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

After Seventeen finished writing his own page, the real trouble began when he emerged from the carriage. Four inspection vehicles had been parked outside the old warehouse. They had been checked three times along the route from the capital to Yong'an. There were no knives, no kerosene, and no hidden compartments. It looked perfectly clean.

Yan Xiaoyi circled the first vehicle three times, finally squatting down and tapping under it. "It's empty," A-Liu said. "Of course," Yan Xiaoyi replied without looking up, "It was originally meant to hold the tent." "Then why are you tapping it?" "To hear why it's so heavy."

Ah Liu shut up. After the cart was dismantled, there was indeed another layer inside. It wasn't a hidden compartment for soldiers. It was paper. One hundred and forty-four sheets. All of them had been pre-pressed to a worn state, the edges of the paper had been worn down, and the pinholes were even punched according to the supplementary pages of Yong'an's public accounts.

Bai Zhi's face darkened after flipping through only a dozen pages. "They don't intend to replace the whole book." "Which pages?" I asked. "Look." The first page, the case name. The last page, the signature. The middle pages, the attribution of responsibility. Most of the numbers remain unchanged, most of the testimonies remain unchanged, and they don't even need to steal too much of the original paper.

By simply changing "What case is this?", "Who approved it?", and "Who should be blamed in the end?", the same hundred pages of genuine ledgers can tell a completely different story. Ah Liu stood by and watched for a long time. "So they didn't come to move the ledgers." "No." "They came to exchange the ledgers."

"Hmm." The twelve people who delivered the imperial edict looked even worse than us. Xu Wen, the clerk of the Secretariat, had only seen the format of the main text. Qi Li of the Court of Imperial Clan Affairs had only checked the procedure. Feng Ze of the Imperial Seal Office had only looked at the real seal. Chen Gu, the clerk of the Censorate, had only checked the transfer order. Each of them could testify that their part was true.

But no one had seen the whole thing. I asked each of the twelve people separately. "Have you seen the main text of the transfer order?" Xu Wen shook his head. "Did you see if the emperor was conscious at the time?" Qi Li shook his head. "Do you know why the original Yong'an document had to be moved to the capital?" Chen Gu hesitated for a moment: "It was for unified verification."

"Who said that?" "The Secretariat relayed it." They asked the Secretariat again, who said the Imperial Clan Court's procedures were complete. The Imperial Clan Court then said the Imperial Seal Bureau had already verified the seal. The Imperial Seal Bureau said the Censorate had no objections. After going around in circles, everyone had only looked at their own corner, then confidently believed that the other three corners had already been checked.

It's all true. But when put together, no one takes responsibility. Seventeen stood in the rope, his face growing paler and paler. I asked him, "If the original is on the train, where do you plan to sign it?" He pointed to a corrected copy in the third train. The space for the words "Censor Shen An" was already marked on it.

"You knew you needed to change the page?" "No." "What if someone on the street told you this was the corrected version and asked you to sign it?" He was silent. "Yes." "Why?" "I thought it was the final step." "What final step?"

"Become Shen An." My mother sat behind the table, motionless. She asked, "And what happens after you become him?" "You'll be in charge of the general ledger." I looked up at her. "Who told you Shen An would be in charge of the general ledger?" "The fifth page." "The exact words?" "The emperor listens to him. Shen Lie listens to him. Gu Qinghe will eventually listen to him too. When no one can be trusted, Shen An will take over the general ledger."

My mother said coldly, "I didn't say that." "They said you would eventually." I suddenly understood the real danger of the fifth list. The four open lists made people only recognize the emperor, father, mother, or me. The fifth hidden list, on the surface, recorded those who "refused to recognize only one person."

But what if all these people end up with me? The emperor is unreliable, the father is unreliable, the mother is unreliable. So let's find someone who seems willing to investigate anything and allows for any complexity. Let him be the new head of the household. In the end, everyone still only needs to trust one person.

The only difference is that the person in question has changed from the emperor to me. I picked up a pen and wrote a line next to "Shen An is in charge of the general ledger." Shen An doesn't manage the general ledger. Seventeen asked, "You're the one who decides?" "No." "Then what should I write?" "I'll state upfront that I don't acknowledge it."

