Chapter 195

I let a thread of Qi flow through the runes that run along the rim of the cauldron, and the ink begins to float.

It doesn’t boil, or bubble, or splash. It simply lifts away from the bottom as if someone were raising it from below with enormous care, rises out of the mouth of the cauldron in a single dark mass and stays floating a handspan above the rim, like a black sphere suspended in the air.

I watch the spectacle from my chair, pulled up against the side of the cauldron, in the same spot from which I have spent these last few days working on making talisman ink.

And to my right, on a tray, are the empty jars.

One hand of the Myriad picks up the first, another removes its stopper and I place it right beneath the ink. As soon as the mouth of the jar is in position, a fine thread drops from the dark mass and falls inside, straight and without a single drop outside, until the jar is full and the thread cuts itself off.

I stopper the jar, set it aside and bring over the next.

And as I do, I give thanks once again for this function, as I do every time I use it, because the alternative would be a ladle.

Or a dipper, which is even worse. Taking the ink out little by little, spoonful by spoonful, with the hand of someone who knows that every drop that falls outside is a drop that has cost money, and afterward scraping the bottom to make use of the last of it, and afterward scrubbing that same bottom until nothing is left stuck to it, because the leftovers of one batch spoil the next.

But fortunately, this cauldron’s function leaves no residue inside.

When I fill the last jar and the sphere of ink is used up, I look inside and the bottom is clean. It isn’t that little ink is left, it’s that none is left. Not a film, not a ring, not a dried lump in the seam of the walls, which is where everything you don’t want to build up always builds up.

At the digs in my other life I spent entire summers cleaning pottery fragments with a toothbrush, on my knees under an awning, so I know exactly what it takes to get the dried residue out of the bottom of an old cauldron.

That’s why, every time I see this cauldron empty itself, I like whoever designed it a little bit more.

I stopper the last jar and float it over to the preparation table, where I leave it at the end of the row.

There are a lot of them, all exactly alike and completely full, lined up from one end of the table to the other like soldiers on parade. And I stay looking at them for a while with a satisfaction I don’t bother to hide, because there is no one here to hide it from.

I made this.

I didn’t buy it from an alchemist’s apprentice, nor did Lianhua get it for me through one of her discreet channels, nor did anyone leave it to me before going away. I chose the herbs, I prepared them and I turned them into ink, with my own Qi, in this cauldron and in this room.

But then I look up at the shelves.

The wooden boxes are still there, each with its label and in the exact order they were in a few days ago, except that, back then, they were full of herbs and now they are empty. All of them, from the first to the last.

And I sigh, because the first batches came out the way first batches always come out, and a good part of those herbs went on learning what no book ever quite manages to teach you.

Even so, when I do the math, I quickly stop lamenting my past failures, even though everything on that table is generic ink.

I didn’t want to start on specialized ink, the kind prepared for one particular type of talisman, without first having enough practice with the generic kind, because ruining cheap herbs while you learn is an investment, but ruining expensive herbs is throwing money away.

And even though it is generic, there is enough ink there to fill two boxes like the one I took to the Tower of the Five Dragons the other day.

Two boxes, that is, some six hundred talismans.

I am in the middle of that thought when I hear someone knock at the door of the house, but I ignore it because Lianhua is home and answering the door is her job, so I let the knocks fade away on the other side of the courtyard and go back to what truly interests me right now, which is deciding what I am going to make with all this.

Because six hundred talismans is a lot of talismans.

There are the usual ones, the Fire Arrow, the Air Barrier, the Spiritual Shield and the Cutting Wind, which I already know the Tower buys and which I can already make almost without thinking. And there are all the others, the ones I have memorized rune by rune from Master Mu’s books and have never drawn even once, and which wait for me at the back of my memory with the patience of books that know that, sooner or later, you are going to open them.

I am calculating how many talismans I can afford to ruin practicing a new type of talisman when Lianhua comes into the room.

“Xiaojie”, she tells me. “Lu Zhiyu, from the Tower of the Five Dragons, has come to speak with you.”

I stay looking at Lianhua after her words, because Lu Zhiyu is the person one of whose jobs is to attend to our commercial company, and in my other life, someone’s personal account manager didn’t show up at their house unannounced except when they were bringing news that couldn’t wait, usually bad.

“Then we’d better go and see what is so urgent that she has come looking for me”, I tell her.

Lianhua nods after hearing me.

“And you take me”, I add. “It’s quicker.”

I pause.

“And considerably more elegant than watching me cross the courtyard from post to post”, I finish with a touch of humor.

Lianhua doesn’t answer; she simply positions herself behind the chair, takes me out of the workshop and we start across the courtyard.

