Chapter 305: Invited Into the Mountain for Discussion

Wang Cheng'an lowered his head to look at that black bead, remaining silent for a long while.

The white mark only revealed a single horizontal stroke and a vertical one, indeed the opening strokes of the character "Wang."

But every time the sound of the abacus beads rang out across the snowy plain, the white mark carved a little deeper inward, as if an invisible knife were slowly engraving characters from inside the bead.

Xu Erxiao reached out to pry the black bead off.

"Don't touch it." Wang Cheng'an pressed down on the abacus. "This bead has claimed me."

"Then throw it away."

"Throwing it away won't help." Wang Cheng'an looked ahead. "The Iron Abacus isn't calculating the beads. It's calculating me."

Lu Yuan stopped in his tracks.

"When did it start?"

Wang Cheng'an thought carefully.

"In the righteous manor, the black bead representing seventeen shattered into six pieces, and each of us picked up one. After leaving North Mountain Pass, I strung the six pieces back onto the abacus."

"Just now when the Iron Abacus sounded, the other five beads didn't move at all. Only this one sank downward."

He flipped the abacus over.

On the wooden frame that had been perfectly smooth on the back, seven shallow grooves had inexplicably appeared.

The first six grooves each bore a name: Lu Yuan, Xu Erxiao, Lin Zhaoxuan, Zhou Heng, Song Qingwei, and Wang Cheng'an.

The seventh groove had no characters.

But it was deeper than all the previous six.

Song Qingwei shone the lamp over it and said softly:

"These weren't carved just now. The marks were already in the frame, they've only become visible now."

Zhou Heng asked:

"Where did your abacus come from?"

"My father left it to me."

Wang Cheng'an paused.

"He said he traded for it from a refugee bookkeeper. Before that man froze to death, all he asked for was half a sack of sorghum. He said nothing else."

Lin Zhaoxuan took the abacus and slowly ran his fingertip along the seventh groove.

"This wasn't reserved for a seventh person."

"This was reserved for the total count."

Lu Yuan looked out at the snowy plain.

"The Iron Abacus knows this abacus."

The sound of beads up ahead suddenly stopped.

Then, a hoarse voice rang out across the snow:

"Old abacus, return to the old counting house."

The voice came from all directions, impossible to tell how near or far.

The abacus in Wang Cheng'an's arms suddenly grew heavy, as if someone were grabbing it from the other end. The black bead with the white mark slid on its own, striking against the wooden frame.

Crack.

A blue-white lamp lit up deep within the snowy plain.

Beneath the lamp stood a counting house.

The six of them hadn't seen any building at all just moments ago, yet now, that counting house stood at the end of the old road. Heavy snow piled on its roof, its doors and windows tightly shut, and a string of abacus beads hung beneath the eaves. When the wind blew through, the wooden beads clacked against each other, producing precisely the sound they had been hearing all along the way.

Xu Erxiao gripped his short sword tightly.

"This house just appeared out of thin air?"

"No." Lu Yuan said. "It's been here all along."

Song Qinghe raised the lamp higher. The firelight of the bronze lamp revealed an extremely faint set of cart tracks, stretching from North Mountain Pass all the way to the counting house's door.

"The path was hidden by the sound of the beads."

The six of them approached along the cart tracks.

There was no door knocker on the counting house's door, only a rectangular empty slot embedded in it, sized exactly to fit Wang Cheng'an's abacus.

Beside the door hung a pair of faded couplets:

"All who come are entered into the count."

"All who leave are not struck from the ledger."

The horizontal scroll above only had one character left: "Total."

Xu Erxiao swallowed hard.

"This place never intended to let anyone out."

Wang Cheng'an walked to the door, and the black bead in the abacus slid on its own once more.

A voice from inside the door asked:

"How many have you brought?"

Lu Yuan answered:

"Six people."

The voice inside asked again:

"How many on the ledger?"

Wang Cheng'an said:

"Six hundred and forty-eight names, each with an origin."

