Chapter 20 — The Manual
Yan Jiuhe opened his eyes at the second watch of the next day.
He opened them in the small soft slow way a thief opened his eyes when the thief had — by the count of nine years on a road his mother had warned him at eleven would take everything but the laughing — trained himself to wake without moving the cheekbone the body had used to register that the room was — by the cuff at his right wrist — not the room he had gone to sleep in.
He did not move the cheekbone.
He did move, very slightly, the second knuckle of his right hand.
The second knuckle found, on the inside of his sternum where his right hand was open, the back of a left hand.
The back of the left hand was cold.
He filed cold in plain syntax — no register, no 白莲泽 manual, no 南道 honor at the inside thumb — under the column at his ribs labeled Lin Yao.
The column had been the column at his ribs labeled Lin Yao since the inn at Drifting Cloud at the second watch of the night he had picked her pocket on a market street twenty-six days past.
The column had — at the count of one breath after his second knuckle finding the cold back of her left hand on his sternum — two entries.
The first was she came back.
The second was she is cold.
He moved his second knuckle, very slightly, against her hand.
The hand answered.
She had not been, at the count of the second watch he had opened his eyes, asleep.
She had been at the side of the cot for the count of one watch with her right hand on his sternum and her left at her side, and the 药王谷 needle at her cuff cooling and warming and cooling, and the half-bloomed red lotus at the meaty part below her left index quiet at the bottom of its bank.
She did not, at the second knuckle, breathe in.
Then, very slightly, she turned her right palm and covered his open right hand on his sternum with hers.
For one breath.
Then she lifted her hand and laid it flat, palm down, on the small soft cloth at the seam of his outer-robe at the right shoulder where the kettle had — for twenty-two days — rested.
The seam was clean.
She said: "Yan Jiuhe."
"Mei-mei."
A breath.
"Yan Jiuhe. The seam is clean."
"Yes, mei-mei."
"The grey at your sternum is gone."
"Yes."
"The cup at your dantian."
"At — mei-mei — half. Holding."
"At half."
"At half."
A breath.
"Yan Jiuhe. I took it. I took it without asking."
"Yes, mei-mei."
"You — Yan Jiuhe — could have died."
"Yes."
"Yan Jiuhe."
He turned his head — very slowly, the way a man turned his head at twelve on a wagon his mother had told him at eleven not to move on — and looked at her.
She had — at the count of two days and three watches — not slept the way an unwounded body slept.
She had slept the way the body of a daughter of the south-county Lin slept at the count of a door she had opened on a marsh and had not, by her own day on her own hand, yet closed.
Her eyes were the eyes of a clerk who had been writing in the dark for nineteen years and had — at the count of three days past — turned her own lantern on.
He looked at the eyes for the count of three breaths.
He did not, in the looking, ask the asking.
He lifted his open right hand from his sternum where her right hand had been laid for the count of one watch, and he set it — palm up, fingers loose, thumb tucked behind the index in the 南道 shape his mother had taught him at four on a kitchen step — on the cot beside his ribs.
He said: "Mei-mei."
"Yan Jiuhe."
"The asking."
"Yes."
"The man at the lintel."
"In the east garden. The cup at the lacquer tray is cold. He has refilled it twice. He has not, by his own day on his own hand, pressed."
"Yes, mei-mei."
"Yan Jiuhe."
"The man at the 双枫."
A breath.
She did not, on the 双枫, breathe in.
With the back of her left hand, she drew the folded paper of the plum-lintel tea-house at the second street out of the inside seam of her left sleeve where it lay below the third volume and the unopened crane and the silver 药王谷 needle.
She laid the paper on the cot beside his open right hand.
He read it.
He read it once.
He did not read it twice.
He folded it back.
He laid the back of his own right hand, palm up, on the paper.
For one breath.
He lifted his hand.
He said: "Mei-mei."
"Yan Jiuhe."
"He is — mei-mei — open-handed."
"Yes."
"He is — mei-mei — coming."
"Yes."
"Mei-mei."
"Yan Jiuhe."
"I will, by my own day, not be at the gates when he rides."
"Yan Jiuhe."
