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

The Shen Residence in Qingxia.

I have never heard my father mention it.

We lived in many places when we were young.

barracks.

Copycat.

Jiuyi.

There is also a wooden building that leaks wind in winter and rain in summer.

My father said that's what a home should be like.

Because they lived there the longest.

Now, a fake seal tells me that the Shen family still has a house in Qingxia.

Moreover, it would allow Lan Gu to have her name engraved on the bottom of the Imperial Son-in-Law's seal.

This is not an ordinary old house.

It was a place they deemed I had to go.

I did not board the ship immediately.

It's not a sudden change in my mindset.

Something went wrong with the Qingzhou Reform List.

There was no fight.

No one burned the tents.

Some people went home and then came back.

Du Xiaolan was the first to return.

She was one of the forty-one people rescued from the secret passage of the granary.

She was written about dying from the epidemic four years ago.

The husband took the burial provisions.

He remarried two years later.

She worked at the saltworks for three years.

When she returned home, her husband already had another child.

Du Xiaolan did not make a scene.

All I ask myself is where the loom I left behind back then is.

The husband said he sold it.

She then asked about the two acres of mulberry fields included in her dowry.

Her husband said that the money was given to the clan to pay for her funeral.

Finally, she asked:

"Where can I stay?"

No one answered.

She then returned to the relief camp.

He was still holding the newly stamped temporary reinstatement certificate in his hand.

When Ah Liu saw her, he asked in a low voice, "Didn't you recognize me?"

"I recognized him."

Du Xiaolan said, "So there's even less place to stay."

The second person to return was an old man.

The son has been adopted by his younger brother.

The younger brother refused to return it.

The old man was unwilling to take it either.

The third is Han Shi.

He stood outside his house and glanced inside.

I didn't go in.

Even after returning, he still said he wanted to join the army.

Liang Su stood in front of the camp gate, watching people walk back one by one.

"I said that."

"Opening the door doesn't mean you can go home."

I said, "Being locked up doesn't mean you don't have a home."

"At least I won't be sent back."

"That's because we didn't even have the chance to go back and try before."

Liang Su remained silent.

I know he wasn't gloating.

He was simply seeing once again why he had built the wall in the first place.

Building a wall won't solve the problem outside the door.

It's just to allow those inside the door to temporarily avoid facing it.

Bai Zhi kept a separate record of all those who returned.

It's not called a failed attempt to regain one's status.

It's called temporary residence.

"Previous marriages, previous properties, adoptions, and debts cannot be adjudicated today."

She said, "Forcing a return to normalcy will only leave another group of living people homeless."

"What should we do then?"

Fang Chengli asked.

"Let's separate first."

"People should first return to their place of origin."

"Land, marriage, and debts are handled separately."

"Reinstating his citizenship only proves who he is."

"This does not mean that all relationships from the past few years will immediately go back to normal."

This point must be made clear.

Otherwise, the registration of a person with a living record will become another weapon.

Du Xiaolan asked, "Where is my mulberry field?"

"Freeze the resale first."

"Who's planting now?"

"My husband's family uncle."

"What about the harvest?"

"We'll seal off 30% of this year's harvest first."

"The division will be made after the original transfer of the contract, funeral expenses, and your responsibility for being written off are investigated."

She frowned.

"Why not give me back everything?"

"Because people have been cultivating the mulberry fields in recent years."

Bai Zhi said, "But you were falsely reported to have died of the plague back then, so there's a problem with the starting point of your transfer of power."

"Therefore, we cannot refuse to pay it back."

"It cannot be fully repaid today."

Du Xiaolan thought about it for a long time.

"And what about my loom?"

"Whoever sold it will get a refund at the old price."

"Old price?"

"Add four years' interest."

Du Xiaolan finally nodded.

"That's more like it."

Ah Liu whispered from the side, "Miss Bai, you are quite generous when you're settling accounts with people."

"It's not my money."

No wonder.

Bai Zhi looked at him.

Ah Liu immediately went to move the table.

Soon, three more types of cases appeared next to the list of cases that had been changed.

The old assets are pending verification.

Previous marriages are optional.

Temporarily residing as part of the relief efforts.

If one spouse has remarried, the couple should not be forced to remarry on the spot.

Both parties are willing to reunite their household registrations and will report back.

One party may not be forced to comply with another's wishes.

In cases of adoption, the child's current living conditions should be guaranteed first, and then the original parents' upbringing and knowledge of the adoption should be investigated.

All land transfers to non-local households will be suspended.

The harvest from this year's land that has already been transferred to other fields is temporarily sealed off.

It's not complete.

It can hardly be called a new law.

Just press down on the most vulnerable spot first.

After reading it, Liang Su asked, "Do you have the authority to make these decisions?"

"no."

"Then why write it?"

"Temporary measure."

What if the imperial court doesn't recognize it?

"I will apologize upon returning to the capital."

Liang Su looked at me.

"You really enjoy apologizing?"

"dislike."

"Then why do you always admit it first?"

"Because if we acknowledge it first, we don't have to wait for the entire court to discuss who should be responsible."

This is not a long-term solution.

An imperial court cannot always rely on a cowardly censor to take the blame first.

