Sect Year 1 · ninth month · day 20 · Azure Stream Sect, Sect Master’s Hall
Gao Shun read the way some men fish, with great patience and no appearance of hope. He sat at the table with the journal open before him and one finger resting at the edge of each leaf. When he had finished a leaf he drew the finger slowly across the paper and turned the page without lifting his eyes. He didn’t skim. Lin had expected him to skim. The sallow clerk stood behind the chair with his book open and wrote nothing at all, which was worse, because it meant every word was being kept somewhere that Lin could not see.
The reading took as long as it takes tea to steep three times. Halfway through, Xu Bairen leaned along the dais toward the place where Lin stood, keeping his voice low enough that it wouldn’t carry to the chairs at the far end.
“What was he counting, the old man?” he asked. “The book is full of counting.”
“The water, Elder,” said Lin. “Lower every decade.”
Xu Bairen considered that for a moment, then sat back, and something in his face settled into a sigh he didn’t let out. “Ah,” he said, and that was all.
