Sect Year 8 · second month · dusk of day 5 · Azure Stream Sect, Outer Court
Dusk came down over the Outer Court while the lamps were still unlit. Lin had walked back up from the road gate with his hands empty and his coat hanging open, and he counted the flat stone slabs under his feet as he went. He had counted them on the night of the writ, too. He couldn’t have said the counting helped. He didn’t stop.
Forty-one from the gatepost to the lane. Forty-two. He lost the number at the trough and found it again by the drying lines. There, the wet linen hung in long grey strips that moved in no wind at all.
Gao Wen was sweeping the flags Lin had once swept as a punishment. He was at the far end of the court, near the gate. He worked on his bad leg with his weight on the good one and the other dragged half a step behind it, like a sack he had decided to carry rather than leave. The broom’s straw was worn short and dark at the tips. He didn’t look up as Lin came nearer, and the long strokes went on over the stone at the same unrushed pace, pushing the day’s dust toward the gate.
