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

The paper Wang Heng handed over, besides listing "fifty-seven former soldiers," also had another name: Zero. A-Liu's first reaction upon reading it was, "Again?" Me too. Nineteen people were already enough; adding a zero easily made one suspect the person writing the accounts had poor math skills as a child.

Bai Zhi placed the paper under the lamp, looked at it for a moment, and then said, "Zero isn't the zeroth person." "Then what is it?" "An empty space." There were nineteen old holes along the edge of the paper. There was another hole added later in the center. Zero wasn't a child. It was a space reserved for anyone who got the whole page.

Nineteen people were divided into different roles: medicine, voice, road, army, family, corpse, and so on. Eventually, someone had to reassemble them. That person didn't have a fixed name. Whoever got the whole page was Zero. "Zhou Qi?" Ah Liu asked. "Possibly."

"Wang Heng?" "Maybe." "Shen An?" I looked at him. Ah Liu immediately said, "I was just saying it offhand." But his casual question hit the most troublesome layer. The fifth list kept pushing people who "refused to recognize only one person" toward me.

If everyone ultimately believes that the emperor will be biased, Shen Lie will be biased, and Gu Qinghe will be biased, and only Shen An is willing to listen to all versions, then I'll be the most convenient "bottom." I won't even need to be impersonated. As long as everyone is willing to entrust the final decision to me.

This is more dangerous than Seventeen looking like me. I pushed the "Zero" page away a little. "Investigate the fifty-seven first." The Emperor asked, "Why not investigate Zero first?" "Zero has no face. We can't find it." "So?" "What would we need to investigate it with?"

Fifty-seven former soldiers were the first sword it was about to wield. The third granary of the imperial estate still distributed fifty-seven rations to former soldiers each month. The roster had no names, only wooden tags numbered one to fifty-seven. Wang Heng's account was complete. Shi Younian commanded the Wang family's former soldiers.

Fifty-seven portions of grain correspond to fifty-seven nameless soldiers. The original copy of the father's order to kill the emperor is still intact. All three Shen An lines have been activated again. As long as Shi Younian uses one of Shen An's names to summon the old soldiers to the capital, the Wang family's final coup will be complete.

It sounded too good to be true. So good that I almost didn't believe it. The emperor asked, "Shall we seal the granaries?" "Not yet." "Why?" "If we seal them, we'll only know that no one is coming to collect the grain." "Then what do you want to know?" "Who is eating." The third granary continued to distribute grain as usual.

There was only one more page to claim the cards. They didn't ask if you were a returning soldier. They didn't ask your original name. They only asked who was claiming the cards, how many people were getting them, where the cards came from, and whether anyone had pressured you. On the first day, only 21 out of 57 cards were claimed.

The next day, another thirteen were claimed. On the third day, twenty-three remained unclaimed. Only eight were actually claimed by able-bodied men. The rest were claimed by elderly women, children, families of disabled soldiers, and farmers employed by the imperial estate. Some of the tokens had long been left to the wives and children of former soldiers. Some had been sold.

Some were used to pay off debts. A "soldier's token," after more than a decade, had become a meal ticket, an IOU, a keepsake—anything. It just didn't necessarily mean they were still soldiers. Ah Liu looked at the list. "So there aren't fifty-seven people?" Bai Zhi said, "Knowing there are only fifty-seven rations doesn't mean there are fifty-seven people."

When Wang Heng heard this, her face darkened. She had made the same mistake as us. Seeing one unit of rations, she filled it with one soldier. Seeing fifty-seven units, she filled them with fifty-seven suicide soldiers. The twelfth unit was claimed by an old woman.

Her husband died eight years ago. She uses the grain to support her two grandsons. I asked, "Has Shi Younian come by?" "Every winter." "And this year?" "About half a month ago." "What did he say?" The old woman thought for a moment. "He said if the grain plaque is inspected, don't run away, return the grain."

