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

The first thing Deng Xiniang said upon returning to the Jiangbei Guild Hall wasn't to Zhou Qi, nor to her own household registration document, which had been altered several times. She asked the female corpse in Nangou, "What was her name?"

Qiu Tang couldn't answer. The autopsy report still only listed "unknown woman": approximately thirty years old, with a newly added black mole on the back of her neck, her right back tooth had been extracted within ten days, the tips of both fingers had been cut, and a fake death warrant for Deng Dalang was hidden in her clothes, suggesting she was a substitute. After reading it, Deng Xiniang shook her head: "She is not me."

"Sure?"

"I'm not sure." She looked up. "But I'm alive."

Enough. As long as Deng Xiniang herself is alive, the corpse cannot continue to bear her name. As for who she really is, that needs further investigation. Deng Xiniang added another sentence to her statement: "Just because she isn't Deng Xiniang doesn't mean she can continue to be nameless." When this sentence was sent to Yong'an, her mother read it twice and had a copy hung next to the four lists of conscientious individuals in the old granary. Soon, someone asked, "Since it's not Deng Xiniang, could it be Zhou Qi?"

The old clothes, shoe soles, and teeth of the woman's corpse in Nangou were quickly re-examined. Of the seven dyeing workshops still operating in the capital, six female workers had been reported missing in the past month. Two had returned home, one had fled to avoid debts, and one had been taken away by her husband's family. Only two remained truly missing. Bai Zhi didn't have their names written directly next to the corpses; instead, she listed them on a separate candidate page: Su Qiao and Liu Hongniang. She said the candidate list was for finding the people, not for quickly making the corpses known.

The characteristics on Su Qiao's old workbook seemed almost tailor-made for this corpse: missing teeth, an old sore on the back of her neck, and burns on the soles of her feet—all three matched. However, when her ten-year-old daughter was questioned separately, she said her mother's teeth on both sides could bite beans, and she only had a small red birthmark on the back of her neck. Bai Zhi then investigated the workbook's origin and discovered that those physical characteristics had been added by Chen Ping, the accountant who had died three years prior. The workbook was genuine, the paper was old, but the "person" inside might have been replaced long ago.

Bai Zhi took the autopsy report and left only one sentence: "There is no evidence to confirm this." Bai Zhi originally wanted to write "It also cannot be proven that it was not Zhou Qi" at the end, but she stopped halfway through.

"Why don't you write it?" I asked.

"There are too many things that can't be proven otherwise." She lifted her pen. "If it's written like this, she could also be the emperor."

The emperor happened to be standing nearby and looked up at her.

"Their body shapes don't match," Bai Zhi added.

The example isn't great, but the point is valid: an autopsy isn't about eliminating all possible candidates until the very last one is identified; it's about having sufficient evidence to justify adding a name. Otherwise, every instance of "not excluding" becomes an opening for imposters to exploit next time.

She first investigated the places that were difficult to fake. There was reddish-brown powder under the female corpse's fingernails, which all three dye houses identified as madder powder; there were old burns on the soles of her feet, as if she had been walking on the dye house's wetlands for many years. Of the female dye workers who had gone missing in the capital in the past month, only two were truly missing: Su Qiao and Liu Hongniang.

The reddish-brown powder wasn't simply identified as "madder" as a profession; the dyer only recognized it as commonly used in red dyeing, but that didn't prove the woman's body was definitely a dyer. Zhou's Dyehouse owner dyed indigo, but small amounts of madder were also stored in their backyard; those handling, drying, and cleaning the dyeing process could have encountered it. Bai Zhi asked the coroner to change "red dyeing worker" to "long-term or recent contact with madder before death"—just a few words, but the scope was completely different. She didn't want another piece of physical evidence to complete someone's life story.

Su Qiao was thirty-one years old. Her old work record listed a sore on the back of her neck, a missing right back tooth for many years, and burns on the soles of her feet—these seemed most likely to be the description. However, her ten-year-old daughter said that her mother could chew hard beans with both sides of her teeth, and there was no sore on the back of her neck, only a very small red birthmark. Further investigation of the old work record revealed it belonged to an accountant named Chen Ping, who had died three years prior. Su Qiao's features—missing teeth, old sores, and burns—were likely added later.

Su Qiao's husband died early, and her daughter was only ten years old. The coroner initially worried that the child might be mistaken. Bai Zhi didn't suppress the testimony with the statement "the child's memory is unreliable," but instead questioned the dye shop owner who had adopted her, her neighbors, and the old clinic. Several people could corroborate each other's statements that "Su Qiao had good teeth on both sides," but the work record book from the dead man's accounting office insisted that she had been missing teeth for a long time. In the end, it wasn't the child who proved everything, but rather the various sources that collectively downgraded the old record book to dubious evidence.