The sound of beads being flicked echoed from within the room.

"Wrong."

"The ledger holds six hundred and forty-seven, lacking one chief account."

"Once the chief account is filled, it becomes six hundred and forty-eight."

"The total name can be established, and the relocation gate can open."

Lu Yuan said coldly:

"Ma Huichuan has already returned his name. The deficit is filled."

The person inside laughed once.

"Returning a name is not the same as entering the ledger."

"If he hasn't entered the Relocation Headquarters, he cannot be counted in the total."

"The ledger still lacks one."

Wang Cheng'an looked down at the black bead. The white mark on it had already carved out most of the character "Wang."

"It wants to use me to fill the count."

"It's not targeting you." Lin Zhaoxuan said. "It's targeting the owner of this abacus."

"Whoever carries this abacus here becomes the chief account."

The voice from inside the door rang out immediately:

"Once the Iron Abacus returns to its place, all names may be settled."

The empty slot on the counting house's door slowly spread open, like a long, narrow mouth.

The abacus in Wang Cheng'an's hand vibrated violently, nearly flying out of his grip.

Lu Yuan raised his broken blade and pressed the flat of it down on the abacus.

"If you truly know how to settle accounts, then show me the books first."

The room fell silent for a moment.

"The books are within the house."

"To see the books, the abacus must first return."

"Once the abacus returns, what proof do you have for your books?"

"The books of a counting house are not subject to outside inspection."

Lu Yuan let out a laugh.

"Then what you're settling isn't accounts. It's lives."

He lifted his foot and kicked at the wooden door.

The door panel didn't budge, but the couplets by the door suddenly came to life. Hundreds of ink characters tore themselves from the paper, crawling toward the six people's feet like black ants.

Zhou Heng scattered copper coins, forming a semicircle.

The black characters collided with the copper coins and immediately flipped over.

Behind each character was written a number.

Thirty-seven, fifteen, six, eleven, twenty-nine...

All of them were the number of people who had entered beyond the Great Wall through North Mountain Pass over the years.

Wang Cheng'an swept his gaze over them.

"Not right. These numbers have all been reduced."

"Ma Huaiyi led forty-three people, but the ledger only records thirty-seven. Sun Liushi led twenty-one, but the ledger only records fifteen."

"It erased the six people deducted from each group from the total count."

Song Qinghe said:

"The erased ones went to the headquarters, while the ones left behind were counted as having passed through."

"It's more than that." Wang Cheng'an flicked the abacus beads rapidly. "Each group is short by six, yet the final total only differs by one. That means those deducted people were added back into the ledger under other categories."

"Borrowed shadows, changed names, communal guardianship, pending verification."

"The same person has been calculated by it more than once."

Sweat began to form on his forehead.

"Six hundred and forty-seven isn't the number of people."

"It's the number of entries."

Xu Erxiao's anger flared upon hearing this.

"So one living person going by two names counts as two people?"

"Exactly. And one dead person leaving behind three shadows can be counted three times."

Wang Cheng'an looked up at the counting house.

"So it has no idea how many people actually passed through North Mountain Pass."

The sound of beads being flicked inside the door suddenly quickened.

The black characters on the snowy ground leaped up one after another, attaching themselves to Wang Cheng'an's body. With each character that stuck to him, his face grew a shade paler.

"Cheng'an!"

Xu Erxiao swung his sword to pry them off, but the sword tip passed straight through the ink characters.

Wang Cheng'an gritted his teeth.

"Don't move recklessly. These are number debts. It's forcing me to take over the old abacus's accounts."

Lu Yuan grabbed his shoulder.

"Can you reverse the calculation?"

"I need to see the original books."

"Then get inside."

"The door slot needs the abacus."

"Then give it to them."

Wang Cheng'an froze.

Lu Yuan lowered his voice:

"Give them an empty abacus."

He seized both ends of the abacus and twisted hard.

