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

The secret vault of Yongfeng Bank was hidden beneath the three counters.

When Bai Zhi discovered the entrance, her eyes lit up.

That kind of brightness isn't the kind you see when you see silver.

It's the brilliance of seeing how foolishly someone hid their accounts, and finally being able to put that person to the test.

There is a water room in Yongfeng's backyard.

The place is damp and dark, with water tanks, brooms, and old tents on the surface, and it doesn't look like a valuable place at all.

But Bai Zhi squatted down, tapped the stone brick three times, and sneered, "Empty."

Ah Liu immediately took a step back.

"Won't someone else die down there?"

I look at him.

He said, "I'm very worried about what's happening underground."

I'm worried too.

I almost drowned in the underground warehouse of Qinghe Yicang.

Yongfeng is even richer than Yicang. The rich are usually more willing to spend money on building secret vaults and their facilities are also more extravagant.

Yan Xiaoyi drew his sword and said lazily, "Shall I?"

Bai Zhi stopped him.

"Don't chop randomly."

Yan Xiaoyi raised an eyebrow.

Bai Zhi pointed to a blue brick behind the water vat: "The mechanism is there. If you cut it down and it burns down inside, who will be responsible?"

Yan Xiaoyi sheathed his sword.

"It's on you."

"On what grounds?"

"You are the accountant."

Bai Zhi glared at him.

I rubbed my temples.

What time is it? You guys still have time to bicker?

But that's alright.

This means he's not about to die yet.

Bai Zhi found the mechanism and pressed it gently.

The stone tiles on the ground sank slightly, and the wall next to the water tank made a very soft sound.

It wasn't the door that opened.

It was a very narrow crack peeking out from behind the wall.

A damp smell wafted out from the crack.

There's also a faint greasy smell.

kerosene.

My heart sank.

"There is kerosene."

Ah Liu retreated again.

"Could the younger one wait outside as backup?"

I look at him.

"When have you ever not been the one providing backup outside?"

Ah Liu said earnestly, "The younger one's support is very stable."

That's true.

The guards sent by Gu Xingzhi brought a wet cloth, a lantern, and an iron hook.

Yan Xiaoyi goes first.

A moment later, his voice came from below: "You can go in. No one is dead."

Ah Liu finally breathed a sigh of relief.

Yan Xiaoyi added, "Not at the moment."

Ah Liu's face turned pale again.

I couldn't be bothered to comfort him, so I followed him downstairs.

The secret vault wasn't large, but it was deeper than I had imagined.

There are more than twenty stone steps leading down to a rectangular stone chamber.

The walls were fitted with iron cabinets, and the cabinet doors were all locked.

Three rows of wooden crates were placed in the center.

The wooden box did not bear the Yongfeng Bank seal, but rather a very ordinary grain merchant's seal.

Luo Ji.

Grain stores under Luo Chenghai's name.

The so-called Southwest Grain Route was actually hidden right under Yongfeng.

Xiao Lingyi then came down, her gaze sweeping over the wooden box.

"open."

Yan Xiaoyi cleaved the first box in two with a single stroke.

There was no grain inside.

It's a copper coin.

A box full of copper coins, wrapped in old cloth in strings, each string with a small note attached.

Chengnan Shed.

Beishifang.

Yicang Street.

Taichang Lane.

My heart sank.

This is not a deposit of silver.

This is loose change.

It's best to give loose change to those in the crowd who are shouting, throwing stones, or setting fires.

The second box was opened.

Inside were tattered clothes, straw sandals, wooden plaques, rice coupons, and several bags of ash.

Ah Liu picked up a tattered piece of clothing and looked at it.

"Aren't these clothes worn by disaster victims?"

Bai Zhi said coldly, "They're for fake disaster victims."

I opened a bag of ash.

It's soot from the bottom of the pot.

Smear it on your face, and anyone can look like a pitiful person who has fled famine from outside the city.

The third box contained a short stick, hemp rope, tinder, and a small bottle of kerosene.

Ah Liu swallowed hard.

"Young master, this is not a grain route."

"That's a chaotic path."

I pulled out a stack of notices from the bottom of the box.

The first one reads:

The Qinghe granary was empty, and the Zhaoning granary was depleted.

The second one says:

Shen An, the son of a rebel, used the pretext of disaster relief to gather a crowd.

The third one reads:

The late empress purged her former subordinates, and tonight she will purge the emperor's inner circle.

The fourth one is even more ruthless.

