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

The Qingfeng South Granary was not sealed immediately. There were still people waiting for their grain outside the granary. If the granary door were locked first to check for counterfeit measuring measures, the first to run out of grain would not be the Wang family or He Xiu, but the people who had been waiting all morning. So we moved the inspection to the courtyard: the new copper measuring measures, the old wooden measuring measures in use, and the measuring measures that He Cheng had saved were all laid out, and the distribution of grain continued.

The old system was undisputed: ten liters made one dou, and ten dou made one shi. The new copper dou sent by the Ministry of Revenue had been repeatedly calibrated according to the standard liters, and it was exactly ten liters. The problem lay with those old wooden dou that had been used for many years and were familiar to everyone. Of the seventeen old dou currently in use, the bottom plates of nine had been raised, and the smallest one only had nine liters and one he. The ten-liter mark on the outside had not been moved, and the body of the dou had not changed, only the inside had been subtly made shallower. The account could still record "one dou".

Ah Liu used his counting rods to calculate twice: "If there are 10,000 households, and each household is short one liter in one dou?" Bai Zhi replied: "One round is 10,000 liters, which is 1,000 dou, or 100 shi. If it is calculated in this way for ten rounds, it will be 1,000 shi." This time, the number was written directly on the measuring rod page, and the conversion process was also left next to it. No one let a convenient "large number" beat the facts.

To prevent the "standard measure itself from being inaccurate," Bai Zhi had someone take a commonly used measure from the Ministry of Revenue's accompanying vessels, the Qingfeng County treasury, and three nearby households. The official measure was first calibrated according to the old bronze model, while the commoners' measures were only used as a reference and not directly used for measurement. The four types of measures were switched several times, and the Ministry of Revenue's standard measure and the new bronze measure were filled to the brim in exactly ten times, with the error only in the leveling method. The old wooden measure, however, no matter who filled it, would reach the rim after the ninth time. Therefore, the problem lay at the bottom of the measure, not in "who has bigger or smaller hands."

The method of distributing grain was also changed on the spot. The old measuring containers were not burned or smashed, but all tied to the courtyard wall as evidence; the relief grain for that day was changed to standard measures, one measure at a time, counted to ten, so that the recipients could see it themselves. The speed was almost half as slow, but the line did not break up. Several elderly people even placed their household measuring containers aside to compare, realizing for the first time that what was missing each time in the past was not "unevenness", but that there was actually one less layer in the container.

The current granary official was eager to say that he had only been in office for three months, and the old grain measures were all left over from his predecessor. I didn't sideline him because of this, nor did I make him bear the burden of eleven years of debt. In the past two years, he had received at least three objections to the "shallow grain measures," but all of them were rejected according to old practice; this part is his responsibility. As for who changed the grain measures, who received the grain, and who approved them earlier, that needs to be investigated separately. Just because someone is sitting in the granary today doesn't mean that all the past years can be attributed to him.

Yan Xiaoyi unearthed seventeen pieces of burnt-out bucket bottoms from the ash pit in the backyard, twelve of which showed signs of double-thickening. These weren't the seventeen buckets currently in use in the yard, but rather remnants from earlier destruction. In other words, the short buckets weren't simply broken by chance, nor were they a mistake made by a carpenter on a whim; this modification had been used in batches at least. Standing by the ash pit, He Xiu's first words were: "Made by Su Musheng?"

When He Cheng was rescued from the well, he was very thin, his right leg hadn't been straightened for years, but his palms still bore the calluses often found on carpenters and grain measurers. He Xiu didn't call out to her father first. Two men who had never seen her before asked for her name, old injuries, and family matters. The old man said his name was He Cheng, that his daughter had stolen dried dates from the storeroom when she was seven, stuffing the pits into the seams of the grain measure; that she had lost a small tuft of hair behind her left ear when she was little due to hot water scalding; and he even smiled slightly: "Her name is Xiu, but she never learned to embroider."

He Xiu lowered her head only after hearing the last sentence. The physical condition, age, old records, and these private matters unsuitable for official records all matched up, yet Bai Zhi still only wrote, "Highly consistent, protected as the individual for now, pending further verification from more sources." He Cheng was displeased to see the words "pending verification": "You've already admitted to being your own daughter, and you still want verification?" He Xiu answered for Bai Zhi first: "Even your own daughter can be wrong." The old man looked at her for a long time, not forcing her to change her mind immediately.

The father and daughter each possessed a truth that had deceived them for eleven years. He Xiu received a letter that read "Xiu'er, don't look for me," the nickname was real, but the messenger was a limp stranger; He Cheng received a page stating his daughter had died in a car accident from the plague, even the old injuries were correctly described, but he had never seen the body. He Cheng said that the dead page was forwarded by Su Musheng, who himself was also written to have died from the plague not long after. Both sides believed the truth known only to their closest relatives; the only one wrong was the one who spoke it.

