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

After the paper strip burned, there was a burnt smell in the room.

It's very light.

It was as bland as if a bad thing had just begun, before it even had a chance to escalate.

I crushed the ashes on the edge of the inkstone, reached for the tea, and realized that the tea had gone cold.

The tea I've been drinking these past few days hasn't seemed to have been heated up.

Ah Liu peeked out from outside the door.

"Young master?"

"Come in."

He pushed open the door and came in, carrying a piece of red silk in his arms. The red silk was probably a piece of wedding fabric sent by the Ministry of Rites; it was crumpled from being held so tightly that it looked like it had just been taken off someone's neck.

I looked at him.

"Why are you holding it?"

Ah Liu looked down.

"The old woman said this fabric is precious and asked me to deliver it to the west wing. I was halfway there when I remembered that there are many rats in the west wing. If the rats gnaw on it, the Ministry of Rites will make me pay for it, and I couldn't afford to pay for it even if I sold myself."

I asked, "So?"

"So the little one will be held first."

I rubbed my temples.

"You'll hold him all night?"

Ah Liu thought about it seriously.

"It's not that it's impossible, it's just that I'm afraid she'll drool in her sleep."

I was feeling really down, but his words actually made me feel a little better.

Sometimes, a person's survival depends on just a breath of air.

I put the short blade on the table into a hidden compartment and then pulled out a small wooden box from the side.

The wooden box was small and unlocked, only wrapped with a piece of old cloth. Inside, there were several items.

A rubbing with half a page missing.

A small piece of old paper, a remnant of a copy.

There was also a faint blood-stained pattern on the clothing.

This is not the original.

The original object cannot be moved.

The baby's blood-stained clothes came about too suspiciously, and Lan Bugui had explicitly told me not to hand them over to Shen Lie. If I really handed over the blood-stained clothes, not to mention whether Shen Lie would immediately head north, Lan Bugui would be the first person to ensure that I would never see the truth again.

But a little bit of the Tuoying can be used.

This was to let Shen Lie know that I wasn't just drinking tea and marrying a princess in the capital.

I really did find the crux of the old case.

However, the bone is poisoned, so it cannot be handed to him casually.

Ah Liu peeked over and took a look, then shrank back in fright.

"Young master, this isn't the blood-stained garment..."

I glanced at him.

He immediately shut up and lowered his voice: "I didn't see anything."

"Seeing it won't do you any good." I folded the rubbing neatly. "If you dare to tell anyone about this, you'll be stuffed into a sack tomorrow, and the day after that, Shen Lie and the Qingzhang Society will each send a group to question you. After they've finished questioning you, even the coroner from the Ministry of Justice might not be able to piece you together."

Ah Liu's face turned pale.

"Young master, I will keep my mouth shut."

I nodded.

"You'd better be as strict as the Ministry of Revenue's accounts."

Ah Liu was stunned for a moment, feeling that these words didn't sound like nice, but he didn't dare to ask.

I took out a blank piece of paper, dipped it in ink, and wrote a few lines.

The pages for the Southwest section are incomplete.

Qian Rong is dead, and on his deathbed he revealed all the secrets of the affair.

Ji Liu recognized the door; Lan Shi was not dead; the baby clothes were not mine.

The old accounts will be handled separately by the Ministry of Revenue.

If Father takes military action, the true account will surely be severed.

After I finished writing it, I stared at the last sentence for a long time.

If Father takes military action, the true account will surely be severed.

That's a very strong statement.

It was so heavy it felt like a threat to Shen Lie.

But I can't write it lightly.

It's useless to tell someone like Shen Lie, "Please calm down, Father."

He's endured this long not because he's good-tempered, but because he still wants the truth. But if the truth doesn't fall into his hands, he'll think I've been tamed into a dog by the emperor.

Shen Lie hates dogs the most.

Especially the dogs kept by the imperial court.

I copied a small section from the missing page, and then cut off a small corner, about the size of a fingernail, from the rubbing of the bloodstained garment, and tucked it into a small note.

Ah Liu was terrified.

"Young master, can I deliver this?"

"cannot."

"So you're still giving it away?"

"So I'll only send a little bit."

Ah Liu thought for a moment and said in a low voice, "I don't quite understand."

I rolled the note into a thin strip and stuffed it into a new wax pellet.

"If I send too much, Shen Lie will act immediately. If I send too little, he'll think I'm lying to him. Sending just a little lets him know I really have something, but not enough for him to judge the whole situation."

Ah Liu suddenly realized.

"Hanging?"

I glanced at him.

"That's my dad."

Ah Liu immediately lowered his head.

"Stay calm."

That's barely acceptable.

I handed him the wax pellet.

"Go to the back gate and find Old Zheng, the gatekeeper. Ask him to put this in the medicine basket at the south pharmacy in the city. Remember, don't go to Manager Chen's place yourself."

Ah Liu took the wax ball, his fingers stiff.

"Young master, is Old Zheng reliable?"

"He's unreliable."

Ah Liu almost dropped the wax pellet on the ground.

"Then you're still letting him go?"

"Reliable people are too conspicuous. Unreliable people, on the other hand, will follow the rules if you pay them enough."

Ah Liu thought about it and felt that it made a lot of sense, but at the same time he felt that the world was very unreasonable.

Just as he was about to leave, I called him back.

"etc."

Ah Liu turned around.

I took a small piece of silver from the drawer.

"Give this to Old Zheng. Also tell him that if anyone asks, he should say he bought me some calming medicine."

