My father ordered me to kill the emperor, but His Majesty bestowed a princess upon me instead.

I stopped.

He didn't turn around immediately.

Her voice was very low.

"Who are you?"

I turned around and looked at her.

There was no murderous intent in her eyes.

There is only fear.

If the fear is too obvious, it doesn't seem like a trap.

I took a small piece of paper out of my pocket.

It's not a signature or seal.

It is a secret record of accounts.

The paper contained copies of several strange writings from Fang Yuanshi's handwritten account book: a "stone" with a short horizontal stroke, a "three" with ink at the end, and the altered number with the foot notation.

I handed the paper to her without letting go.

"I'm investigating the Yongning River case," I said in a low voice. "These marks were left in the tent by Fang Yuanshi. If Madam Fang recognizes them, I'd like to see her. If not, I'll leave now."

The lame woman stared at the paper.

Looked for a long time.

It went on for so long that I thought she would never speak again.

She suddenly asked, "Are you an official?"

"Yes."

Her face immediately turned cold.

"The authorities have closed the case. Clerk Fang accidentally fell into the water."

She clenched her teeth tightly when she said the words "accidentally fell into the water".

"I'm not here to close a case."

"Then what are you doing here?"

"Reversal of the verdict."

She stared at me, as if trying to read the truth from my face.

I added, "If I were only here to harm her, I wouldn't need to tell you I'm an official first."

This statement may not be believable.

But at least it can make people hesitate.

The lame woman remained silent for a moment, then finally stood up.

"Come with me."

She led me around to the back of the village.

There was a very dilapidated little house there.

The yard was small, the fence was half crooked, and a few children's clothes were drying in the yard. A string of dried vegetables hung under the eaves, swaying gently in the wind.

The woman walked to the door and knocked three times gently.

There was no sound inside.

She knocked twice more.

After a moment, a very low female voice came from behind the door.

"Who?"

"It's me," said the lame woman. "Someone has come with Clerk Fang's account books."

There was silence behind the door for a long time.

Then the door opened a crack.

I saw a pair of eyes.

Very thin.

I'm very tired.

I'm also very scared.

The woman was about twenty-seven or twenty-eight years old, with a sallow complexion and her hair casually tied up with a wooden hairpin. She was holding a four- or five-year-old child in her arms, who was asleep with his face buried in her shoulder.

When she saw me, her first reaction wasn't to speak.

Instead, they retreated.

I immediately stopped outside the door and didn't take another step forward.

"Madam Fang," I said in a low voice, "I am Shen An from the Censorate."

Her face suddenly turned pale.

"official?"

"Yes."

She hugged her child tightly, her voice trembling: "The authorities have already said my husband accidentally fell into the water, what more do you want?"

I looked at her.

There is hatred in this sentence.

There was also despair.

I suddenly remembered the corpse in the mortuary in Anling County.

Bruising under fingernails.

The marks on the neck.

And then there was that respectable man who went to the mortuary to ask, "Will anyone come to see this body again?"

The authorities said it was an accidental fall into the water.

If someone really did fall into the water by accident, why would someone check after they die to see if anyone came to see their body?

I didn't rush to explain.

I only asked one question: "On the day Fang Yuanshi left, were there still confiscated pork pieces hanging under the eaves?"

Fang Zhoushi was stunned.

The wariness in her eyes finally cracked a little.

I continued, "It's the 23rd of the twelfth lunar month, the Little New Year. He bought New Year's goods and didn't plan to leave. But the next morning, he was gone, and the pork was still hanging under the eaves. If he really was fleeing from a crime, he wouldn't have left without even the meat for his children to celebrate the New Year."

Tears suddenly welled up in her eyes.

There was no crying.

Tears just kept falling, one by one.

She kept this matter hidden for so long that she couldn't bear it if anyone accurately revealed even a little bit of it.

"You officials..." her voice trembled, "finally remember that he didn't escape on his own?"

I whispered, "It wasn't the government that remembered; it was me who found out."

She stared at me.

Why are you investigating?

This question is harder to answer than "Who are you?"

I can't exactly say, "Because the emperor ordered me to investigate, and my father ordered me to kill the emperor, I'm caught in the middle. I have to investigate whether I want to or not."

I thought for a moment and said, "Because someone falsified the accounts, someone died, and they still want to cover it up."

She looked at me.

I added, "I don't like accounts that are too clean."

That's a strange statement.

But she seemed to understand.

Perhaps Fang Yuanshi said something similar during his lifetime.

She finally opened the door a little wider.

"Come in."

The room was dark.

There was only a table, a bed, and a small box. A half-bowl of cold porridge sat beside the stove, and several rolls of old paper and bundles of firewood were piled in the corner.

The child woke up briefly and mumbled "Mother" in a daze.

Fang Zhou patted the child's back and coaxed him softly.

I stood by the door, without sitting down.

Fang Zhoushi did not invite me to sit down.

There was a worn-out table between us.

It was as if there was a river she dared not cross.

She spoke first: "My husband didn't accidentally fall into the water."

"I know."

"He didn't embezzle any money."

"I know that too."

"You don't know." She suddenly looked up, her eyes filled with a ruthless glint, as if she had been driven to the brink. "You know nothing. You only look at the accounts, the statutes, the official seal. But before he left, he told me that someone wanted to kill him."

