36: The Linglong Tree

Linglong slept through the morning.

She slept on the long padded bench by the hearth, with the small careful folded blanket Old Wei had laid across her, and with Su Yan on the small wooden stool beside her, until the eighth hour past dawn.

When she woke, she sat up. She looked, slowly, at the lodge's main hall. She looked at the careful pattern of beams. She looked at the bronze incense burner on the small side-table beneath the eastern window. She looked at the small careful unhurried lantern that Old Wei had set, at sundown, on the long table — and which had, through the night, *not* been blown out.

She turned her head.

She looked at Su Yan.

"Su Yan."

"Linglong."

"I would like, by your courtesy, to *go back to my clearing*. I would like — by the small careful unhurried bookkeeping of my own substrate — to *say goodbye to my tree-mother*. I would like — *if* she has, by the careful read of the eastern slope's substrate, *not yet finished her dissolution* — to *receive* whatever she has left to give. I would like you, by your kindness, to *come with me*. I do not, by my own substrate, have the strength yet to walk to her alone."

Su Yan inclined his head.

He stood from the small wooden stool. He went, at his unhurried pace, to the kitchen, where Old Wei had — by the careful unhurried courtesy of an old night-watchman who had been a household servant for thirty years — already prepared a small breakfast tray with a bowl of warm millet porridge, a piece of soft pickled radish, and a small clay cup of plain tea.

He brought the tray to Linglong.

"Eat, please. Your substrate has been — by the careful read of the moss's seal — closing through the night. The tree-mother's clearing is three li uphill. We will, by my careful unhurried calibration, walk it. We will go after you have eaten."

Linglong inclined her head.

She ate.

She ate, in the careful unhurried way of a young wood-spirit who had been taught — by her tree-mother in two centuries of patient summers — that *eating after a small careful sister-bond had been closed* was the small precise courtesy of *acknowledging the new substrate one was now keeping in one's own bookkeeping*. She ate the porridge. She ate the radish. She drank the tea. She set the bowl down with the small precise care of a guest who had been made welcome.

She inclined her head.

"Thank you, Old Wei."

Old Wei — who had not, in thirty years of household service, been thanked by name by anyone other than Su Yan's mother on the seven summers she had spent at the lodge — inclined his head with the small steady carriage of a man who had — without saying so — *accepted* the small private cover-story Su Yan had told him in the night, and was, by the careful kindness of his bookkeeping, *playing his part in it*.

"Young miss," he said, in his low careful voice. "You are welcome."

Linglong turned to Su Yan. She lifted her arms.

He picked her up.

She did not, in the count of his picking up, weigh more than she had on the walk down. She had eaten; her substrate had taken the eating; but the small careful wood-spirit form-body she wore at fifteen years of growing was — by the calibration of her people — *meant* to be carried by a careful sister-substrate for the small unhurried walks of her childhood.

He carried her out of the lodge, by the side-porch door, into the morning of the eastern slope of the backmountain forest.

---

The walk took the better part of an hour.

He did not, in the walk, hurry. The morning was clear and cool, with the small careful slanting golden light of an autumn forest at its eighth hour. The forest's threads — by the careful read of the substrate-sight running quietly at its working calibration — *carried with him*, the way they had on the walk down the night before.

By the second switchback up, he registered — at the limit of his attention — that the eastern slope's substrate was *thinner* than it had been the morning before.

It was, by the careful unhurried bookkeeping of the silver-gold lattice, *grieving*.

The forest knew.

The forest had — at some hour of the night, somewhere in the long inland count of the small careful patient bookkeeping of two-hundred-year-old jade-spirit substrate — *registered* the loss of one of its own. The Linglong tree-mother, the eldest jade-spirit of the eastern slope, had — by Linglong's careful read in the lodge — passed somewhere in the second watch.

The forest's threads, this morning, were carrying the small steady careful note that an old farm carried, on the morning after the death of its oldest hand. The farm continued to run. The threads continued to register. But the *substrate beneath* them had a small thinness it had not had the morning before.

Linglong, in his arms, turned her head once and looked, in passing, at a small thicket of pale-leaf birch the path passed through.

"They knew her," she said quietly. "They have — by the small careful unhurried bookkeeping of two hundred years — known her. They are, by the small steady unhurried bookkeeping of this morning, *grieving*."

Su Yan inclined his head.

He did not speak.

She let him carry her.

---

The clearing of the Linglong tree-mother was at the third switchback above the fox-spring path.

It was a small clearing — perhaps fifteen paces by twelve — in the small careful unhurried bookkeeping of an upland glade where, two hundred years ago, a single Linglong tree had taken root in the careful unhurried way of an Origin-blooded jade-spirit, had grown to her full size in seventy years, and had — for the next hundred and thirty — quietly, by the small steady unhurried bookkeeping of her substrate, *spawned* a small careful unhurried succession of saplings into the soil of the eastern slope, of which only three had — by the small unhurried losses of the two hundred years — survived to the present autumn.

The Tree, at the center of the clearing, had been *very large*.

