Sect Year 9 · third month · day 5, afternoon · Azure Stream Sect, the spring
By the afternoon the sun had come round over the rim and stood almost directly above the basin, and for the first time that spring the flat stone was warm under the mat. Lin could feel the heat through the cloth at his back. The water shone with it. Every groove on the gauge was drowned to its line, and the light lay along the top notch in a thin bright thread that did not waver. Su had set the lamp on the rim, unlit. There, the sun could reach its glass. She had the record open on her knees and one hand flat on the page.
The heading of the next life was written in her hand at the top of the leaf, in the small square letters she used for headings: Twenty-five. The Teacher Who Says “Not Yet.” The heading gave only the life’s own number, and the count would come later, in Su’s margin. Lin had no memory of the teacher. He had no picture of a classroom or a doorframe or the grey of an old man’s sleeve, and when he tried to find one, the search went nowhere and came back empty. He wasn’t sure he wanted to find one.