Lu Zhiyu is sitting at the stone table, beneath the white magnolia, on one of the two benches.

She is wearing the same Tower uniform as the other day, with the same good cut and the same sleeves slightly narrower than those of the women at the counters, and she is sitting with her back straight and her hands joined on top of the table, in the posture of someone who is very used to waiting.

And in front of her is Xia, pouring her tea.

She does it holding the teapot in both hands and with the bow measured to the millimeter that Lianhua taught her at the Palace, and on the table there is already a plate of steamed buns and a bowl of roasted peanuts that Lu Zhiyu hasn’t touched, but which she is eyeing in a way that makes me think it won’t be long before she does.

As soon as she sees us coming, Lu Zhiyu stands up.

Lianhua stops the chair at the head of the table, in the gap between the two benches, so that my forearms are level with the stone top and Lu Zhiyu is to my right. Then she steps back a pace and stays standing to my left and a little behind.

“Lu Zhiyu”, I tell her, and incline my head as far as the chair allows me. “Welcome to my home.”

“Sun Wen”, she answers me, and returns the bow. “Thank you for receiving me without my having sent word.”

“Please, sit down”, I tell her.

Lu Zhiyu sits.

Xia sets a cup in front of me, gathers the tray against her chest and withdraws to the trunk of the magnolia, where she stands still exactly as Lianhua has taught her to stand, although with her eyes considerably wider open than Lianhua would approve of.

I take the cup in both hands, drink a sip and set it back down on the table.

“Go ahead”, I tell her. “To what do I owe your visit?”

Lu Zhiyu reaches into her sleeve and takes out a sheet folded in four.

“To this, first of all”, she tells me. “I promised it to you the other day.”

She unfolds the sheet and lays it on the table, turned toward me.

It is a list, written in small, cramped handwriting, and at the top it says that these are the talismans the Tower of the Five Dragons is most interested in right now at this branch.

I run my eyes down it from top to bottom.

And in first place, to my surprise, is the Freezing Talisman.

“The surge”, I tell her, without looking up.

“The surge”, she confirms to me. “Since it arrived, everything that gives off cold sells before it’s even finished being set out on a counter. And the Freezing ones are the first to run out.”

“But I’ve heard there are only a few months left until the surge ends”, I counter.

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After hearing me, Lu Zhiyu sighs.

“You’re right, but until it officially ends, Freezing Talismans are still selling like meat buns”, she answers me. “That’s why I put on the list that they are the ones in demand right now and not in the long term.”

I nod to Lu Zhiyu to show her that I understand her reasoning, and keep reading.

After that come the combat ones, with the Spiritual Shield and the Cutting Wind very near the top, something I imagine Lu Zhiyu has done on seeing that I can supply them easily, and then a series of names I know from Master Mu’s books, some of which I even drew when I practiced in her lessons.

And at the bottom of the sheet, in a separate column, the prices, type by type.

I keep the list in front of me a little longer than necessary, because less than an hour ago I was in the workshop trying to decide exactly this, and now it is brought to me written down, in order and with the Tower’s seal at the bottom.

“I’m grateful to you”, I tell her. “It’s going to save me a lot of dilemmas.”

“That’s supposed to be my job”, she answers me.

I fold the sheet and leave it beside me, under the cup, so that the wind off the river won’t carry it away.

But Lu Zhiyu doesn’t relax; on the contrary, she joins her hands on the table again and presses them together a little, and it is the first time since I met her that I see something like discomfort on her face.

“There is a second reason”, she tells me. “And in this one, the fault is mine.”

“I’m listening”, I answer her.

“The other day I was so excited about the merchandise that I forgot to ask you for something I should have asked for even before negotiating the prices of the talismans in the box”, she tells me. “And I didn’t realize it until yesterday, when I went to prepare the lot to put it up for sale.”

She pauses.

“I need the talisman maker’s certificate of the person who made them”, she finishes. “Without it, I can’t sell them.”

And I stay exactly as I am, with my hands on my legs and the same face, because I don’t have the faintest idea what she is talking about.

In the Empire no one ever asked me for any certificate, although of course, in the Empire my talismans were sold through intermediaries to people who didn’t ask questions, which is exactly the kind of sale in which no one asks for papers, so I have to ask.

But I can’t ask what anyone would ask, because anyone would ask what that certificate is and how one gets it, and a question like that, coming from me, is the same as telling her who made the talismans.

“Please forgive my ignorance”, I tell her. “But I come from a place where things were done differently, and the person who made those talismans isn’t from here either. What exactly is that certificate?”

Lu Zhiyu doesn’t blink after hearing my question.