"Others will recognize it." "Then let them write it themselves." As soon as she finished speaking, Bai Zhi pulled out an even thinner page from the bottom of the pile of papers. There were only six characters. "If all four paths fail, then begin with the name Shen An." A-Liu's face scrunched up after reading it. "There's more?"

"Looks like there is." Seventeen stared at the line of text without speaking. Lin Huan, however, thought of something else first. "Where is the next one?" No one answered. Until evening, a urgent report arrived from Qingxia. The report contained only one crucial sentence: A man calling himself "Shen An" had arrived at the military camp.

Number twelve. No left shoulder injury. He doesn't acknowledge Gu Qinghe or the prince consort's identity. He only requests to see Shen Lie and to see the original regicide warrant. A-Liu puts down the letter. "Young Master." "Hmm." "How many do you have?" "Currently, at least three."

"And the third one?" The words had barely left my lips when an urgent message arrived from the capital. A man carrying the Imperial Seal had been captured outside Changning Palace. He didn't look like me. In fact, he hadn't even intended to. His number was nine. His mission consisted of only three things: the palace gates, the post road, and so on.

The Emperor. I looked at the two letters and suddenly felt a chill. They never intended to recreate a complete Shen An. Seventeen was responsible for getting my mother to recognize him. Twelve was responsible for getting my father and the Southwest Army to recognize him. Nine was responsible for getting the Emperor and the palace gates to recognize him. If each of the three people resembled a part of me, and then they were joined together with paper, the same "Shen An" could appear simultaneously in three different places.

This is much easier than making an exact replica of someone else's face. It's also much more dangerous. Because we're constantly asking who's real. The other person doesn't need any of them to be real. Seventeen suddenly asked me, "Then what am I?" I looked at him. "Someone who's already done it."

"So we need to eat quickly," Ah Liu said immediately. "I agree with that." His mother ignored him. She placed the "Next Place: Shen An" card on the table. "You're going to the capital." "Okay." "Twelve, let your father investigate himself." "He'll investigate?"

My mother glanced at me. "You have to learn even if you don't know how." I felt that if my father heard this, he would probably be unhappy. That was good. I couldn't be the only one making progress.

When Father saw Twelve, the first thing he looked at was his left shoulder. There was no injury there. Xu Sandao later wrote in his urgent report that the general stared at him for three breaths, his face very pale. I think that's quite reasonable. Someone who specifically came to impersonate your son wouldn't even bother to fake the most obvious injury; that's somewhat disrespectful.

Father asked, "Why not?" Twelve replied, "No need." "Why?" "I want you to recognize the military camp, not Gu Qinghe to recognize her son." This was faster than any physical examination. Seventeen learned the part I did in front of my mother.

Twelve learned what I learned from my father and the Southwest Army. He knew which horse's left ear should not be touched, which column should stand with their left hand on the bow during the changing of the guard at the west gate of Qingxia, and that my father often put the most important sentence last when giving orders. These things were not mysterious.

There were records of military horse diseases. There were old regulations for camp defense. My father's past military orders were piled up in several cabinets. If you studied them long enough, you could learn. My father didn't ask about personal matters anymore. He asked directly, "What are you here for?" "To see the original order to kill the emperor." "On what grounds?"

Twelve handed over a Censorate inspection order. Genuine format. Genuine old paper. Genuine duplicate seal. Only the duplicate seal was no longer in use. After reading it, Father didn't tear the paper up. This was progress. He had the military clerk verify it first, then the witness from Jiangbei, and only then did he read the main text.

Twelve remained standing. "Do you know the original order?" "Yes." "Shen An has already refused." "So we need the next person." "Who said that?" "Jiao Jun." "Who?" Twelve thought for a moment. "Blind in his left eye, and missing two fingers on his right hand."

After hearing this, my father remained silent for a long time. This distinctive feature was later sent to the capital, and I recognized it immediately. Shi Younian. The head instructor of the Wang family's old armory. He disappeared eleven years ago. If he were still alive, this line of investigation wouldn't have been a spur-of-the-moment decision. Twelve has trained for at least many years.