"I will be — mei-mei — at the cot. The cup at my dantian will, by the count of the kettle on the brazier at the southeast corner of this room, hold. The fox will be at the foot of the cot. The kettle will be on. The man at the lintel will, mei-mei, by his own count on his own day, not press. I will, by the 南道 honor at my left thumb, not be at the gates. The gates are — mei-mei — yours. The asking at the gates is — mei-mei — his. The answering is — mei-mei — yours. I will, by the count of my mother's hand on the kettle the day I was born, not be in the room where the senior brother of the寒玉峰 line and the Lady of the south-county Lin take the first cup at the door. I will be at the cot. The kettle will be on."
She did not, on the saying, weep.
Then, very slowly, with the back of her right hand, she laid her palm against his open right hand on the cot.
She did not, in the laying, file.
She let her hand rest.
For three breaths.
One. Two. Three.
She lifted.
She said: "Yan Jiuhe."
"Mei-mei."
"You are — Yan Jiuhe — ridiculous."
He laughed.
The laugh was — by the count of every kettle that had ever rung on the 漓江 turn — the small clean laugh of a biāoshī who had, at twenty-two days, been ridiculous and was — at the count of three days and two watches — still ridiculous and was — by her own day on her own hand — kept.
The fox at the door of the room made the small soft hh of a clerk who had registered an entry on a column she had been keeping at stayed for nine years on a thief's road and was now, at the 白莲泽 healing hall, keeping it at kept.
Mo Yexing did not, on the second watch of the third day at the 白莲泽, come to her door.
He sent the small grey aunt with a tray.
The tray held one bowl of rice porridge, one peeled pear, one cup of plain hot water, and one folded note.
The note was in his hand.
The hand was small, clean, precise, the cusp of a man who had been taught at twelve to write the 白莲泽 manual at the inside cuff not on a desk but on the inside cuff of his own left sleeve.
The note read: Lady Lin. When you are ready, I am in the east garden. Take your time. — Mo.
She read it.
She ate the porridge.
She ate the pear.
She drank the plain hot water.
She did not, on the eating, file.
After the last bite of pear she took the 药王谷 needle out of her cuff, laid it on the cot beside her ribs, and looked at it for the count of one breath.
The needle was silver.
The needle had — at the cut on the inside of her left palm where the half-bloomed red lotus held quiet — cooled twice in three days.
The needle had — at the second cooling — run small clean cold green lines up the inside of her wrist that were not the lines of any 药王谷 acupuncture grid.
The lines had — at the count of one breath after the green — settled under the cuff of her outer-robe and waited.
She turned the needle in her fingers.
She did not, in the turning, file the turning.
A breath later she took the unopened crane out of the inside seam of her left sleeve.
The crane had been folded back at the 白鹿洲 deck-lantern at the third watch of seven nights past.
She had not, in seven nights, taken it out.
She held the crane in her right palm against the 药王谷 needle in her left.
For one breath.
She laid the crane back into the inside seam of her left sleeve at the same finger below the third volume.
She laid the needle back into the cuff at the inside of her left wrist.
She did not, on the laying back, file.
She did not, on the laying back, name.
She breathed in. Four count.
She breathed out. Six count.
She did, on the third breath, the thing her father had told her at six was the cusp a daughter of the south-county Lin came to only on the morning of a day she had — by her own count, on her own day — already opened two cardinal doors and was — at the count of three breaths — about to walk through a third.
She rose.
She walked.
She walked out of the room across the corridor where Yan Jiuhe lay on the cot with his open right hand on the cot and the fox at the foot, and she walked the second corridor of the 白莲泽 healing hall to the east garden where Mo Yexing sat at the lacquer tray under the south corner of the black pear bough with the cup at cold and seven blossoms at the count.
She did not, on the walking, drop her face.
She did not, on the entering of the east garden, take the cup.
She bowed once — the South corner's bow.
He returned it.
She said: "Mo-jūn."
"Lady Lin."
"The cup."
A breath.
"Lady Lin."
"Not today. Not the asking. The manual."
He did not, on the manual, breathe in.
Then, very lightly, with the patience of a man who had — at twelve, at a marsh his master had not, in fourteen years, let him leave — been waiting for a daughter of any 天魔 line to walk into his east garden and ask, on her own day on her own hand, for the page his master had told him no man of the 白莲泽 line gave without being asked, he bowed.
A shallow bow.
He stood.