When Su Qiao's name was removed from the list of nominees, A-Liu felt as if he had pushed her back into obscurity. Bai Zhi, however, said that removing a nominee wasn't like having her name taken away; it was like admitting that we hadn't found her yet. The comfort brought by a wrong name is more dangerous than emptiness. A corpse doesn't know its own name, but the living can be implicated, identified as corpses, and held accountable because of that one wrong name. It's ugly to leave it empty, but we should leave it empty for now.

Bai Zhi did not erase Su Qiao's name, but wrote after the candidate column: "The source of the old work book characteristics is suspicious, and the family's memory conflicts with the new injury, so it is not enough to identify her."

"The corpse doesn't have a name anymore?" Ah Liu asked.

"I didn't recognize her at all." "It was almost true." "It's not even close."

Ah Liu was silent for a while: "Won't the person feel bad?" Bai Zhi glanced at him: "The account won't. The person will." Another missing female worker, Liu Hongniang, was thirty-three years old. She had all her teeth, no moles on the back of her neck, and no burns on the soles of her feet. She seemed out of place in every way. Bai Zhi, however, sent someone to find her younger brother.

When Liu Hongniang's younger brother was summoned, no one showed him the candidate list, nor told him what "matching" characteristics the female corpse possessed. He only received a rubbing of the stitches from the innermost layer of old clothing. The brother said that his sister always tied two knots when sewing, but this garment had three; his sister was afraid of needles pricking her hands and habitually tucked needles into her hair, but there were no needles in the female corpse's hair bun, although there was a callus behind her right ear from years of holding small objects in it. These were not conclusive pieces of evidence, but they were enough to stop the seemingly logical deduction that "the least likely person is the most suspicious."

I instructed that all subsequent family inquiries be conducted behind closed doors. Each family should only speak what they remember, without listening to each other's accounts, and without posting notices about missing teeth, birthmarks, or stitches all over the streets. Otherwise, every time we disclose a new autopsy feature, the next fake corpse will have another model to follow. Examining a corpse should not become a matter of writing down the dimensions for the person performing the coroner.

The younger brother of the Liu family was illiterate, but he recognized his sister's habit of finishing her clothes with the thread. The coroner showed him the stitches from the innermost layer of the old clothes on the female corpse, but he shook his head after a short while: "My sister tied two knots when finishing the thread, this person tied three. She was also afraid of pricking her hands, so she kept the needle stuck in her hair." There were calluses behind the female corpse's ears from years of wearing small objects. They still didn't match.

That evening, a blank human-shaped notice board suddenly appeared on the wall of the capital. There were blank spaces next to teeth, moles, old wounds, and stitches, and only three words at the top: Please fill in by Shen An.

After the blank list was posted, the onlookers initially thought they were helping. Some wrote "Deng Xiniang has a mole on the back of her neck," others wrote "Su Qiao is missing a tooth," and still others added the birthmark of another missing woman. In less than an hour, a corpse that no one recognized had been pieced together by the people with teeth, moles, old wounds, and stitches. No one was lying, but each person contributed only a small piece they knew, which together formed a more useful template for a fake corpse.

Even after I added the requirement for real names to the list, some people still objected, asking why providing clues should incur responsibility. I didn't hold them accountable for the later falsification of the body; I only asked them to explain where the clues came from. This distinction is crucial: responsibility isn't "you said it, so everything is yours," but rather "you must be able to be found out about the details of what you said." When the crowd dispersed, the empty spaces on the list were more useful than filling them in.

Within an hour of the notice being posted, people were already writing on it. Deng Xiniang had a mole on the back of her neck, Su Qiao was missing a tooth, Liu Hongniang had a needle hidden behind her ear, and there were other people's birthmarks and scars. Everyone wanted to help, but unknowingly they pieced together the characteristics of several living people to create a corpse that was easier to impersonate. I didn't have anyone tear down the notice, but only added two sentences at the top: Those who write down the characteristics must first leave their names; if these characteristics are used to fake a corpse in the future, the source must be stated.

The crowd quickly dispersed.

Before leaving, Bai Zhi copied the blank list again, deliberately preserving the marks that had been filled in and then crossed out. She said that this list might not be able to identify the Nan Gou female corpse in the future, but it could prove something more important: when everyone is in a hurry to "give a name to a dead person," the easiest thing to do is to piece together the characteristics of several living people to create a person who never existed. This mistake must be left behind so that next time someone will know where they can't go.

The next morning, an extra line of names appeared on the list.

— Bai Zhi has already admitted her mistake once.

I looked at Bai Zhi, who was also looking at the sentence, her expression unchanged: "What did I mistake?" No one knew, but it was written on the fifth list that destroying Bai Zhi didn't require killing her, just making her make a mistake once. Now, someone had already announced for her: it had been done.