Four months of the appointment had passed. At the end of a summer, a large carriage reached the gate of the Anxi office. Inside sat a commissioner (督郵) sent down from the court. From within his sleeve rang a light metallic sound — the weight of a bribe-purse. Anyone who heard that sound knew its meaning at once.

Liu Bei greeted him politely at the gate. As soon as they sat, the commissioner laid out his line.

"Defender Liu. I am aware that your name has been entered upon a line at the court. Yet — for the seat of the defender of a small frontier town to be kept as it stands, a small gesture of li (禮, rite) is needed. If your name is to be written into one more line at this autumn's court assessment, show me the grain of that rite this afternoon."

Liu Bei answered slowly. "Commissioner. Since my appointment I have not touched the smallest thing of any man of Anxi. I have not received, privately, one measure of rice or one scoop of salt. To set out a rite this afternoon for this autumn's assessment — that would paper over the whole grain of these four months of office."

The commissioner's face flushed. Yet he did not lose his smile.

"Defender Liu. If this rite is not set out this afternoon, I must call a few men of Anxi in for inquiries. Which line of which seat that inquiry trails into depends upon the setting-out of this afternoon's rite."

Liu Bei bowed his head deeply. Without a word, he looked toward the gate of the office. Beyond it stood Guan Yu and Zhang Fei. Hearing the commissioner's lines, Zhang Fei stepped one large step forward. The fire within the grain of his rough voice was coming back to life. Guan Yu laid a hand on Zhang Fei's arm; yet today the force of that hand did not hold him back.

Zhang Fei took down a rod from behind the office and bound the commissioner to a pillar. The rod came down upon the commissioner's back. Ten strokes. The commissioner cried out, yet not one man of Anxi ran toward the office.

Liu Bei came running late and caught Zhang Fei's arm. "Younger brother. Enough. Any more, and we step outside the law of this court at a single stroke."

The inside of Zhang Fei's two eyes was red; yet before Liu Bei's one line, he lowered the rod. Guan Yu quietly untied the commissioner's bindings. The commissioner staggered back to his own carriage.

That evening, Liu Bei hung his own seal of office (官印) upon a pillar of the office. It was the seal of the four-month seat of appointment. The two characters Gwae-in (掛印, the seat on which the seal has been hung) were left quietly upon that pillar. Liu Bei's line came out before it.

"This single line of a name was a line given down by the court. This afternoon, the law of the court and the law of the people of Anxi split into two lanes. This defender's hand could have followed the lane of the court; yet my younger brother's hand followed the lane of Anxi first. From this afternoon on, I hang this seal on the pillar and go. Ahead of one step lies the law of the court; behind one step, the people of Anxi. One step at a time, looking longer behind than ahead, we go."

The three crossed the gate of Anxi. Inside, the people of Anxi had gathered and watched the three retreating figures. The children walked behind Liu Bei's back again, yet never stepped outside the gate. The old men did not bow and turn back; they stood inside the gate and watched, quietly, the three retreating figures until they vanished beyond the horizon.

Liu Bei's hand pressed lightly upon the pocket over his chest. Inside that pocket, the red thread from the evening of Daxing in Day 5 was still folded. The seed of a deed whose name had not climbed lay, this afternoon, side by side with the seat of the seal hung upon a pillar — two seats. At the center of the two, the face of the people of Anxi folded, quietly, like a single sheet of paper.

A grain of late summer wind passed along the horizon. The three said nothing for a long while. Only the small sound of their horses' hooves rising upon the dry road of the plain went on. The hanging seal would, for some days afterward, keep the office gate of Anxi in quiet; and through those days the people of Anxi would carry, inwardly, the image of three retreating figures they had let cross the gate.

The seventh evening of Book 1 deepened, quietly, upon a country road outside the gate of Anxi County. The two characters Gwae-in (掛印) were planted, quietly, as a seed — a grain of Liu Bei's posture of hanging the seal upon a pillar. The seat of Day 6, where a name had first been written down in a single line, had crossed, this afternoon, to the seat where that line was hung upon a pillar.

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