She was — by the careful read of the substrate-sight, at the eighth hour of the morning of her dissolution — *no longer* large.

She had, in the night, dropped her last leaves. The leaves lay in a careful unhurried circle at the base of her trunk, in the small steady unhurried bookkeeping of a jade-spirit's last courtesy to her clearing. The trunk, in the morning's clear gold light, was — by the careful read of the substrate-sight — *thin*. It was, in the count of a single night, a great deal thinner than it had been when Su Yan had walked past it three days ago without the substrate-sight pointed at it.

The substrate of her was — in the silver-gold sight — *withdrawing*. It was, by the small careful unhurried bookkeeping of a substrate that had decided to dissolve, *gathering* into the trunk's deepest core, where — by the calibration of two hundred years — *one final small careful bookkeeping* was being completed.

She had, by the substrate-sight's quick read, perhaps an hour of substrate left.

Linglong, in Su Yan's arms, made a small sound.

It was not a cry. It was the small careful precise sound of a young wood-spirit who had been raised — by an old jade-spirit tree-mother in two hundred years of patient summers — to *not cry loudly when grief did not, by the bookkeeping, require it*, but who had, by the small careful unhurried bookkeeping of this morning, *not yet finished* the small careful unhurried courtesies that her tree-mother's last hour required.

She slid out of Su Yan's arms.

She walked — on her own small careful unhurried legs, the legs of a fifteen-year-old wood-spirit in a healing form-body — across the moss of the clearing to the trunk of the Tree.

She stopped at three paces. She did not, by the careful old courtesy of her people, approach closer. The Tree's last hour belonged to the Tree.

She knelt.

She inclined her head, in the moss, all the way to the ground — the small precise courtesy of a daughter to her dying mother, in the small old unhurried vocabulary of two centuries of jade-spirits.

"Mother."

The Tree's substrate, in the silver-gold sight, *responded*.

She did not speak in any voice the human ear would have heard. She *registered*, in the small careful unhurried bookkeeping of a substrate that had perhaps an hour left, the small precise *yes* of a tree-mother who had been waiting, in her last hour, for her last spawn to walk into the clearing.

Linglong did not, in her courtesy, turn to look at Su Yan.

She inclined her head.

"Mother. I have — by the careful unhurried bookkeeping of my last evening — found the substrate-cultivator you said, in your last summer, I would, in this kingdom of Beicang, find. He came. He came, by the small careful unhurried bookkeeping of the eastern slope, when the men with cloaks came. He has, by the careful kindness you said the right substrate-cultivator would have, accepted my sister-bond. He stands, by my careful unhurried bookkeeping, at the western edge of your clearing, in the morning of your last hour, by my own request."

She paused.

"I would like," she said, in the small steady unhurried voice she had practiced for two centuries of her tree-mother's evening teachings, "for you, by your last hour, to *meet him*. I would like — by your courtesy, by your bookkeeping — for you to *say what you have to say to him*, before your dissolution finishes."

She lifted her head from the moss.

The Tree — by the small careful unhurried bookkeeping of her remaining substrate — *moved*.

She did not move physically. The trunk did not bend. The leaves had, in the night, all dropped. What she moved was a small precise *thread* of her substrate — by the small old unhurried bookkeeping of two centuries of careful dissolution practice — *out* of her trunk, *across* the moss of the clearing, and *into* the small clear space of substrate at Su Yan's feet, where it would, by the small precise courtesy, be readable.

Su Yan stepped forward, at his unhurried pace, to the center of the clearing.

He knelt — at the careful three paces from the trunk on the western side, opposite Linglong on the eastern.

He inclined his head, in the moss, all the way to the ground.

"Mother of Linglong," he said, in his ordinary voice, in the small careful Beicang Standard the kingdom of Beicang's wood-spirits had been keeping for two hundred years. "I have, by your daughter's request, come. I will receive — by your last hour's bookkeeping — what you have, by your dissolution's careful unhurried bookkeeping, decided to leave."

The Tree's thread, in the moss between them, *settled*.

She did not speak in words. She *registered*, in the small careful unhurried bookkeeping that the substrate-sight read as something between voice and weather: *Welcome, son of Lin Wanyue. Receive my last leaf.*

Su Yan inhaled, slowly.

He had not, in the careful unhurried walking of the eastern slope this morning, prepared himself for the Tree to know his mother's name.

He inclined his head, in the moss.

"Mother," he said, "thank you."

The Tree's thread, between them, *moved* again — a small precise unhurried gathering, by the careful old bookkeeping of two centuries — into the small clean clear *seed* that the substrate of a dying jade-spirit-mother kept, by the long unhurried courtesy of her people, *for the small careful precise hour of her last bookkeeping*.

The seed appeared in the moss.

It was small. It was perhaps the size of a man's thumbnail. It was the small clean clear green of jade-spirit sap. It was — by the careful read of the substrate-sight — the *last* substrate the Tree was now, by the small careful unhurried bookkeeping of her dissolution, willing to release. After the seed, there would be no further substrate left in the trunk. The trunk would, in the count of perhaps a quarter of an hour, *stop being a substrate* and become — by the small steady unhurried bookkeeping of an ordinary forest tree's final settling — *just wood*.

