The climbers took the pine blocks down to the valley. Pei Jing remained on the southern face of Central Heaven Mountain. He found a strip of bare granite the sun could reach from the schoolyard below.
He put the little knife against the Black Mountain Whetstone, then took it to the ledge. Each stroke went through the grey crust into pale quartz. He cut the letters large enough for a farmer to make them out from the field. Where the ledge ran out, he set a foot on a shelf of Earth qi and drew the knife toward him.
YOUR WORK IS YOUR OWN.
He could still hear his father’s voice telling him to learn to write a receipt. He remembered the last words Su Mei’er had put in her letter. Walk forward. The clan has enough grain.
In the valley, a boy thought the words belonged to a temple. The schoolmaster brought his spyglass outside and handed it to him. A girl waited with a scrap of paper until he had read each letter aloud. Then she put the paper under the pine block the carpenter had brought down. She wanted the words on the first page when he printed the lesson.