The wooden frame let out a crisp sound as the tenon joints on both sides came loose simultaneously. Wang Cheng'an understood immediately and pulled out the central crossbar. The abacus beads clattered down, all caught by Lin Zhaoxuan's robes.

Only an empty wooden frame remained.

Lu Yuan shoved the empty frame into the door slot.

The person inside didn't seem to have expected this, falling silent for a moment.

Then the wooden door swung open inward.

"The abacus has returned."

"The chief account enters the house."

A thick smell of moldy paper rushed out from within.

Inside the counting house sat a long counter, and behind it sat an old man in a black cotton robe. He wore a skullcap on his head, a pair of round spectacles on his nose, and his ten fingers were as thin as counting rods.

There was no abacus in front of him.

But one was embedded in his chest.

One hundred and eight human bone beads pierced through his ribs, each one jumping on its own.

Behind the old man, shelves were piled high with ledgers, all the way up to the beam. The spines didn't bear dates, only characters like "Come," "Stay," "Borrow," "Change," "Death," "Pending Verification."

Only one black volume in the very center bore the words "Total Name."

When Wang Cheng'an saw that volume, the ink characters on his body converged toward his chest simultaneously, forming a massive character: "Debt."

The old man raised his eyes to look at him.

"Descendant of the Wang family, you've finally come to settle the accounts."

Wang Cheng'an's expression changed.

"You know my father?"

"I know this abacus."

The old man raised one finger.

"It was originally mine."

Xu Erxiao immediately stepped in front of Wang Cheng'an.

"Don't try to claim kinship. How many years have you been dead?"

The old man didn't look at him.

"My surname is Qi, my name is Shousuan. I once served as chief accountant of the Guardian Mountain Discussion Altar."

"Ma Huichuan led the people, I kept count."

"The relocation officials verified the names, I filed the records."

"Every extra mouth in the mountain meant less grain. Every person of unknown origin meant one more disaster."

"I calculated for thirty years beyond the Great Wall before I devised this method of protecting the mountain."

Lu Yuan said:

"Deducting six from each batch, that's your method of protecting the mountain?"

Qi Shousuan adjusted his round spectacles.

"Six is a yin number, it can suppress the gate."

"Those deducted don't need to eat grain or share land, and they can serve as proof for those who come later."

"The remaining people get to live. What's wrong with that?"

Zhou Heng said coldly:

"The ones deducted want to live too."

"When the world is in chaos, someone has to pay the bill."

"Then why isn't it you?"

The human bone beads on Qi Shousuan's chest suddenly stopped.

Xu Erxiao grinned. "Brother Lu asked the right question. You calculate that others deserve to die, so why didn't you deduct yourself first?"

The flesh on Qi Shousuan's face twitched slightly.

"I am the one who keeps the accounts."

"If the counting house dies, who will record that they ever lived?"

Song Qinghe raised her lamp toward his chest.

Little faces floated up on the bone beads. There were old men, women, and children. Every face had its eyes closed, and what passed through the bead holes weren't thin rods, but strands of black hair.

"You didn't record that they lived."

"You turned them into an abacus."

Qi Shousuan raised both hands, and the beads on his chest rang out urgently once more.

"Without my ledger, they wouldn't even have left behind their names!"

"Leaving a name in an evil ledger, that's what you call leaving a legacy?"

Lu Yuan stepped into the room.

The black volume behind Qi Shousuan flipped open on its own.

On the first blank page, the character "Wang" slowly floated to the surface, and the second character only revealed a single horizontal stroke.

The white mark on Wang Cheng'an's black bead deepened accordingly.

Qi Shousuan stared at him.

"Your father took my abacus, and thus owed the position of chief account."

"A father's debt paid by the son. It's only natural."

Wang Cheng'an suddenly smiled.

"When exactly did my father take it?"

"Forty-one years ago, on the seventh day of the twelfth lunar month."

"You remember quite clearly."

"A counting house never forgets its accounts."