He walked four paces north on the black wet jade to a stone alcove at the inside corner of the east garden where a small lacquered cabinet sat at his hip.
He opened the cabinet.
He drew out, from the inside of the cabinet, one scroll.
The scroll was bone-coloured.
The scroll was tied with a single black silk cord.
The scroll was — by the count of the small cusped serif at the inside seam of the outer leaf — four hundred years old.
He carried the scroll the four paces back to the lacquer tray.
He laid the scroll on the tray where her right hand would, by the count of her own day on her own hand, reach for it if she chose.
He did not, in the laying, push the scroll toward her.
He did not, in the laying, open it.
He said: "Lady Lin."
"Mo-jūn."
"The scroll is the 血煞经 of the 白莲泽 inner line. It is, Lady Lin, by the count of the colophon at the inside leaf, four hundred and seventeen years old. It was — Lady Lin — not written by a 白莲泽 hand. It was written by a Lady whose name is at the colophon. The name is — Lady Lin — 寒月真君. The name is, Lady Lin, the name of a daughter of the 天魔 line who walked at the year of the cock four centuries ago through the four cardinal doors of her own cardinal register, and who ascended, Lady Lin, on the 天魔 path of the fourfold anchor. The scroll is — Lady Lin — yours if you read it. The reading is — Lady Lin — mine to wait at the lacquer tray with the cup at cold for the count of the watch you read it. If, Lady Lin, you do not read it, the scroll will go back into the cabinet, and the blood meridian I will, Lady Lin, teach you in the east garden tomorrow will be — Lady Lin — half of what it ought to be. If, Lady Lin, you read it, the blood meridian I will, Lady Lin, teach you tomorrow will be — Lady Lin — whole. The choice — Lady Lin — is, by the four-and-six my master taught me at twelve, yours."
He stepped back one pace.
He sat at the bench one pace from the lacquer tray.
He did not look at her.
He looked at the seven blossoms on the south corner of the bough.
She watched him for the count of one breath.
She watched the scroll for the second.
She reached out her right hand on the third.
She took the scroll.
She untied the cord.
She unrolled the scroll on the lacquer tray the way her father had taught her at six a daughter of the south-county Lin unrolled a manual she had not, in nineteen years, been allowed to see.
The first page of the scroll was a diagram.
The diagram was a body — a woman's body — viewed from the front.
At the four cardinal points of the body — north at the brow, south at the dantian, east at the right palm, west at the left palm — were four small circles.
The four circles were the four cardinal meridian gates her clerk had been keeping the register of for nineteen years.
She had read the diagram in the inside margin of an inner-disciple's seized notebook at fourteen.
She had — at the count of nineteen years — never read it on a page that was not an inside margin of an inner-disciple's seized notebook.
She read it now.
She read the diagram for the count of three breaths.
She turned the page.
The second page was the first sentence of the 寒月真君 colophon.
The sentence read:
A daughter of the 天魔 line is a cup at the center of a wheel. The cup at the center of a wheel does not, by any orthodox cultivation manual on the 漓江 turn, stand alone. The cup at the center stands at the four cardinal anchors. The cup at the center, without the four anchors, will — daughter — by the third breath of any dual cultivation, core the man at the second cusp of the cup. The cup at the center, with the four anchors, will — daughter — ascend.
She read the sentence.
She read it once.
She did not read it twice.
She turned the page.
She read the rest of the scroll at the count of one watch.
She did not, in the reading, weep.
She did not, in the reading, look up.
At the fourth page — the diagram of the fourfold anchor formation, the page that showed in plain 月-木 script the four cardinal gates set in the four cardinal directions of the cup at the dantian, and the four breaths of taking and giving that ran in a clean Bagua loop around the cup at the center — she paused.
She paused at the inside cusp of the diagram where the North anchor was set at the brow.
The North anchor in the diagram was — by the small cusped serif of the four-hundred-year-old hand — the anchor a daughter of the 天魔 line opened first.
The anchor a daughter of the 天魔 line opened first was the anchor of kettle on a 天 brazier on a deck at the hour of the dragon.
The anchor was kept.
She had — at the 白鹿洲 deck at the hour of the dragon seven nights past — already opened it.
She had not, by any standard of any 寒月真君 colophon at any year of any cock, known she had.
