Chapter 331: Six Lamps

As the bell’s ring faded, a second sound came from inside the well wall.

It wasn’t an echo.

It came through the stone, low and slow, as if another bell were buried behind the wall, trying to answer.

Bai Pu immediately gripped the copper bell.

A third ring never came.

Lu Yuan brought the green lamp closer to the transport record. Its light swept over the bell-shaped seal in the corner of the paper. Beneath the seal, a faint vertical stroke showed, like half of an unfinished character.

Wang Cheng’an bent down to study it.

“It’s a cargo number.”

“Not a person’s seal?” Bai Pu asked.

“There’s also a mark beside it for the second batch. The bell-shaped mark must be used to tell one shipment from another.”

A-Man suddenly looked up.

“The medicine cart.”

Everyone turned to her.

She stared at the corner of the paper as if she were looking at an old thing she finally recognized.

“In winter, the roads were hard to travel. The grain carts took the main road, and the medicine carts went through the mountains. So they wouldn’t miss each other, they’d ring a bell at the fork. Three rings meant wait for the cart. Two meant take another route.”

Bai Pu asked, “What about one?”

Slowly, A-Man turned toward the well wall where the sound had come from.

“The cargo has arrived, but no one’s there to receive it.”

Silence settled over the stone chamber.

Zhou Heng followed the wall, tapping the stone with his scabbard. At the third block, the sound changed from solid to hollow. He scraped away the moss between the stones, revealing a rusted iron ring.

Lu Yuan stopped him before he could pull.

“A-Man, what’s behind here?”

“A hidden cellar for unloading medicine.”

She stood, but her legs gave way and she nearly fell back down. Bai Pu caught her. A-Man looked at her own hands, as if she still wasn’t used to them no longer being old.

“There’s an entrance behind the slope on South Street. In winter, they’d lower the medicine boxes down a wooden chute. The delivery room was above, and the medicine was stored here, so they wouldn’t have to open the door every day and let the wind in.”

Zhou Heng took hold of the iron ring and tested it.

The stone door shifted only a fraction.

Xu Erxiao heard the commotion above and passed down the iron shovel. The two of them braced it in the crack and slowly pried the door open. There was no light behind it, and no one. A dry smell of medicine drifted out.

The green lamp shone inside.

Two sections of wooden chute lay across the narrow cellar. At the far end sat a square box.

A bell was stamped on its lid, too.

A fine copper wire ran from the corner of the box through a crack in the wall, connecting to the room above. The bell that had just rung had tugged on this very wire.

Bai Pu followed the wire with her eyes.

The bell in her hand hadn’t touched it.

Song Qinghe crouched and set the lamp beside the chute.

“Don’t ring it again. The old method here hasn’t faded. When the bell rings, it answers in the same order as it did back then.”

Lu Yuan supported the bottom of the box while Zhou Heng held the other end. Together, they carried it out. The wood hadn’t suffered much from the damp, but the seal was broken, with only half still stuck to the edge of the lid.

“Black Mountain Pass Benevolent Medicine Bureau.”

Wang Cheng’an read the words aloud.

There was no birth register inside. Only a stack of prescription forms, a weight wrapped in cotton cloth, and two very thin transport ledgers.

Xu Erxiao peered down from the well mouth.

“How many more levels are there?”

Lu Yuan looked up at him.

“We found the way. Let’s get everyone up first.”

A-Man was still staring at the box. Only when she heard him did she come back to herself.

“We’re taking these with us?”

“We are,” Bai Pu said. “And you’re coming too.”

A-Man looked at the kinship papers scattered across the table.

“But the people who came looking for their mothers…”

Wang Cheng’an packed the papers into an oilcloth bag and tied it shut.

“We’ll record who came and what they left behind. You don’t have to wait for them in this well anymore.”

At last, he put away the blue-covered ledger of comings and goings. He didn’t touch the six fingerprints, sealing them away along with their outer cover.

A-Man stood at the stone steps and looked back once.

Once the lamp was out, the stone chamber was nothing more than an old medicine cellar.

There were no six places waiting to be filled. No door she had to guard.

With Bai Pu supporting her, she slowly made her way toward the daylight at the well mouth.