"Then you've miscalculated."

Wang Cheng'an retrieved an ordinary wooden bead from Lin Zhaoxuan's robes and pinched it between his fingers.

"If my father were alive this year, he'd only be fifty-eight. Forty-one years ago, he was seventeen. That year he hadn't even left Wang Family Village, let alone reached North Mountain Pass."

Qi Shousuan said:

"The abacus is in the Wang family, so the debt belongs to the Wang family."

"Who made the rule that whoever holds an object inherits its old debts?"

"The account follows the object."

"If the account follows the object, then those one hundred and eight human bone beads embedded in your chest, do the lives they owe also belong to you?"

The room fell utterly silent.

Wang Cheng'an dumped all the abacus beads from his robes onto the long counter.

"Brother Lu once said, if the ledger doesn't recognize people, then smash the abacus."

"But before I smash it, I need you to see exactly how much you've miscalculated."

He started with the "Come" ledger, pulling out old volumes one by one.

Lin Zhaoxuan was responsible for distinguishing the dates of the ink marks, Zhou Heng cross-checked the old records of Daoist methods, and Song Qinghe used the lamp to reveal the names that had been altered. Xu Erxiao stood guard at the counter, and whenever ink characters lunged at Wang Cheng'an, he pinned them to the wall with his short sword, paper and all.

Lu Yuan stood before the black volume, refusing to let the words "Total Name" continue forming.

Wang Cheng'an flicked the scattered beads, using the counter surface as his abacus board.

"Ma Huichuan led one hundred and six people in the first year, two died, one hundred and four actually passed through. Your ledger records eighty-six, deducting eighteen."

"Second year, he led seventy-three, sixty-eight actually passed. You recorded fifty-six, deducting twelve."

"After the third year, the Relocation-Name Pass was established, and each batch was fixed at a deduction of six."

Count by count was reported, and the human bone beads on Qi Shousuan's chest began to reverse.

The ledgers on the shelves flipped through on their own, and countless repeatedly recorded names floated up into the air.

"Zhang Shitou, recorded as 'Come' when entering the pass, renamed Zhang Youyou after entering the village, then recorded as Zhang Shoubing due to the righteous manor's borrowed shadow. One person, counted three times."

"Zhao Qing of White Cloud Sect, secular name Zhao Erhe, after death his Taoist name was filed into the register. One person, counted four times."

"Sun Liushi of Ma Family Gully, led a group once, pending verification once, communal guardianship once after death. One person, counted three times."

Wang Cheng'an calculated faster and faster.

"Six hundred and forty-seven entries, after removing duplicate names, borrowed shadows, and posthumous re-recordings, the actual number is three hundred and ninety-one people."

"Among them, one hundred and twenty-six were detained, forty-three died along the way, and two hundred and twenty-two truly passed through."

Qi Shousuan slammed his hand against the abacus on his chest.

"Impossible!"

"The master ledger cannot be wrong!"

"What's wrong isn't the addition or subtraction." Wang Cheng'an stared at him. "It's that from the very beginning, you never treated people as people."

"The living, the dead, the shadows, the Taoist names, you mixed them all together just to pad out the relocation count."

"The six hundred and forty-eight you wanted was never calculated."

"You set the number first, then stuffed people into it to fill it."

Qi Shousuan's round spectacles cracked with a sharp "crack."

Behind the lenses there were no eyes, only two white bone beads engraved with numbers.

He suddenly spread his withered fingers, and the ledgers around him flew up all at once.

"When the count is full, the gate is formed!"

"When the gate is formed, the mountain is safe!"

"One person short, only one person short!"

The character "Wang" in the black volume flew out from the page, lunging straight at Wang Cheng'an.

Lu Yuan blocked it with his blade.

"Cheng'an, strike the account!"

"I can't!" Wang Cheng'an looked at Qi Shousuan's chest. "The original account isn't in the ledger, it's on his body!"

