The water was beginning to respond well to me during my training, so I decided to push it further.
I sat at the bank, opened the core draw, and instead of simply receiving the ambient Qi, I turned my attention to the Qi itself to read its quality.
What arrived from the river carried the water's properties as if the Qi itself had been moving through water long enough to take and mimic its shape. Did Qi exist in all things such as water, or did water exist as a direct result of Qi? In this world you couldn’t separate the two, Qi was the fundamental law of nature, and how you interacted with it was dependentant upon your own intent.
I held the draw and let it settle into the channels instead of releasing it. Then I turned my attention to my hands.
The Qi began to leak from my fingertips.
A slow seepage, moving under what blocked it instead of pushing through, following the contours of my skin outward to the contours of the ground when it dispersed.
There was very little seeping from my pores but it carried the river's quality with it nontheless.
I sat with my hands in my lap and looked at the water.
This could be a technique that could be used for reading elemental affinity. It could be read by the practitioner themselves by noticing which direction the Qi comes easiest from and what quality it carries when it arrives.
The technique would also let me read others. I thought about Hao, the core draw developed without a framework, the deep vessel, the way he pulled the surrounding field with an ease that matched nothing I had seen before. What element was underneath that? What was the ambient Qi giving him?
I thought about Suyin, the pericardium pathway, the hands that ran hot when she worked, as well as the precision of her healing. What did the field taste like when she drew from it?
I did not know. But I had a method for finding out, and a method that could be taught meant a method that could be passed on.
Name it first. Then write it down.
I let the water Qi drain from my fingertips slowly, feeling the last of it disperse into the bank, and stood up to go find Hao.
Duan came to find Hao at the same moment that I had.
I was crossing the training ground when I saw them near the south wall, Duan speaking in a low whisper.
Duan looked at me as I approached and continued what he was saying. He was not a man who spoke around things.
"Pei Yan asked me yesterday about the watch change schedule," he said. "She said she wanted to volunteer for a shift.” He paused. "Except she didn't ask about which shifts needed filling. She asked when the watch changed and how long the transition time was between the dawn and the dusk change.”
“Thanks for telling us, Duan. Let me and Liang look into this,” Hao said.
Duan nodded and left.
"You've been noticing her too I take it," Hao said while crossing his arms.
I raised two fingers. "Two things," I began to say. "First, she asked about the second cohort's timing at the evening meal. Then again three days later with Zhao Lin."
Hao was quiet. The training ground sounds continued around us, Bolin running the general sessions and Shan Pei working with the militia. It was by all accountants, an ordinary afternoon.
Did you know this text is from a different site? Read the official version to support the creator.
"She arrived alone from the hill country right?" Hao asked for clarity.
"Right," I nodded.
"I have been thinking about that since Zhu Rong confirmed Shu Shu only guided the family group." He looked at the south gate. "A woman who walked that road by herself, in winter, with no spirit beast and no soldiers to accompany her? That must have been a very harsh journey."
"Yes, it truly must have been," I agreed.
We let the silence fill the space between us.
"Have you told anyone else about Pei Yan?” He asked me.
I shook my head.
"Keep it that way until we have more. I don't want Suyin changing how she acts around her before we know what we're dealing with."
I had been thinking the same thing.
"Agreed.”
The direct approach: ask her something she did not know I was asking.
The following morning, cousin Luan Feng was rotating the eastern grain records, which he did every three weeks as he had been instructed to do. I found him at the eastern storage building with the inventory laid out and asked if I could work alongside him.
He looked mildly surprised and said yes.
I sent word to Pei Yan that we could use an extra set of hands for the rotation and a chance to walk her through how Hekou managed its winter stores, in case she wanted to contribute to the planning.
She arrived within the quarter hour.
The three of us worked through the rotation for most of the morning. Luan Feng read the counts, Pei Yan pulled the older grain forward in each section, and I cross-referenced the numbers against the intake records from the autumn.
"The grain storage in your settlement," I said, after we had been working for a while. "How did you manage the winter rotation? Eastern settlements tend to store differently from the river settlements."
"Smaller bins," she said. "We kept less at one time and replenished more often. The road to the nearest market was passable most of the winter, so we could run down to a shorter supply without risk." She pulled a sack forward without looking up. "My husband's family had the largest storage in the settlement. His father had built it to last two hard winters back-to-back."
"Good planning."
"He was a careful man."
She did not elaborate.
"Your sons helped with it?" I asked. Luan Feng was bent over the opposite end of the storage row, checking figures.
Her hands slowed slightly on the grain sack. "The older two did. Wu Jun and Wu Chen. Wu Bao was still young when they began learning the rotation. He watched more than he helped." A pause. "He would have been useful for it by now."
The last line landed heavily. A conditional that would never resolve.
"You mentioned they went with the collector," I said.
She looked up briefly. When she spoke her voice was level, but her jaw was tight. "Lu Fang. He came in the third wave of the mobilization." She pulled another sack. "My brothers had gone in the second wave and my sons were taken in the third. I argued with the collectors for weeks about Wu Bao. He was only sixteen but they took him away from me anyways."
I kept moving grain, giving her the work to hide behind if she needed it.
"Did you ever receive word afterward?" I asked. "About what happened to them?"
Her hands stopped.
She was looking at the wall of the storage building, not at the grain, not at me. Her fists were closed around the neck of the sack.
"Nothing," she said. "No letters. No official notification. No bodies returned for burial." She set the sack down with more force than the task required. "In my settlement, when a man died in the field, his family received his effects and his name on a record." Her voice had gone flat now. "I received nothing. So I do not know where they fell, or how, or whether anyone said words over them."
She picked up the next sack and kept working. I could tell that this conversation was making her uncomfortable, so I opted not to press any further.
I kept working too. I did not say anything else about it.
Lu Fang. The third wave of mobilization. Men conscripted from the eastern settlements under his quota….
Lu Fang had died at Hekou by my hands, but I had not read the casualty list from his force. There had been no reason to.
If her sons went in Lu Fang's third wave, then there is a possibility that they would have arrived here at Hekou with Lu Fang along with Shan. They would have been among Lu Fang's force when we turned them back.
I looked at the grain I was moving and kept my face exactly as it was.
I did not know yet. I was making a connection between two facts that might not be connected. Lu Fang had commanded many men, and not all of them had died at Hekou. The eastern settlements had contributed men to multiple actions, so the men he had with him could have been seasoned soldiers or militia men, there was no reason to assume that they were Pei Yan’s sons.
But the timing was right, and she had received nothing: no effects, no notification, and most importantly, no bodies. All of that was consistent with men who had died in a disputed engagement that only the Western Reaches Territories would have record of.
I needed to see the casualty list.
Luan Feng finished the count and took the records back to the administrative building. Pei Yan washed her hands at the south well and went toward the militia ground for the afternoon session.
Then I went to the small room at the back of the administrative building that was attached to the garrison…