But before the system is fully reformed, someone has to hold the stone in place.

Liang Su stared at it for a long time.

He then took out the governor's seal.

"Temporary measures for disaster relief in Jiangbei."

"This official also affixes his seal."

I looked up.

"Is Lord Liang not afraid?"

"Afraid."

"Then why bother building it?"

You make a very good point.

"This statement usually only holds true when someone is about to die."

"Today it may be my turn."

He stamped the seal.

The Governor of Jiangbei and the Imperial Decree to Open Accounts Seal are listed side by side.

Bai Zhi is added to an account certificate.

The temporary measures are finally not just recorded in my personal criminal record.

Du Xiaolan became the first temporary relief worker.

She doesn't go back to her husband's home.

After receiving his deposited silver, he applied to open a weaving workshop in Qingzhou City.

Han Shi still applied to join the army.

But they were not the rebel army.

He wrote:

Once the imperial court officially begins recruiting soldiers, they can volunteer to enlist.

Prior to this, he was still Han Shi, a relief worker in Qingzhou.

Name first.

Identity comes later.

That's right.

The deposit and disbursement continued until the afternoon.

After the Luo family's Qingzhou grain store was sealed off, they first took out six thousand taels of silver.

Liang Su had three thousand taels of private property.

More than 2,000 taels of silver were temporarily seized from the public treasury involved in the case.

The first batch of six-month deposits has been basically distributed.

After receiving the money, some people immediately returned to their hometowns.

Some people stayed behind at the camp.

Someone is buying clothes.

For the first time, someone ate a meal that wasn't recorded in the camp.

Han Shi bought an ordinary short knife with silver.

It's not from the armory.

There is no character for "fierce" in it.

He tucked the knife into his waistband.

"Lord Shen."

"If I really join the army in the future, can I take this with me?"

"It will be issued in the military."

"Then what are we going to do this time?"

"Cut the meat."

Ah Liu said, "It can also keep out thieves."

Yan Xiaoyi leaned against the side.

"There really is a thief, let's run!"

Ah Liu has finally found a kindred spirit.

"Master Yan is right."

Han Shi looked at the two of them.

I'm starting to wonder why I'm surrounded by people who discourage bravery.

Just as things were starting to stabilize in Qingzhou, news came back from Chen's Shipping Company.

The boat is now empty.

The shopkeeper, boatmen, and accountant all left this morning.

Only three small boats remained at the dock.

Both ships were pierced.

A body was found under the hull of the last ship.

Not the owner of Chen's shop.

It was that Qingxia Transport Office's cargo inspector.

The corpse bore one of the three seals indicating the opening of a warehouse.

Qingzhou Transport Seal.

But the seal was gone.

When I arrived at the dock, the body had just been carried ashore.

Doctor Song is not here.

The coroner from Qingzhou examined it.

He died approximately two days later.

He suffered a severe blow to the back of his head.

There were no other injuries on his body.

He died two days ago.

However, in the past two days, some people have still been using his identity to inspect grain between Qingzhou and Qingxia.

I asked, "Can the boat be repaired?"

After inspecting the ship, the boatman said, "The last one only has one hole in the hull."

"It can be replenished in half an hour."

"Half an hour is too long."

Yan Xiaoyi said, "Block cloth."

It will leak.

"Scooping as you walk."

Ah Liu's face turned pale when he heard this.

"Master Yan, who wants to scoop some?"

Everyone looked at him.

Ah Liu took a step back.

"I suddenly realized that half an hour isn't long at all."

In the end, we still had to repair the boat.

Some risks are not worth taking.

Those who are afraid of death know best how heavy a hole in the bottom of a ship can be.

While waiting for the ship, a boy from the relief camp squeezed out from the crowd.

Fifteen or sixteen years old.

He held a short note that had been soaked in water in his hand.

"Lord Shen."

Someone asked me to give this to you.

"Who?"

"A lame boatman."

Where are they?

"I went to Qingxia this morning."

The short note was not sealed.

Only one sentence:

Qingxia walnut shell 109.

Eight of them have been registered as Shen An's personal guards.

The Shen family's old residence will open tonight.

The name is not below.

It is a genuine old Southwest Army arrow.

This is something that outsiders can hardly imitate.

In his early years, my father had his own arrow marks for each of his personal guard scouts.

Three horizontal marks.

A slanted notch.

It belongs to Xu Sandao.

His men have already reached the vicinity of Qingzhou.

But he didn't come to see me.

Only one reminder was given.

This shows that even the father was watching the situation in Qingxia.

I turned the short note over.

There is another line of even smaller text on the back.

It's not Xu Sandao's handwriting.

However, it was a coded message commonly used in the Southwest Army.

General Shen did not take over this army.

If anyone claims to be acting on his father's orders, kill him.

My father did not acknowledge the nameless army in Qingxia.

At least not now.

But he didn't tell me to save him.

He simply said that anyone who dared to disobey his father's orders would be killed.

He looks a lot like him.

I looked at the boat that had been repaired.

The living people in Qingzhou City have just had their names returned.

The 109 people in Qingxia are losing their names.

I can not wait.