Lin Zhaoxuan whipped out his ink line, binding Qi Shousuan's arms. Zhou Heng hurled copper coins, pinning down his shadow beneath his feet. Song Qinghe shone her lamp over him, and the faces inside all one hundred and eight human bone beads opened their eyes at once.

Qi Shousuan let out a scream of agony.

Xu Erxiao charged across the long counter and drove his short sword into the crossbar of the chest abacus.

"Making beads out of human bones, and you dare call yourself the Iron Abacus?"

He twisted with both hands, and the crossbar snapped.

One hundred and eight bone beads scattered across the floor.

With every bead that fell, the counting house lost one wall. The cold wind poured in through the cracks, whipping the black volumes into a frenzy of rustling pages.

Wang Cheng'an grabbed the black bead engraved with "Wang" and pressed it into the six hundred and forty-eighth empty slot of the black volume.

Qi Shousuan suddenly laughed.

"The chief account has been filled."

"Who said it was me who was being filled?"

Wang Cheng'an raised the abacus frame.

In the center of the empty frame, the seventh deep groove had split open, revealing two small characters hidden within the wood:

"Qi Suan."

"This abacus wasn't stolen by my father. Someone sealed your name inside it and carried it out of the counting house."

"You keep saying you're missing a chief account."

"The one who's been missing was never a member of the Wang family."

"It was you."

The smile on Qi Shousuan's face froze solid.

Wang Cheng'an pressed down hard.

The white "Wang" mark on the black bead peeled off inch by inch, revealing the character "Qi" that had been carved beneath it all along.

The final page of the black volume then revealed a line of old accounting:

"Chief Accountant Qi Shousuan, established the relocation-name evil regulation, used six hundred and forty-seven names to avoid death, debt unpaid."

Lu Yuan looked at Qi Shousuan.

"Now, everyone's here."

"Time for you to settle the bill."

All the bone beads cracked open simultaneously.

One hundred and eight shadows rose from the beads. They didn't lunge at the six of them, instead they surrounded Qi Shousuan, each one taking a single number from his chest.

Qi Shousuan's body rapidly withered.

He tried to grab the black volume, but his fingers passed straight through the paper.

"Without the master ledger, who will keep count..."

Wang Cheng'an gathered up the old volumes that had been separated anew.

"Record people, not offerings."

"Record their origins, and also their destinations."

"Each person counts as exactly one person."

Qi Shousuan opened his mouth, but no sound came out. He collapsed together with that black "Total Name" volume, dissolving into a pile of blackened abacus beads.

The counting house collapsed with him.

As the six of them retreated outside, the roof was caving inward. The string of wooden beads beneath the eaves fell into the snow, and made no sound at all.

The sky was just beginning to lighten.

At the edge of the snowy plain, one hundred and eight faint shadows dispersed in different directions.

Wang Cheng'an reassembled his abacus, but didn't put the black bead back in. He buried the bead engraved with "Qi" in front of the ruins of the counting house, pressing a blank wooden board on top of it.

Xu Erxiao asked:

"You're not establishing a name for him?"

"His name is in the ledger, and so is his crime." Wang Cheng'an said. "No need for another stele."

Lu Yuan gazed toward the north.

After Qi Shousuan vanished, a carriage road that bent eastward was revealed there. Beside the road stood half a stone stele bearing four characters:

"Guardian Mountain Discussion Altar."

Behind the stele, someone had just left three lines of fresh writing:

"Master ledger struck."

"Six names remain."

"Invited into the mountain for discussion."

The ink was still wet.

Song Qinghe shone her lamp over it, and behind the stele, seven human shadows were reflected.

Yet on the snow, there were clearly only the six of them.

The seventh shadow stood behind Wang Cheng'an, holding an empty abacus frame without a single bead.

Lu Yuan drew his broken blade.

"Don't turn around."

The wind blew in from the direction of the Guardian Mountain Discussion Altar.

And that seventh shadow took its first step forward along with them.