My heart sank.

"Who?"

She shook her head.

"He didn't say his name. He only said that someone from the capital had come to see him. The man was well-dressed and spoke politely, but after he finished speaking, my husband didn't sleep all night."

"What did he say?"

Fang Zhoushi hugged the child tightly.

"He told my husband to hand over the original account pages."

The original ledger pages.

My hands inside my sleeves slowly tightened.

"The account books are in Fang Yuanshi's hands?"

"It used to be there," she said softly, "but it's gone now."

"Who did you give it to?"

"He wouldn't say. He only said that the account books couldn't be left at home or given to those people. He also said that if he didn't come back, I should take the children and go as far away as possible."

"Then why didn't you go far?"

Her eyes darkened slightly.

"I have no money. I don't dare go too far. They came looking for me once."

"Who?"

"Two men. One young, one old. The older one was wearing official boots."

Official boots.

I asked, "When?"

"Three days after the news of my husband's death reached us, they came to our house and searched through our belongings, asking if we had any account books, papers, or anything my husband had left behind before he died. I said no. My child was terrified and started crying, and only then did they leave."

She spoke very calmly.

But the calmer it was, the colder it felt.

I asked, "Did they say where they were from?"

She shook her head.

"No. But the older one said something before he left."

"What did you say?"

Fang Zhou looked at me and said, word by word, "He said that Fang Yuanshi was unlucky and had stumbled into a debt he shouldn't have. He told us, mother and son, not to follow his example."

The room fell silent.

The dog outside barked twice, then stopped.

I looked at the rolls of old paper in the corner.

"What is that?"

Following my gaze, Fang Zhoushi's expression changed.

This change is too obvious.

It was so obvious that she herself knew she couldn't hide it anymore.

I didn't go over there.

The only question was, "Was it left behind by Fang Yuanshi?"

She did not answer.

The child in her arms groggily raised his head, glanced at the corner of the wall, and whispered, "Daddy's paper."

Fang Zhoushi's face turned pale instantly.

I looked at her and said in a low voice, "Madam Fang, if that's something Fang Yuanshi left behind, it's best to hand it over to me now."

"no."

She took a step back.

I don't trust anyone.

You don't have to believe me.

I pointed outside.

"But you should know that those people will find this place sooner or later."

She bit her lip and didn't say anything.

I continued, "If your husband just wanted to survive, he wouldn't have left those things behind. He left them because he knew he might not survive, and he knew someone would eventually find out."

Her eyes were red.

"So what if we can find out? My husband is already dead."

"The dead cannot speak."

I looked at her.

"But the account is possible."

She was stunned.

Just then, a burst of urgent barking suddenly rang out from outside.

It's not a dog.

All the dogs in the village started barking.

The lame woman's expression changed, and she quickly walked to the window, peeking out through a crack.

The next moment, she turned her head, and her voice changed.

"Someone has entered the village."

I walked to the window.

At the village entrance in the distance, several horses were parked under an old locust tree.

The leader dismounted, holding a piece of paper in his hand, and was asking the old man at the village entrance something.

Asking for directions?

No.

It's about finding someone.

I turned to look at Fang Zhoushi.

She was holding the child, her whole body trembling.

"They're here," she murmured. "They're here again..."

I didn't have time to comfort her.

Is there a road behind the house?

The lame woman immediately replied, "Yes, it leads to the mountain gully."

I walked to the corner and picked up those rolls of old paper.

Fang Zhou instinctively tried to stop him.

I looked at her.

"Now is not the time to doubt or not believe me. If you stay, you will lose both your possessions and your life."

Her tears were still falling, but she finally stopped trying to stop them.

I stuffed the old paper into my pocket, then grabbed a piece of old cloth from the table and wrapped it around the exposed corner of the paper.

Footsteps were approaching outside the courtyard.

Someone whispered, "This is the place."

Fang Zhoushi carried the child, and a lame woman led the way as they slipped out through a small door at the back of the house.

I'll be the last one to leave.

Before closing the door, I glanced back at the dilapidated house.

Half a bowl of cold porridge was still on the table.

A gust of wind blew in through the crack in the door, causing the dust in the corner of the wall to rise gently.

I suddenly remembered the little secret marks that Fang Yuanshi had left on the account pages.

A minor clerk.

There's not much you can do before you die.

He couldn't go to court to plead his case, he couldn't storm into the Ministry of Works to demand his life, and he couldn't let those high-ranking officials look down at him.

He could only hide a few ink stains in the tent and leave a few rolls of old paper for his wife and children.

Then I hope that one day someone will be able to understand it.

I closed the back door.

The next moment, the front gate was kicked open.

The wooden door slammed against the wall with a dull thud.

Someone shouted sharply, "Behind the house!"

I clutched the old paper in my arms and followed Fang Zhou and the others into the overgrown weeds.

The mountain wind blew in my face, making my eyes hurt.

I suddenly realized that the incense offerings at Ci'en Temple today are not entirely useless.

At least I asked for one thing before I left home.

Don't die.

The Buddha probably heard it.

I just didn't hear the whole thing.

I just hope I'm not dead yet.

It didn't bless me to run more easily.