The father continued, "Why did he teach you to be like Shen An?" "He said you'd need a more obedient son sooner or later." Xu Sandao added a note next to the urgent report: General Shen crushed the cup at the time. I felt regretful after reading it. I didn't see it with my own eyes.

Twelve did not back down because of those words. "The original Shen An would refuse orders," he said. "He would side with the emperor and also with Gu Qinghe. The military camp needs someone who can carry out the orders." "So you are more obedient?" his father asked.

"Yes." "Then you're not Shen An." Twelve frowned for the first time. "Why?" "Because that's what bothers him the most." When I read this, I felt a little conflicted. My father had finally said something like a father.

However, the next paragraph reverts to Shen Lie's style. He has Twelve write down everything he knows about military routes, codes, training locations, and teaching habits, then immediately revokes his authority to transfer orders. Twelve asks, "Not going to see the original documents?" "No." "Aren't you afraid I'm the real Shen An?"

"He really has no right to collect evidence for me." This last sentence makes more sense. Back in the capital, Jiu had already been taken to the outer hall of Changning Palace. When I rushed back, he was sitting on the ground with three things beside him. A genuine imperial seal. A post station token from the Censorate. A travel permit with the words "Shen An" written on it.

He looked nothing like me. Twenty-seven or twenty-eight years old, with a dark complexion, a broken left eyebrow, and thick knuckles on his right hand. The emperor sat at the head of the table, staring at him for a long time. "You are Shen An?" Jiu shook his head. "I use the name Shen An." The emperor's face darkened again.

As I entered, Ah Liu whispered behind me, "His Majesty must be quite annoyed by hearing that lately." I thought so too. Ninth's task was narrower than Seventeenth and Twelfth. He didn't need any relatives to recognize him. He only needed the gates to recognize him. The palace gates recognized the post station plaques. The post stations recognized the travel permits.

The Imperial Seal Controller recognized the seal-retrieving format I had previously used. Finally, he brought the genuine imperial seal back to the palace. If his journey had been smooth, the palace would have only seen: Censor Shen An, ordered to retrieve the lost seal, personally returning it. As for where the real me was, that was irrelevant.

"Who gave you the True Seal?" I asked. "The black cab." "Who was in the black cab?" "I don't know." "Did you see their face?" "No." "Why did you dare take it?" "My page says Shen An retrieved the True Seal." "So you took it?" "Yes."

I suddenly realized that the real similarity among the three wasn't in their faces. It was that they all treated the next steps written on the paper as their own life's imperative. Seventeen cut himself to be recognized by his mother. Twelve practiced the entire set of military habits to obey his father's orders.

To ensure the palace gates would recognize him, Jiu carried the stolen imperial seal all the way back. They weren't acting against me. They were completing a pre-written document for Shen An. Bai Zhi laid out the three people's old pages side by side. The earliest layer all had numbers. Seventeen. Twelve. Nine.

"The paper ages are similar," she said. "The same batch?" "At least the bottom sheets are from the same batch." All three sheets have the same cut marks on the edges, as if they were taken from a large book. There's also a very faint horizontal line on the bottom of each sheet. After measuring with a ruler, Bai Zhi suddenly said, "They're not three separate pages."

"What does that mean?" "It's a table." The three pages were pieced together along the cut edges, and the horizontal lines joined perfectly. There used to be other sections next to Seventeen. Twelve had them too. Nine had them too. But most of them were missing. Nine stared at the pieced-together half of the table and suddenly said, "Nineteen."

"What?" "The original table has nineteen lines." I looked at him. "You're the nineteen children?" "Yes." "Only the three of you have studied Shen An?" "Three of us know about it now." "What about the others?" "Some of them studied the dead."

"Someone's imitating an official." "Someone's imitating a patient." "Anyone else?" Jiu looked up. "Someone's imitating the emperor." Changning Palace suddenly fell silent. The emperor slowly sat up straight. "Who?" Jiu shook her head. "I don't know the name." "The number." "One."

Ah Liu swallowed hard. I looked at the three old sheets of paper that had been pieced back together. Three Shen Ans were already troublesome enough. Now it seemed they were just three of the nineteen squares. The one who was truly torn apart was never just me.