*

Sang Suqin sat beside the well, her bamboo cane lying across her knees.

When A-Man climbed out, Sang Suqin lifted her head. Her lips moved for a long time before she finally managed to call, “A-Man, my girl.”

A-Man’s eyes immediately reddened.

She didn’t rush over. She only stood two steps away from the old woman.

“When I came to learn the trade, was I really eleven?”

“You barely came up to my chopping block.”

“My mother?”

Sang Suqin shook her head.

This time, she didn’t try to piece together an answer.

“I don’t know.”

A-Man lowered her head. After a while, she asked, “Then what did I learn from you?”

“To boil water, wash cloth, and recognize medicine. You were quickest at replacing the cord on a scale pan. You made it sturdier than I could.”

A-Man looked at the weight wrapped in cotton in the box.

She crouched down, smoothed the corner of the cloth, and tied it again.

Her fingers didn’t hesitate.

Sang Suqin watched the knot. Tears fell from her eyes again.

Bai Pu stood nearby without rushing her.

Lu Yuan took Zhou Heng to check the road on South Street. The old delivery room stood at the end of the street. Its front door opened onto town, but in the back was a small opening up the slope, sealed over with snow. Outside it, cart ruts ran all the way toward the southern valley.

Those ruts hadn’t been left years ago.

Only a shallow layer of snow had settled over them, and beside them lay half of a broken straw rope.

Zhou Heng crouched and rubbed the ground between his fingers.

“It hasn’t frozen solid.”

Lu Yuan looked into the distance.

A thin plume of smoke rose from the mountain hollow.

“Someone’s still using this road.”

When they returned to the well, Wang Cheng’an had reached the ends of the two transport ledgers.

The first half of each thin book listed medicines and quantities. But in the second half, a new column appeared: Items stored with the medicine.

He turned one of the pages toward Lu Yuan.

“Old family genealogies, household papers, delivery-room records—all transported with the medicine crates. Yongji was only a transfer point. The Black Mountain Pass Benevolent Medicine Bureau was the one actually keeping these things.”

“Why send them with the medicine?” Song Qinghe asked.

“Medicine carts can get into villages, delivery rooms, and places where the sick are housed,” Song Qinghe said. “They don’t draw attention.”

Xu Erxiao squeezed over and pointed at a line.

“Is this Liu family gully the place we went to?”

Wang Cheng’an nodded.

The page read:

“Lower Bay, Liu family gully. Medicine bill unpaid. Attached: a bundle of old foster-care papers.”

Beneath it, in smaller writing, was another line:

“Xu Liushi came to collect them. Nothing was released.”

Xu Erxiao immediately untied his cloth bundle.

He laid a copy of the land deed, a wooden tablet, and osmanthus candy on a clean patch of stone beside the well. Then he found a copied page from his mother’s old household register and handed it to Wang Cheng’an.

“Can you match them?”

Wang Cheng’an compared the place names and the dates of handling, then looked up at him.

“It’s a lead. This says she came to collect the old papers. It doesn’t say where she went afterward.”

“That’s enough.”

Xu Erxiao carefully packed everything away.

“I’ll go find out who’s been keeping them from her.”

Wang Cheng’an’s hand stopped when he reached the final page.

The ink there was newer than the rest.

“Second winter shipment: old stored items transferred to the mountain. If unclaimed by the deadline, enter into storage under the No-Master offering allotment.”

Beside the words was a seal.

A closed-eye fish.

All six of them recognized it.

But A-Man suddenly clapped her hands over her ears and stepped back.

“That’s the one.”

Bai Pu steadied her.

“You’ve seen it?”

“The person who gave me the kinship papers had it on his sleeve. He said if I acknowledged six households, he’d go into the mountains and find my mother.”

Her gaze fell on the words “No-Master offering allotment.”

“They weren’t asking me to deliver babies.”

No one answered right away.

Wind blew in through the slope entrance and flipped half a page of the transport ledger.

There was another slip attached to the back.

“Second winter shipment of offerings departs at the end of the You hour tonight.”

Zhou Heng checked the sun.

Less than two hours remained before dark.

