Sect Year 1 · eleventh month · day 7 · Qingliu dry hills, Mother Rusk’s inn
On the third morning the water came up clean.
Lin had gone down at first light, as he had gone down the morning before. The shaft had given him grey water to the ankles and a sour breath of clay. This time, when he crouched at the foot of the shelf and dipped his palm into the sump, the water came cold and clear and tasted faintly of cut iron. He held his hand up toward the grey square of sky and watched the water run off his fingers. It was clean. He didn’t call up to the rim. He sat back on his heels and waited for the next seep to fill the hollow, and it came up clear as well.
Mother Rusk had come out to the rim when the rope began to shake. She stood beside the trough with her hand in her apron, and when Pei hauled up the first bucket and set it on the stone, the water in it was the colour of weak tea. The second bucket was lighter. The third was clear enough to see the bottom of the pail. The wagon drivers who had been waiting in the lane for their cups came up the yard to look, and one of them, a man with a broken nose, whistled once through his teeth and said nothing else.