“It is a document issued by the Talisman Makers’ Guilds”, she answers me. “It states that its holder has passed the Guild’s examination, and therefore certifies that they are an official talisman maker.”

“And is it essential in order to sell them?” I ask her.

“Not entirely”, she tells me. “Practically all the talismans sold at the street stalls in this city are made by people who don’t have that certificate, and nobody cares.”

Although after those words she raises a finger, as if to emphasize what she is about to say.

“But no official shop will buy or sell a talisman from someone who doesn’t have it”, she continues. “None. And the Tower of the Five Dragons, obviously, doesn’t either.”

She lowers her finger.

“So, as you’ll understand, this is a problem”, she finishes.

“I understand”, I tell her.

“I’m not going to ask you to return the money for the talismans I have already bought from you”, she continues. “The mistake was mine and I take responsibility for it. But until I see that certificate, I can’t put them up for sale.”

She makes a very brief pause.

“And, of course, I won’t be able to buy any more from you either”, she adds.

She says it in the same professional tone as always, but from the way she looks at the sheet I have under the cup, it is clear that that last sentence has cost her quite a lot, because it is the sentence of someone watching a good deal slip away because of a certificate.

And I grow thoughtful, because I know this routine. Not by this name or in this world, but I know it perfectly well.

When I arrived in China in my other life, with several master’s degrees and diplomas under my arm, the first thing I discovered was that all of it was worth absolutely nothing until some office in some ministry decided to recognize it. I spent weeks going from window to window with certified copies, sworn translations and stamps certifying that other stamps were authentic, just so a university could hire me to do exactly the same thing I already knew how to do the day I got off the plane.

And then came the pass to get onto the sites, and then the excavation permit, which was granted to me just in time for me to die.

Knowing how to do something and being able to prove officially that you know how to do it are two different things. And it seems that, even in this world, no one can escape the bureaucracy of certificates, so I let out a sigh.

“It may take me a couple of days”, I tell her. “But as soon as I can, I’ll come to the Tower with the certificate.”

Lu Zhiyu looks at me for a second, and in that second she doesn’t ask whose name is going to appear written on that certificate, nor anything that any other person sitting on that bench would ask, because the Tower doesn’t ask.

“Thank you very much”, she tells me. “Truly.”

Then she stands up, smooths her uniform and looks over the wall, toward the river.

“I would like to stay longer, after how well you’ve received me”, she tells me, and her eyes stray for a moment to the plate of buns, which is still untouched. “But I have a lot of work waiting for me. And besides, there’s a boatman at your dock waiting for me to come back so he can take me to the shore again.”

“That’s no problem at all”, I tell her. “Thank you for coming in person.”

And before she turns around, I add the only thing I have left to say.

“I hope to have good news for you the next time we see each other”, I finish.

“So do I”, she answers me.

She makes a bow, Lianhua leaves my chair to accompany her, and the two of them cross the courtyard and disappear through the door that opens onto the stone path.

Xia waits until she hears it close.

Then she comes over to the table, looks at the plate of buns, looks at Lu Zhiyu’s cup, which is empty, and finally looks at me.

“She didn’t eat a single one”, she tells me with a tragic face, almost as if she had been personally insulted.

“She was in a hurry”, I answer her.

“No one is in that much of a hurry”, she tells me.

And she carries the plate off toward the kitchen with the wounded dignity of a cook who has just had a dish sent back untouched.

Once she has gone, I take the list from under the cup and fix my eyes on it without reading it, but in the end I turn my head to look at Lianhua, who is coming back from seeing Lu Zhiyu out.

“Tell me what you think”, I tell her. “Because before going anywhere I want to know whether getting that certificate really suits us.”

Lianhua doesn’t answer right away. She goes around the bench, positions herself on the other side of the table, where I can see her without having to turn my head, and crosses her hands in front of her.

“The advantage is obvious, Xiaojie”, she tells me. “With the certificate, the Tower sells what it has already bought from you and buys everything you make. At the agreed price, without intermediaries and without having to look for a buyer each time.”

“And not only the Tower”, I tell her, if only to hear myself say it. “With that paper we can sell to any shop that suits us.”

“That’s right”, she confirms to me.

“And the drawback?” I ask her, although I already know it, but I want her to be the one to tell me.

“That you stop being anonymous”, she answers me.

She says it in the same tone in which she has said everything else, but I know her well enough to know that this is the part that matters to her.

“In the Empire no one knew who made the talismans I sold”, she continues. “Neither the intermediaries nor the buyers. And when someone started looking, they never managed to find anything.”

She makes a very short pause.