*

“We can’t leave them by the well.”

Song Qinghe spoke first.

Sang Suqin gripped her bamboo cane. “I know the path behind the Herb Shop. I can take A-Man out.”

Lu Yuan didn’t answer. Instead, he sent Zhou Heng to check the plume of cooking smoke by the slope entrance.

Half an incense stick later, Zhou Heng returned with a man wearing a sheepskin vest. The man was pulling an empty sled. His nose was red with cold, and the moment he entered the courtyard, he stared at Sang Suqin in surprise.

“Auntie Sang?”

Sang Suqin looked up, trying to recognize him.

“From the Zhao family?”

“I’m Zhao Liujin, the storehouse keeper,” the man said quickly. “I brought you coal last fall. What are you doing at this old compound?”

Everyone exchanged glances.

Bai Pu asked softly, “Last fall?”

“Of course. She usually lives at East Slope. I haven’t seen her around lately, so I thought she’d gone to a neighboring village.”

Sang Suqin didn’t explain.

She lowered her eyes to the snow.

The footprints that hadn’t been there all along finally pressed two shallow hollows into the snow beneath her feet.

Wang Cheng’an recorded Zhao Liujin’s name and residence, then asked about the road from East Slope to White River Town. Zhao Liujin gave clear directions and could even describe the half-broken firewood gate behind Granny Sang’s house.

Lu Yuan set a bundle of dry rations on the sled.

“Take them to East Slope. Don’t let strangers into the house before dark.”

Zhao Liujin saw the open well in the courtyard, then the weapons in the others’ hands. He asked no questions.

Before climbing onto the sled, A-Man handed the weight to Bai Pu.

Bai Pu didn’t take it.

“It’s yours.”

“I know.”

A-Man clutched the corner of the cloth, her voice very small.

“I’m just afraid if I take it away, someone will call me back.”

Bai Pu tucked the weight into the front of her clothes.

“Try taking it with you first.”

The sled headed down the slope.

A-Man never looked back.

*

The seven of them didn’t knock on the ancestral hall door again.

They circled around to the rear warehouse of the Herb Shop on South Street. According to the transport ledger, this was where the cargo was loaded. The warehouse door stood half open. Old hemp sacks covered the ground, and more than a dozen wooden crates were piled against the wall.

Six of them were already bound with oxhide rope.

Xu Erxiao spotted the closed-eye fish seal on one corner and reached for his iron shovel.

Lu Yuan stopped him.

“Count first.”

Zhou Heng followed the wall to the other side.

“One cart, two mules. Three people: one in the counting house, two loading crates.”

Lin Zhaoxuan laid an ink thread lightly across the warehouse door’s hinge.

It didn’t tremble.

“They’re alive.”

Wang Cheng’an took out the transport ledger and flipped to the last page. “At least one of the six crates contains old papers. The Original Delivery Register is among the stored items. It might not still be in this warehouse.”

“Which is why we can’t let tonight’s shipment get away.”

Lu Yuan handed the slip about the stored items to Song Qinghe.

“Qinghe, guard the counting-house exit. Zhaoxuan, Zhou Heng, watch the cart. Cheng’an, come in with me.”

Xu Erxiao looked at him.

“What about me?”

“Go with Bai Pu and find the stored-item crates. Check the numbers only. Don’t break the seals.”

Someone inside the warehouse was complaining about how difficult the road was.

When Lu Yuan stepped through the door, two workers looked up. Their eyes went first to the transport ledger in his hand, then to the abacus frame in Wang Cheng’an’s arms.

“Where are you from?”

“White River’s old delivery room.”

Wang Cheng’an set the slip on the loading platform.

“We’re checking this entry for stored items.”

The worker glanced at it, and his face changed.

“It was sent out ages ago.”

“When?”

“Last year.”

“The transport ledger says this winter.”

The worker fell silent.

From inside the counting house came the scrape of a chair.

A man in a black cotton vest came out, holding a dry tobacco pipe. He looked at the slip, then at the seven of them spread around the room, and slowly set the pipe on the platform.

“If you’re looking for kin, ask north of town. We only transport medicine.”

Wang Cheng’an opened the transport ledger.