She had only — by her own count on her own day, by her own hand — let the man bow twice to her mother's bow, and laid her forehead in the seam at his collarbone for one breath.
She had filed the bowing.
She had not, in the filing, known the bowing was the first anchor.
She put the back of her right hand against her sternum where the column at the North had — for nineteen days — been at stayed.
The column at the North, at the laying of her right hand on her sternum, answered.
It answered the way a kettle answered when the kettle had been on for twenty-two days and was — at the count of one breath — told by a hand at the brazier that the brazier had been seen.
The kettle was on.
The brazier was on.
The North anchor at the brow of the cup at the center of the wheel was — by the count of the 寒月真君 colophon on the fourth page of the scroll at the lacquer tray — open.
She filed the open.
She did not, on the filing, name it.
She did not, on the filing, lock it.
She turned the page.
The fifth page was the West anchor.
The West anchor was the anchor of blood at the meaty part below the index, half-bloomed red lotus, the cup at the lintel, the cup at cold, the asking that came at the second cusp of the body's own day.
She had — at the marsh at the hour of the snake three days past — opened the first cusp.
She had not — at the 白莲泽 east garden at the lacquer tray with the cup at cold and the seven blossoms — opened the second.
The West anchor required both.
She filed both under West.
She did not, on the filing, lift her eyes from the page.
She turned the page.
The sixth page was the East anchor.
The East anchor was — by the cleanness of the small cusped serif of the four-hundred-year-old hand — the anchor of needle, paper, crane, kitchen-step where a mother had named a child at four, the seal of the月-木 cusp at the corner of a wagon at the second water-house of the南道 at twelve.
She had — at the cuff of her own outer-robe for fourteen years — carried the East anchor.
She had not, in fourteen years, opened it.
She had only — by the count of the 药王谷 needle cooling and warming and cooling against the inside of her left wrist for fourteen years — kept it warm.
The keeping-warm was, by the 寒月真君 colophon on the sixth page, the pre-cusp of the anchor.
The opening of the East anchor required the man at the other end of the needle to, by his own day on his own hand, come to the Lady the needle had been keeping warm at twelve.
She did not, on the reading, breathe.
Very slowly, she laid the back of her right hand, palm up, on the inside of her left cuff where the needle was.
The needle, at the laying, cooled one further breath.
She filed cooled one further breath under the East column of the cardinal register.
The second entry under East.
The clerk did not, on the filing, name it stayed.
The clerk named it coming.
She turned the page.
The seventh page was the South anchor.
The South anchor was — by the cleanness of the small cusped serif at the inside seam of the outer leaf — the anchor of senior brother who set manuals down where a daughter could find them for ten years at the third practice court at the second watch, the seventh stance of the third volume of the Cold Pool Sword Manual at the third notch of the rising motion with the wrist-turn slowed by half a breath, the unopened crane in the inside seam, the南county honor at the inside of a left thumb on a third volume, the shallow bow to a hand on a kitchen step, the asking at the door.
She read the page.
She read it once.
She did not read it twice.
She did not, in the reading, weep.
After the reading, very lightly, she laid the back of her left hand, palm down, on the inside seam of her left sleeve where the unopened crane lay one finger below the third volume.
The crane did not, on the laying, answer.
The crane was paper.
The 南county honor at the inside of a left thumb on a third volume three days north on a horse at the south fork of the road past the 双枫 turn was — by the count of the 南道 aunt's hand on the plum-seal paper that lay one finger below the crane — coming.
She filed coming under the South column.
The third entry under South.
The clerk did not, on the filing, lock the column.
She turned the page.
The eighth page was the colophon.
The colophon read:
Daughter, by the count of my own day on my own hand four hundred and seventeen years past — when you have read this page, you will know the four cardinal anchors are not chosen by the cup at the center. The cup at the center does not choose. The cup at the center is — daughter — chosen. The four anchors are — daughter — the four men whose breath at the four-and-six on the kitchen step of the mother who taught you the bow was, before any of them knew it, your own breath. They were yours when you were nine. They were yours when you were nineteen. They will be yours when you are ninety. The cup will, at every count of every breath, take. The four anchors will, at every count of every breath, give. The four anchors, daughter, are not — by the count of the仙盟 of any tribunal at any island — your husbands. They are — daughter — the four corners of your wheel. They are, daughter, the four corners of the room your father drove a soul-nail through his own dantian to build for you at nine. The room is, daughter, yours. The corners are, daughter, theirs. The cup is the cup. The wheel turns. — 寒月真君, year of the cock, mountain of the eastern marsh, the second watch.