“Here there will be a record at the Guild with your name”, she finishes. “And an examination you will have sat in person, in front of people who are going to remember you.”

She doesn’t add why they are going to remember me, although I am fairly clear on that.

“The Tower already suspects it, or at least Lin Quingyu does”, I tell her.

“The Tower doesn’t talk”, she answers me. “The Guild will probably gossip about the girl who passed the examination for days.”

And there I have nothing to argue with her about.

Because in the Empire anonymity protected me from the Sect and from the court, and here there is neither the one nor the other. But a thirteen-year-old kid in a wheelchair who makes talismans is, to anyone who can add, a kid who has money at home. And that home is on an island, with three women inside and the nearest neighbor at a comfortable distance.

“All right”, I tell her. “Now the other way around. What happens if I don’t get it?”

“That the Tower can’t sell what it has or buy any more from you”, she answers me. “Lu Zhiyu isn’t asking for the money back, but those three hundred talismans would sit in a warehouse.”

And I let out the air through my nose, because I was the one who told that woman, at her own table, that I had no intention of bringing her talismans that would sit in a warehouse for a year.

“So we would have to buy them back”, I tell her.

“If you don’t want to lose reputation with the Tower, it’s essential, Xiaojie”, she confirms to me.

“With money we are currently setting aside for living expenses and for buying paper for more talismans we wouldn’t be able to sell them”, I add.

Lianhua doesn’t answer that, because she knows the accounts as well as I do.

“And afterward we would have to sell them ourselves”, Lianhua continues. “At the street stalls, which is where no one asks for the certificate.”

“And could you do that?” I ask her.

“In the capital of the Empire, yes”, she answers me. “There I knew the streets, I knew who could be sold to and who couldn’t, and I knew what it cost for someone not to ask questions.”

She falls silent for a moment, and it isn’t the pause of someone searching for words, but of someone who has them and doesn’t like them.

“Here I don’t know the city well enough”, she tells me. “I don’t know who decides where a stall can be set up, or whom you have to pay to set it up, or what happens to someone who shows up with three hundred talismans on a street someone considers theirs.”

She lowers her head a little.

“So I can’t tell you whether that has risks, Xiaojie”, she finishes. “I can only tell you that I don’t know.”

And I stay looking at her, because in thirteen years I have heard her say that sentence very few times, and I know perfectly well what it costs her.

I also know she’s right. Lin Quingyu told me about families who behave like petty tyrants on their own street and about wandering cultivators who wear no emblem to warn you who they are, and that is everything we know about the streets of Sanjiang, which is the same as knowing nothing.

“Then there isn’t much to decide”, I tell her. “Between a risk I know and one neither of us knows, I’ll take the one I know.”

I rest my hand on the armrest.

“And besides, anonymous, truly anonymous, I haven’t been for a single day, not in my old home or in this city”, I continue. “I’ve been the girl in the strange chair since I got off the boat. The only thing that changes is that now the girl in the strange chair is going to be a little more famous.”

“It seems the most prudent course to me, Xiaojie”, Lianhua tells me.

She pauses.

“And if anyone gets any strange ideas because of it, I’ll take care of them”, she adds.

She says it without raising her voice, and I decide not to ask her how, although I do ask her the most reasonable question that can be asked now that I’ve made up my mind.

“Do you know where this city’s Talisman Makers’ Guild is?” I ask her, more to find out whether I need to ask her to reread the guide than for my own sake, since I remember perfectly well where it is.

“It’s in the guide you bought at the Tower”, she tells me. “It’s inland, a good while’s walk from the nearest dock.”

I nod slowly, because that is just what I remember.

“Then we’ll go tomorrow morning”, I tell her. “Early.”

Xia appears in the kitchen doorway drying her hands on a cloth, because Xia hears everything that happens in this courtyard even from the other side of a wall, even without having the Yin Gate open.

“Are we going somewhere?” she asks us.

“Lianhua and I are going to the Talisman Makers’ Guild”, I answer her. “You can come if you want.”

Xia thinks it over, and she seems to really think it over, with the cloth stilled between her hands and her eyes on the door of her room, where I know perfectly well what she has on her table.

“I’ll stay”, she tells me in the end. “I want to study the books on spiritual ingredients. Yesterday I started the one on fungi and I’m at the best part.”

“Fungi have a best part?” I ask her.

“The poisonous ones”, she answers me very seriously.

And she goes back into the kitchen.

I stay looking at the door she has disappeared through, not knowing whether I should be worried after that declaration, but then I realize something, which is that I am probably going to have to sit an examination, yet again.

And I sigh, remembering the last examination Master Mu gave me, although then I calm down a little, thinking that it probably won’t be as exhaustive as hers.