“Six medicine crates, one bundle of stored items. Who authorized you to put someone else’s old papers toward the medicine bill?”

The man looked at him for a long moment.

“Those are the Benevolent Medicine Bureau’s rules.”

“Where is the Bureau?”

“Black Mountain Pass.”

“Which road?”

The man didn’t answer. He suddenly reached for the slip.

Lu Yuan put his hand down on the paper.

From the other side of the warehouse came Xu Erxiao’s voice.

“Brother Lu, the crate number matches.”

Bai Pu stood in front of a square crate nearest the wall, holding a shipping tag.

A bell-shaped seal was stamped on it.

Beneath the seal were four words:

“Original Birth Register.”

The man’s face tightened.

“You can’t open that.”

Bai Pu looked at him.

“Who locked it?”

“The mountain.”

“Who can open it?”

“When it reaches its destination, someone will receive it.”

Lu Yuan didn’t open the crate. He turned it around, revealing another tag on the bottom.

“Black Mountain Pass Benevolent Medicine Bureau. Forward to Medicine King Temple, Crouching Ox Ridge.”

Beneath the words “Medicine King Temple,” a line was hidden under the hemp rope:

“Old names of women and children, for the Master of Offerings to inspect.”

The room went silent for a moment.

From Liu family gully to Yongji, then from North Ferry around into White River Town—the names they had been chasing along the way had finally been connected again to the place in the mountains where offerings were made.

Xu Erxiao stared at the words “for the Master of Offerings to inspect,” his lips pressed white.

Lu Yuan asked the man, “What do you offer up in the mountains?”

The man didn’t answer.

Song Qinghe came out of the counting house with a new ledger and set it on the loading platform.

“It isn’t the Medicine King.”

The open page showed a seated statue.

It had no head or face. Six small boxes rested on its shoulders. In front of the base sat offering bowls, but what they held wasn’t grain. It was folded slips of paper, each bearing a name.

Beside each box was a label.

Name. Household. Deed. Possession. Road. Kin.

Wang Cheng’an slowly raised his head.

“All six kinds of records are being sent to it.”

The man stared at the page and suddenly clapped a hand over his mouth.

A thread of ash slipped from his sleeve and landed on the new ledger.

Immediately afterward, something made a sound inside the stored-item crate by the wall.

Like a fingernail lightly scraping across paper.

Bai Pu stepped back.

The shipping tag marked “Original Birth Register” began to blacken.

“It knows someone’s found out,” Lin Zhaoxuan said.

Lu Yuan immediately covered the crate with oilcloth and weighted down the corners. Song Qinghe set the green lamp in front of it. The gray thread touched the lamplight and stopped.

Outside, both mules snorted at the same time.

Lin Zhaoxuan turned to look at the cart.

A small gray handprint had appeared on the cart shaft. No one knew when it had gotten there.

The handprint faced north.

Toward Crouching Ox Ridge.

Lu Yuan bound the crate holding the Original Delivery Register securely to the cart.

“The original goes with the cart. So do we.”

The man looked sharply at him.

“You’re going into the mountains?”

“You’re taking us there.”

“I’ll only go as far as the pass. No one dares take the road to the temple after dark.”

Lu Yuan picked up the new ledger and closed it over the image of the headless statue.

“Then we’d better go before it’s fully dark.”

Wang Cheng’an copied the stored-item crate number into the corrections register, leaving a wide blank space beside it.

This time, he didn’t begin by writing whose mother someone was.

He wrote only:

“White River Original Delivery Register. Sealed and unopened. Original sighted.”

Bai Pu stood beside the cart, holding the copper bell.

The mountain wind swept through South Street.

The bell didn’t ring.

But far away, beyond ridge after ridge, a muffled wooden-fish knock suddenly sounded.

The mules dropped to their knees as one.

The man in the warehouse bent his knees too, his forehead almost touching the snow.

“The Master of Offerings is summoning us.”

His voice shook.

“It never summons twice.”

Lu Yuan looked toward the mountain pass.

In the dusk, a mountain path long buried beneath the snow slowly emerged from the trees.

At its end, six lamps came alight.

Every one of them faced toward them.