Ah Liu blinked.

"Young master, you really should take some calming medicine now."

I said, "If you say another word, I'll let you eat."

He ran away carrying the red silk and wax pellets.

She ran to the door and then turned back, placing the red silk on the back of the chair, as if she had finally remembered that she wasn't the bride.

After he left, I sat at the desk without moving.

The room was dimly lit, casting shadows of books on the wall. Outside the window, the branches of the old locust tree rustled gently in the wind, sounding like someone tapping on the door with their fingernails.

I suddenly remembered my childhood in the southwest.

At that time, Shen Lie was not yet the traitor the court called him.

He returned to camp in his armor, always smelling of rust and herbs. His mother would stand under the eaves watching him, saying nothing, only brushing the snow off his shoulders.

I didn't understand the silence of adults back then.

I later learned that some things aren't that you shouldn't say them, but that saying them could kill someone.

My father taught me how to use a knife, how to read people, how to conceal my sharpness, and how to keep accounts.

He said the most deceptive thing in the world isn't words, but accounts.

His mouth is deceitful, and it even trembles.

The account is a lie; as long as it's stamped with an official seal, everyone will speak up for it.

Now I'm sitting in the capital, holding a piece of blood-stained baby clothes, trying to calm him down.

It sounds like filial piety.

It's actually more like a game of chess.

It's quite laughable that the father and son have come to this.

Not long after, a very faint meow came from the direction of the back door.

One long and one short.

Ah Liu is back.

I got up and opened the door. He hunched his neck and squeezed in, bringing a gust of cold wind with him.

"Is it all done?"

Ah Liu nodded.

"Old Zheng took the money and said he would deliver the medicine basket before dawn. But..."

"Just what?"

Ah Liu swallowed hard.

"When the younger one came back, he saw someone at the alley entrance."

My eyes narrowed.

"Who is it?"

"I didn't see him clearly. He was wearing a straw hat and standing next to the wonton stall. I deliberately walked around him halfway, but he didn't follow. But the man stood too steadily; he didn't look like someone who eats wontons."

Those who hold their ground in the capital are usually not good people.

"Body shape?"

"Tall, broad-shouldered, and his right hand always seems to be resting on his waist."

I fell silent.

Xu Sandao.

It might not be.

But at this moment, anyone like Xu Sandao is enough to keep you awake at night.

Ah Liu whispered, "Young Master, could it be Master Three Knives?"

"possible."

"Does he know we sent a letter to the south of the city?"

"uncertain."

Ah Liu had just breathed a sigh of relief when I added, "But he'll find out sooner or later."

Ah Liu's face fell again.

"Young master, what should we do?"

I sat down again and placed the Ministry of Revenue commemorative document beside me.

"Go to the Ministry of Revenue first tomorrow."

Ah Liu didn't understand.

"Third Master has already spotted the alleyway, are we still going to the Ministry of Revenue?"

"It was precisely because he had his eye on the alley entrance that he decided to go to the Ministry of Revenue."

I pointed to the disaster relief folding paper on the table.

"The more I act like I'm working for the emperor, the more anxious Xu Sandao becomes. But if I can let him know that the Ministry of Revenue case hides the shadow of the old grudges in the southwest, he will tolerate it."

Ah Liu scratched his head.

"But is it really in the Ministry of Revenue's records?"

I looked at that booklet.

"have no idea."

"So you're lying to him?"

"It's not a lie."

I opened the folded book and my eyes fell on the several rows of unbelievably beautiful numbers in the three prefectures north of the Yangtze River.

"It's a gamble."

Shen Lie bets that I still acknowledge him as my father.

The emperor bet that I could break this net.

The princess bet that I hadn't actually pointed the knife at her father.

I'd be betting I won't live to see the day the old scores are brought up again.

Everyone is gambling.

I'm the one who lost out the most.

Because if they lose the bet, they can at most exchange one piece.

If I lose the bet, I'll lose my life.

As the night deepened, Ah Liu finally couldn't help but yawn.

"Young master, are you really not going to sleep?"

I looked at the Ministry of Revenue's folded documents.

"I'm not sleeping."

"Shall I accompany you?"

I saw that his eyelids were almost closed, so I waved my hand.

Go to sleep.

Ah Liu was deeply moved.

"Young master, you are such a kind person."

"Wake me up at 5 AM tomorrow."

Ah Liu's gratitude vanished instantly.

After he left, I sat alone until the third watch of the night.

I read the Ministry of Revenue's memorial three times from beginning to end.

This is my first time watching Silver.

Check the grain a second time.

Look at people for the third time.

On the third viewing, I finally saw a familiar yet unfamiliar surname in the list of relocated disaster victims in Yong'an County.

square.

Fang Deshun, aged sixty-seven, was from Liugou Village, Yong'an County.

He received three dou of relief grain, equivalent to two qian of silver, and was relocated to a charity shelter in the south of the city.

I stared at the name, my finger slowly pausing.

The surname Fang is not unusual.

Strangely, Fang Yuanshi once mentioned it in an old document related to the Yongning River case.

Liugou Village in Yong'an County had already been merged and its residents relocated three years ago when the river channel was rerouted.

A village that was merged into another village three years ago is now having disaster victims receiving relief food.

Moreover, it was understood very clearly.

I chuckled softly.

The laughter sounded somewhat chilly in the night.

The Ministry of Revenue's accounts don't show a shortage of personnel.

There are too many ghosts.