen Xiuyuan whether he could block the same way next time, somewhere without a step.
Chen Xiuyuan shook his head. The man outside the gate had been stronger, and his long saber had greater reach. On level ground, Chen Xiuyuan might not even have been able to gain the distance for his first counterattack.
"I need to learn more," he said.
Shi Lei planted the wooden strip in the ground. "First, understand how to use what you already know. Holding the gate that night wasn't all down to a fast saber. Choosing the right ground, keeping your movement in check, being willing to wait for that one strike-those are all things you can keep."
The two broke down several more close-range exchanges. Chen Xiuyuan only indicated positions with his left hand, resting his right arm on his knee. Whenever they reached something he had not seen clearly at the time, he said so outright. Shi Lei did not fill in the gaps to make it a tale of heroism either. When they reached the saber hilt striking the wrist, he instead reminded Chen Xiuyuan that if that blow had landed off target, his injured hand might not have been able to hold on to the saber.
As dusk approached, someone called Shi Lei away. Chen Xiuyuan looked at the lines on the ground and thought again of the blade edge that kept slipping when he tested the armor.
Both were ways of bringing the saber back, but there was no small gap between knowing where to draw it back from and being able to bring it back from that spot every time.
He called up the panel. The Original Method remained at Great Perfection, his Limit Breaking accumulation was still at twelve, and his second Heavenly Meridian remained at ninety-eight. Last night's victory had not added progress out of thin air, nor had his injuries and pain subtracted what he had already learned.
Chen Xiuyuan dismissed the writing, took the armor pieces he had tested from their case, and spread them before his knees. Among similar patterns, certain cuts would travel smoothly, but slipped when the curved surface changed. He had recorded too few points of contact before. Even Shi Lei deliberately turning an armor piece halfway around could make him struggle all over again.
Elder Shi came over from the doorway on his staff, an old cloth bundle tucked beneath his arm.
"Picked these out from Shi Yuan's place. Some are curved, some are thick. They're no use for patching clothes or mending boots-that's the only reason he let you have them."
The bundle opened to reveal several pieces of hard armor in different sizes, with an uncut piece of ironback hide pressed beneath them.
Chen Xiuyuan reached for the thickest piece with his left hand, but the old man stopped him with the tip of his staff.
"You can look. Wait until the wound closes before using a saber."
He withdrew his hand and first arranged the pieces by thickness.
Elder Shi pointed to a slanted ridge on one of them. "You said the blade slips when it reaches here. Once you can practice again, try this one first."