Bai Zhi then asked He Cheng to describe his old injuries, which the doctor would then examine again. He said his right knee had been run over by a cart when he was young, his left shoulder was uninjured, and he had a burn mark on his lower back. Of the three injuries, two matched and one didn't: the burn mark on his lower back was located half a palm's width further away than he described. He Cheng was initially taken aback, then remembered that he had said "side of the waist," while the clerk had initially written "lower back." This minor discrepancy wasn't forcibly explained away; the original words and the doctor's examination were both preserved. The father and daughter could continue recognizing each other, and their identities were still described as "highly compatible" rather than absolutely consistent.

He Xiu finally called out "Father," after the examination, not before. He Cheng didn't immediately hug her, but only asked if she had been calling him He Xiu all these years. She said no. The old man wanted to ask more, but Bai Zhi interrupted him: "We'll talk about the original name later, let's get the person out of the well first." The first meeting between father and daughter after eleven years was not written as a reunion that could automatically clear anyone's name.

He Cheng retrieved a measuring cup that had been hidden for eleven years from a crack in the wall. Its shape was almost identical to a short measuring cup, but the bottom was thinner, and the inner wall had ten very shallow horizontal lines, each representing one liter, filling it to exactly ten liters. The measuring cup plaque found in the imperial tomb matched the copper plate on the bottom of the cup. Su Musheng had made a batch of new measuring cups based on this one; the cups weren't short when they left the lumber mill, and it was only later that someone added a board from the bottom.

This also changed the judgment of Su Musheng. If the wooden bucket was originally of sufficient size, then the statement "Su Musheng voluntarily made a small bucket" could not be established solely based on the inscription on the bucket itself. He Cheng said that the person who modified the bucket would first take away the completed bucket, then force the carpenter to inscribe "voluntary" on the bottom after setting up the board. Anyone who disagreed would have their identity and the page changed until someone was willing to sign. The carpenter's skill and his later greed cannot be equated simply because they were associated with the same bucket.

The surplus grain went to more than one place. He Cheng only dared to confirm three categories: Wang's secret granary, local handlers' private distribution, and a portion of grain from unnamed military units. He didn't have a master ledger to specify the exact year and amount, so he couldn't multiply the highest figure by eleven years. He would only calculate the batch and round of grain distribution that he could confirm. The year of distribution and the records of the handling were still missing, leaving blank spaces.

Ah Liu asked again, "If it really is 10,000 households, and each time it's one liter less, then ten rounds would only yield 1,000 shi. Would it take even more in eleven years?" "Possibly," I said. "Write 'possibly'?" "Don't write the total. Find the number of rounds first." No matter how beautiful a calculation is, it can't turn the number of distributions that haven't been found into a fact. Hearing this, He Cheng turned and glanced at the wellhead, as if he had finally decided to say something else.

He Cheng said he had reported Su Musheng's disappearance years ago. People from the county government came, but their most frequent questions weren't about where the carpenter had gone; they were about where Zhen Dou's deputy was hidden. The roster listed the leader as "Lin Ping'an," and He Cheng remembered the man as about forty years old with a mole on his right eyebrow—a name completely inconsistent with the Lin Ping'an we later confirmed. Because the people who came had genuine county government documents, he realized that the path of publicly reporting to the authorities had already been taken, leaving him with no choice but to hide Zhen Dou and the corpse together. This choice preserved the evidence, but also delayed Su Musheng's name from being reported back for eleven years.

The short-term grain rationing didn't immediately yield an astonishing total. The only confirmed evidence at Qingfeng South Granary came from existing grain rations, the remnants of the ash pit, grain requisition books, and He Cheng's confession. He Cheng had recorded seventeen granaries using similar grain rations in his youth, but he didn't have a complete list; only the hidden compartments of the genuine grain rations' bottom plates might hold old records. Those compartments were sealed and then opened separately, not in public in the courtyard. The grain rations inspection continued, while the rations inspection for soldiers began on a separate page. Just because the two lines finally met didn't mean all the grain shortages were attributed to the Wang family's nameless battalion.

Behind the well wall was a newly built brick wall. After dismantling it, the first thing exposed was a section of a man's shinbone, next to which lay a charred short bucket, the bottom of which was engraved with "Made by Su Musheng, voluntarily." He Cheng closed his eyes: "He didn't do it voluntarily." The second skeleton was further inside, a woman's, the tip of her right index finger missing, an old fracture on her left shin, and beside her was a Wang family "Qi" plaque. He Xiu stared at the plaque, her face completely expressionless for the first time.

He Cheng also had his own grievances. After discovering Su Musheng's murder, he reported it to the Qingfeng County government, but the search party only looked for the deputy head of the well. The county government's record listed the name "Lin Ping'an," another name associated with the deceased. To protect the head and deputy head, He Cheng personally sealed the body wall back up, then changed his name and hid for eleven years. The evidence survived, but Su Musheng also ended up lying in the plague-ridden death list for an additional eleven years. He Xiu did not defend her father; He Cheng himself signed off on this.

The identity of the woman remains a mystery. The missing joint on her right index finger, the old fracture on her left shin, and the presence of the character "绮" beside her all suggest a strong connection to Zhou Qi's identity. He Xiu clearly recognizes these features, yet only says, "There might be someone." I didn't press her for a name immediately. The first things to emerge from the well were two skeletons, not two readily available answers.