It actually says on it:

His Majesty is critically ill, treacherous officials are guarding the palace, and the common people are going to the capital to plead for his life.

As I looked at the notice, my heart sank deeper and deeper.

They don't just want chaos in the south of the city.

They wanted the disaster victims to rush into the palace.

Xiao Lingyi understood as well.

Her voice was cold: "Wang Song wants to force the emperor to abdicate."

"It's not a coup," I said. "He wants the people to force him to abdicate."

This is even more vicious than a direct coup.

If the common people storm the palace, should the imperial guards stop them or not?

The emperor blocked the way, blood splattered at the palace gates, and he lost the hearts of the people.

If we don't stop them, the crowd will enter the palace, causing chaos in the court. The Clearing Accounts Society can take advantage of the chaos to destroy the accounts, kill witnesses, rescue Wang Song, and even confirm my identity as an instigator of rebellion in the southwest.

Ah Liu muttered, "Are they crazy?"

Bai Zhi sneered: "They're trying to settle accounts on their own heads; it's no wonder they're going crazy."

I opened the fourth row of metal cabinets.

The cabinet contains account books.

Bai Zhi immediately took it.

She flipped through it very quickly.

"This is the list of loose change."

How many people?

"Three hundred and twenty-seven."

"Are they all disaster victims?"

"no."

She turned a few pages, her expression growing colder and colder.

"Rogues, porters, impoverished military households, gambling den thugs, temple servants, minor officials of the Ministry of Rites, and treasury servants of the Court of Imperial Sacrifices... each person was paid between two hundred cash and two taels of silver."

I asked, "How many places?"

Bai Zhi pointed to the booklet.

"Fifty people at the soup kitchen in the south of the city, forty people at the Qinghe Granary, seventy people at the North Market, one hundred people outside the palace gate, and the rest are messengers and errand runners."

Xiao Lingyi asked, "What time?"

Bai Zhi turned to the last page.

The last page of the list of scattered coins had no time of day, only a small seal from the Wang family's west courtyard.

Bai Zhi held the paper up to the lamp.

"It's not the seal of Wang Song's East Study that he usually used."

"It belongs to Madam Wang."

The copper coins, tattered clothes, fake notices, and palace gate lists in the secret vault were not put together on the spot.

Madam Wang had been doing dirty work for Wang Shi.

Gu Xingzhi has already sealed off the Prince's Mansion.

When we arrived at the west courtyard, the gate was open.

It's too open.

It's as if the owner knew people would come, saving them the trouble of turning them away.

The incense burner inside was still warm, the dressing table drawers were empty, and three sets of casual clothes were missing from the wardrobe.

Yan Xiaoyi returned from behind the wall and said only two words: "I'm gone."

I asked, "How long?"

"In less than half an hour."

Lady Wang did not bring any gold or silver.

She took with her a private seal, several grain deeds, and a set of documents for women returning to their hometowns.

A broken hairpin lay on the dressing table, its tip covered in fresh mud. The mud was reddish, the same color as the mud in the ruts at the back gate of the Prince's mansion.

She changed her clothes before leaving and paused here for a moment, but without any haste. Only half a cup of tea was drunk from the table; the tea was still warm, the cup facing outwards, and a plate of untouched osmanthus cake sat beside it.

Ah Liu leaned over and smelled it.

"Young master, she still had the mind to drink tea before fleeing for her life?"

"It's not about drinking tea."

I touched the inside of the cup.

"It's someone waiting for someone."

Madam Wang had calculated that we would first seal off the East Study, then investigate Yongfeng's secret vault, and finally go to the West Courtyard. She even knew that this time would be enough for her to change clothes, have tea, take away the grain deeds, and then leave calmly through the back door.

Yan Xiaoyi squatted down and glanced at the broken hairpin.

"It wasn't a rushed or detoured journey."

"How did you figure that out?"

"The broken end is facing inwards; it was broken by the person themselves."

He poured a tiny bit of very fine black powder from the hairpin tube.

Bai Zhi glanced at it and said, "It's powder made from the wax seal of the bank. People who have exchanged large denomination banknotes often use this powder to mark the bottom of their boxes to avoid taking the wrong one when moving them."

I stared at those haters.

Madam Wang did not take all the clues with her.

It's not that it's too late.

It was left there intentionally.

She knew we would follow the Southwest Grain Transport Route, and she also knew that as long as we saw the sealed bank documents, we would continue to investigate along the grain contracts towards Qingxia.