The seed sat in the moss between them.

Linglong, opposite, inclined her head.

"Mother."

The Tree's thread, between them, settled into the seed.

Then — by the small precise old unhurried courtesy of a substrate that had decided, in its last hour, *what to do with the seed* — *moved* the seed, by the small steady careful weather of her substrate, *across* the moss to Su Yan.

The seed stopped, in the moss, three fingers' breadth from the back of his right hand.

The Tree's thread settled into the moss beneath it.

She did not speak. She did not need to. The seed was — by the careful old unhurried bookkeeping of her people, by the small precise courtesy of two centuries — *given* to the substrate-cultivator who had, by Lin Wanyue's careful unhurried preparation and the eastern slope's two-hundred-year patience, walked into the clearing with her last spawn in his careful unhurried arms.

Su Yan, in the moss, *received* the seed.

He laid his palm — gently — over it.

He did not, by any movement of face, allow the small private warmth of the moment to show.

He understood, in the careful unhurried count of one breath, that the seed in his palm was — by the careful old unhurried bookkeeping of two-hundred-year-old jade-spirits, by the careful unhurried preparation of a mother who had vanished ten years ago, by the careful unhurried courtesy of a sister-bond closed twelve hours ago — *the third small careful gift* his mother had calibrated him to receive in this kingdom.

The first had been the foundation platform's seed, in the Mirror.

The second had been the second seed, in the lacquered box his father had given him.

The third was the small clean clear green seed in the moss of the Linglong-mother's clearing, in the morning of her last hour, three fingers' breadth from the back of his right hand.

He understood, in the careful unhurried count of the next breath, that *the three seeds, planted together, would do something* — by the careful old unhurried bookkeeping of three Origin-blooded substrates — that *neither of his lives, separately, had yet calibrated him to predict*.

He filed it.

He inclined his head, in the moss.

"Mother of Linglong."

The Tree's thread, in the moss, *settled* further. It was, by the careful unhurried read of the substrate-sight, *closing the last of her bookkeeping*.

"Thank you," Su Yan said, in his ordinary voice, "for the seed. I will — by my own careful unhurried bookkeeping — *plant it well*. I will — by the small precise courtesy I have learned from your daughter — *raise* what comes from it *with the careful unhurried kindness* the small careful old unhurried bookkeeping of your people teaches. I will — by the small private promise of one substrate-cultivator to one tree-mother, in the last hour of her dissolution — *not* dishonor the seed."

The Tree's thread did not, after his sentence, move.

It settled, by the careful unhurried bookkeeping, into the *last* of her substrate — the small precise centered core at the trunk's deepest place — and *closed*.

The trunk, in the moss, did not move.

The leaves at her base did not stir.

The substrate-sight registered — at the small unhurried speed of a substrate finishing — the careful *settling* of the last thread of the eastern slope's eldest jade-spirit into the small clean ordinary wood of a tree.

She was, in the count of perhaps two breaths, *no longer a substrate*.

She was, by the kingdom of Beicang's careful botanical classification, *just wood*.

Linglong, in the moss opposite, inclined her head all the way to the ground.

She held the bow for the count of perhaps a hundred breaths.

When she lifted her head, her small clean green eyes had the careful unhurried clarity of a young wood-spirit who had — by the small old unhurried courtesy of her people — *finished her grief in the appropriate hour*.

She rose.

She walked, on her own legs, at her unhurried pace, across the moss of the clearing to Su Yan.

She knelt opposite him.

She laid her small clean palm over the back of his right hand, where the seed sat beneath his palm.

"Sister-brother," she said, in the small careful old unhurried voice of her people. "Plant her. *Plant her well.* I will, by my own substrate's careful unhurried bookkeeping, *come with you to plant her*. I will, by the small precise old courtesy of two centuries, *be a small careful kind voice in your ear* through the planting, *as my mother taught me* and *as she said, in her last summer, the right substrate-cultivator would understand.*"

Su Yan inclined his head, in the moss.

"Sister-brother," he said back, in the same small careful unhurried vocabulary. "I will."

He stood up. He picked up the seed in his palm, carefully, and tucked it — wrapped in a small square of clean cotton he had brought for the purpose — into the inner pocket of his outer robe, beside the cracked pendant in its cotton wrapping and the small lacquered box of the second seed.

He inclined his head, one final time, toward the trunk of the Tree.

He turned, at his unhurried pace.

He picked Linglong up — she lifted her arms again, in the small precise old courtesy — and carried her, by the careful unhurried walk of the eastern slope's morning, back down the switchbacks of the path toward the lodge.

The forest, at the small careful unhurried bookkeeping of the silver-gold lattice in his chest, *carried* with him.

The Tree, in the clearing behind, was — by the small careful unhurried bookkeeping of an ordinary forest's settling — *now wood*.

She had, by the small precise courtesy of her last hour, *finished her bookkeeping.*

The seed, in his inner pocket, was — by the small careful unhurried weight of his own bookkeeping — *the next thing.*