It didn't look like a troop roll call. It looked more like stitches being removed. Number twenty-seven was a lame man. He had indeed served in the Wang family's nameless army. His left knee was crippled, and he couldn't ride a horse. Shi Younian had also come half a month ago, asking him, "If someone used Shen An's name to summon you to the capital, would you go?"

He answered, "No." "Why?" "I don't even know who Shen An is." Shi Younian made him put his fingerprint on the document. The other seven surviving and still mobile veterans also had similar fingerprints. Some said they were too old. Some said they were afraid. And one said it best.

"The Wang family is dead, and now I have to live on in their place?" I told the clerk to record it exactly as it was. The fifty-seven plaques were re-examined; currently, nineteen can be confirmed as former nameless soldiers. Eight dead. Six wounded. Three missing. Two still capable of movement. No one has received orders to enter the capital.

Behind plate number nine, however, was a stop line marking. Three short lines and one long line. Shi Ping—the new name Twelve had given himself—recognized it at a glance. "The stop line marking of the instructor." "What does that mean?" "Ignoring the general name, each goes their own way."

I stared at the four engraved marks. Half a month ago, Shi Younian had begun dismantling his old belongings. Why the sudden change? The answer arrived on the fourth day: a package containing fifty-five wooden plaques. The two missing plaques were in the hands of two former soldiers who were still able to move.

They refused to pay. Their reasoning was straightforward: "This is a debt owed by the imperial court, not a reward from the Wang family." This statement held true. They didn't have formal military status back then, their injuries weren't recorded, and their families didn't receive proper compensation. Military badges could be abolished. But the debt couldn't be abolished along with them.

At the very bottom of the package was a letter from Shi Younian. The handwriting was bold. "I have a responsibility to teach Twelve to act like Shen An. I have a responsibility to train the nameless soldiers for the Wang family. Fifty-seven men failed to obey orders to enter the capital. I possess a copy of the order to assassinate the emperor, not the original. I will not use this order to kill Xiao Jingheng, nor will I use it to kill Shen An."

The families of the former soldiers had not yet finished removing their plaques and were to be brought to justice within ten days. The Emperor, after reviewing the documents, asked, "What if they don't come within ten days?" "Pursue them according to their past crimes." "Why not deal with the rebels first?" "No." "Aren't you afraid they'll drag things out?" "Yes." "Then why give them another ten days?" "They're currently separating fifty-seven people we might have mistakenly arrested."

The emperor remained silent. The large army Wang Heng had prepared for us to enter the capital ultimately left us with only fifty-seven bags of grain, nineteen old soldiers, a few handprints, and twenty-three empty addresses. There was no bloodshed. No siege. Yet the investigation proceeded far more slowly than a full-scale battle.

On the eighth day, Shi Younian arrived at Qingxia Pass by himself. He did not bring any troops. He only brought a copy of his father's order to assassinate the emperor. The bottom space was originally left blank. Executor. That space was the first knife that Wang Heng had prepared for Zero.

When Shi Younian arrived in Qingxia, the first person he met wasn't his father, but Shi Ping. After crossing out "Shen Twelve," Shi Younian chose this name himself. "Shi" refers to the stone of Qingxia. "Ping" is because he wanted a smooth road where he wouldn't have to change his name no matter where he went.

After hearing the name, his father only had two words to say: "Ugly." Shi Ping didn't change it. So this name will probably last a long time. When he met Shi Younian, he didn't call him "Master." His first words were: "Why did you teach me to be Shen An?" Shi Younian was blind in his left eye and missing two fingers on his right hand, exactly like Twelve Remember.

He sat outside the military tent, thinking for a long time. "Initially, it was Wang who wanted it." "And then?" "Then I felt I needed it myself." His father asked coldly from the side, "Needed what?" "A second Shen An." "Why?" "Because your son will refuse you."

"So you're training someone who won't refuse anyone?" "At first, yes." "Later?" Shi Younian looked at Shi Ping. "Later, he joined the Wang family, then refused them. I thought this position would be useful." "Position?" Shi Ping asked. "It can block both sides." "So the original one died, and I took his place?"