Ah Liu asked in a low voice, "Why did she give us directions?"

"Because she wants us to go."

I looked out the open back window.

There were no footprints outside the window, only a broken orchid blade of grass crushed by a wheel. A very thin red thread was tied to the broken end, exactly the same as the broken orchid pattern on the back of the Qing Dynasty tent plaque.

Lady Wang did not flee in haste.

She left calmly only after calculating the exact time of our arrival.

She even left the door open for us.

As for whether there's a tent or a knife behind the door, we'll only know once we go inside.

Bai Zhi found three items in a hidden compartment under the bed.

The first item was a fake test stamp from the Princess's residence.

The second thing is Sun Ajin's false testimony.

The confession has been written, only lacking a fingerprint.

The third item was an unsealed letter from the grain transport department.

The letter came from the Luo family's grain store in Jiangbei, but the recipient had no name, only a broken orchid drawn on it.

I didn't look at the letter right away, but picked up the false confession first.

It was written in great detail on the paper.

In the fourteenth year of Chengxi, the late Empress summoned Sun Ajin while she was ill and ordered her to send her old clothes out of the Changning side hall; she also said that after Princess Zhaoning came of age, the troops in the southwest could be used to purge the court of corrupt officials and reopen the old cases in the inner treasury.

Every sentence is half true and half false.

Sun Ajin did indeed deliver old clothes on behalf of the late Empress.

Xiao Lingyi was indeed investigating her mother's old case.

I am indeed Shen Lie's son.

By simply inserting a few lies between these truths, a confession of treason is formed.

These old folks in Beijing have truly turned shamelessness into an ancestral craft.

Bai Zhi took the false confession and read it from beginning to end. Suddenly, she lightly scratched the corner of the paper with her fingernail.

A layer of extremely fine white powder fell onto the paper.

"The paper has been aged."

"How did you figure that out?"

"Real old paper yellows from the core outwards. This paper is only yellow on the surface, and the edges are stained with tea and incense ash."

She then pointed to the signature area.

There was a small empty space there, and the position where Sun Ajin's finger should press was already drawn next to it.

Even the direction the fingerprints should face was marked with light ink.

Ah Liu felt a chill run down his spine.

"How can this be drawn in advance?"

"Of course," Bai Zhi said. "If you press it crookedly, it looks like you're being forced; if you press it too straight, it looks like you did it willingly. Drawing it here makes it look like someone pressed it in a panic, and it also avoids the most important lines of text on the confession."

I looked at that blank space.

Once Sun Ajin presses his fingerprint, this confession will simultaneously prove three things.

The late empress had once plotted a rebellion.

Xiao Lingyi inherited the dying wish to rebel.

And I, Shen Lie's son, am the knife she found.

By then, whether it's true or false will no longer matter.

The words Wang Fu spoke in the south of the city, my publicly acknowledged identity, and the account book found in the Prince's mansion will all become corroborating evidence for this false confession.

They were not planning to frame anyone.

They're planning to put all three of us on the same complaint.

After reading the confession, Gu Xingzhi only asked, "Where is Sun Ajin now?"

"Changning Side Hall".

"How many guards are there?"

"Four guards from the inner palace, and two from the princess's residence."

He turned and left.

I stopped him.

"etc."

Besides the artificially aged incense ash, the fake offering paper corner also had a little bit of light yellow medicinal stains.

The flavor was very light, yet it was remarkably similar to the calming tea served in the side hall of Changning Palace.

Before leaving the West Courtyard, Lady Wang had already obtained the medicine from the palace.

This shows that she prepared more than just a confession.

She even calculated when Sun Ajin would faint, how long he would faint, and whether his fingers would still be able to make a fingerprint.

I folded up the fake confession and put it into the document box.

"Don't ask people."

"They're going to kidnap someone."

Gu Xingzhi glanced at me.

"Now?"

"Now."

"If we had waited any longer, this false confession would have been complete with fingerprints." I turned the letter over.

There are four small characters on the back.

Qingxia Old Road.

The ancestral home that Madam Wang was going to was not an ordinary one.

It is the grain route between Jiangbei and the southwest.

Gu Xingzhi entered from outside: "There's something strange going on in the side hall of Changning. Someone has an imperial edict to remove Sun Ajin."

I looked at the fake confession on the table, which was only missing a handprint.

Before fleeing, Madam Wang still wanted to throw down one last bucket of dirty water.

"Go to the side hall of Changning."

"Confessions are sealed first."

"People must live."