She read the colophon.
She read it once.
She did not read it twice.
She did not, in the reading, weep.
On the third breath after the colophon she lifted her face from the lacquer tray.
She looked at Mo Yexing on the bench one pace from the lacquer tray with his eyes on the seven blossoms at the south corner of the bough.
She did not, in the looking, drop her face.
She said: "Mo-jūn."
"Lady Lin."
"The four corners."
A breath.
"Lady Lin."
"You knew. You knew — Mo-jūn — at the marsh."
"Yes, Lady Lin."
"You did not, at the marsh, say."
"No."
"You wanted me to read it on my own day on my own hand."
"Yes, Lady Lin. Because — Lady Lin — the cup at the center does not, by any count of the colophon at the year of the cock, choose. The four corners are yours. You will, by your own day on your own hand, name them. If I — Lady Lin — at the marsh had named, the naming would have been mine. The naming is — Lady Lin — yours."
She did not, on the saying, weep.
Very slowly, with the back of her right hand, she lifted the blood-meridian page from where it had — at the third breath of the seventh page — fallen open beside the eighth.
The blood-meridian page was the page of the training method the 寒月真君 had developed at the year of the cock — the method by which a 天魔 cup at the center learned to take and give in a clean Bagua loop without coring the four anchors.
The training method had four stages.
The first stage was, by the count of the colophon, one anchor at one cardinal direction, at the breath of the cup at Lianqi 9th to Foundation 1st.
She was — at the count of the three days at the 白莲泽 — at Foundation 1st.
She had — at the 白鹿洲 deck — opened one anchor at North.
She was — by every breath of the colophon — ready.
She rolled the scroll closed.
She tied the cord.
She did not, on the tying, breathe.
After the tying she set the scroll on the lacquer tray a pace from where she had taken it.
She said, into the cup at the tray that was still — by the count of three refills — cold: "Mo-jūn."
"Lady Lin."
"Tomorrow."
"Yes."
"At the second watch of the snake."
"Yes."
"You will — Mo-jūn — teach me."
"Yes, Lady Lin."
"The blood meridian. The first stage."
"Yes, Lady Lin."
A breath.
"Mo-jūn."
"Lady Lin."
"The four corners. Mo-jūn. The four corners are — by the count of the colophon at the year of the cock — named."
He did not, on the saying, breathe in.
Then she said the names — not aloud, not into the cup, not into the seven blossoms, but in plain syntax inside the cardinal register at her sternum, the first time she had, by her own day on her own hand, named all four:
North: Yan Jiuhe.
West: Mo Yexing.
East: Su Tingxue.
South: Pei Shenzhi.
She filed all four under the smallest sub-column of every column they sat in.
The sub-column was named.
She did not, on the filing, lock any column.
She stood.
She bowed once.
He returned it.
She turned.
She walked off the black wet jade of the east garden toward the second corridor.
She did not, on the walking, look back.
The fox at the door of the room across the corridor — at the foot of a cot where Yan Jiuhe lay with his open right hand on the cot and his cuff clean — made the small soft hh of a clerk who had been keeping a register on a column called named for nine years on a thief's road and was — at the count of three days at the 白莲泽 — keeping it still at named and adding the second, third, and fourth names to the same column for the first time in her life.
The cup at Mo Yexing's right hand on the lacquer tray under the south corner of the bough was, at the count of the second breath after Lin Yao's stepping off the black wet jade, warm.
He did not, on the warming, smile.
Very slowly, he raised the cup at his right hand a breath toward his own mouth, and he did not, in the raising, drink.
He held the cup level with his collarbone.
He set it back on the lacquer tray.
He bowed one further inch, the fifth, to the empty corridor where the Lady had walked.
The fifth bow was the bow his master had told him at twelve no 白莲泽 student gave to any Lady of any line at any cusp.
He gave it.
He stood.
He looked at the seven blossoms on the south corner of the bough for the count of one watch.
He did not, at the watch, take down the seventh.
The seventh blossom held.