"Yes." "Then what am I?" Shi Younian didn't answer. Shi Ping answered himself. "Spare part." The word didn't sound good. But it was clearer than "another Shen An." Shi Younian didn't defend himself as a rescuer. Training nameless soldiers, cutting children, teaching them to use other people's identities—these were all true.

It's true that he had his stitches removed later. The two things can't be erased from each other. The father asked, "Why did the lines suddenly stop half a month ago?" Shi Younian took out a five-hole sheet from his pocket. Wang Heng had sent it from prison. It contained only one sentence: If all three Shen An lines fail, the old soldiers will kill Shen An.

Ah Liu's expression was complicated as I read this. "Which one should we kill?" "Any one will do." That was why Shi Younian stopped. If Shen An dies, Twelve can take his place. If Twelve dies, Seventeen can take his place. And then there's Nine, and others.

Killing a name solves nothing. It only allows the next piece of paper to find another body. Shi Younian realized for the first time that the people he had trained for over a decade weren't guarding a position; they were adding people to a road that would never end.

So he first withdrew the troop deployment notices. He let each former soldier say for themselves whether they still wanted to be summoned by the name "Shen An". All eight people he could ask said no. "Why not report to the court immediately?" the father asked. "I was afraid you would seal the granaries first."

"You don't believe me?" "I didn't believe you before." "Now?" Shi Younian thought for a moment. "I believe you a little." His father laughed in anger. "It's quite valuable." "Enough for me." That made sense. Shi Younian handed over a copy of the order to kill the emperor. A rubbing of his father's old seal.

My page of refusal. The page of sobriety that the emperor is still in power. The three pages are put together, with the blank execution column at the bottom. Wang Heng originally planned to have one of the three Shen An lines sign here. As long as someone signs, the three contradictory facts of "father issued an order to kill the emperor", "Shen An refused", and "the emperor is still alive" can be reinterpreted as one sentence: the military order has not yet been completed.

The father looked at it for a long time. "The original order is still in effect, that's why they've been able to use it all this time." Shi Younian said, "Yes." "Shen An has already refused." "He's the one who refused." "I also banned the Southwest Army from acting on behalf of others." "That was the Southwest Army." "Anything else?"

"You didn't write 'termination'." After those words, my father fell silent. He had refused to rescind the order. I knew his reason. He felt that past actions couldn't be erased with a simple "void" today. That idea wasn't wrong. But "cannot be erased" and "can still be enforced" are never the same thing.

Father had simply refused to separate these two matters in the past. Shi Ping suddenly asked, "What if Shen An dies today?" Father looked at him. "Is the military order still in effect?" "Yes." "Then will I still be able to have it written into the order tomorrow?" Father did not answer.

Shi Ping said, "I don't want to." These three words were more useful than many pages we had written. That day, Father did not immediately cancel the order. He demanded that the original document be retrieved from the Qingxia iron cabinet. Four keys. One for Shen Lie. One for Xu Sandao. One for the military clerk.

Jiangbei witnessed it all. No one was allowed to touch it alone. This was a rule my father had learned these days. Before the original was sent to the capital, my mother looked at the copy first. She didn't say whether the emperor should be killed. She only asked me, "Do you still want to kill him?"

I thought for a moment. "Sometimes." Ah Liu almost choked beside me. His mother wasn't surprised. "When?" "When he acts recklessly." "That's quite often." "Yes." "But you didn't do anything." "Because killing him now would make things even more complicated."

My mother looked at me. "Just because of the chaos?" I didn't answer immediately. On my first day in the capital, I did indeed come to assassinate the emperor. My father's orders were simple then: find an opportunity within three months. The more I investigated, the harder it became to bring that blade to life.

It wasn't that the emperor had become a good person. Nor was it that my father was necessarily wrong. It was that I finally realized that a single stroke of the knife could solve very few things. My mother didn't force me to finish. She simply pushed the copy back. "Wait for the original to arrive." "And then?" "Let your father write it himself."

"Write what?" The mother looked towards Qingxia. "Write those two words that he never wrote eleven years ago."