A divine healer, a general, a young marquis! Who can rival them!

That ledger of northern front munitions became the first lead the three conspired to uncover.

Military Advisor Sun died suddenly from an acute illness, checking the ledger before his death. The speed with which that hand silenced him was terrifying. But no matter how fast it is, it will always leave some clues.

"All the military equipment allocations and food supply accounts, after being verified, must be sealed in a secret archive room behind the central command post." Su Heng lowered her voice. "As a clerk, I have the pretext of copying and organizing the files, so I can get in. But that secret archive room is now guarded very closely by the people of that hand."

"The fact that it's so closely guarded means there's something inside that it's afraid people will see," Yang Hu said in a deep voice.

As night fell, under the pretext of needing to go to the central army to collect wound medicine for the wounded soldiers' camp, Yang Hu and Qin Ying, disguised as a medicine boy, followed Su Heng and sneaked towards the secret archive room.

Su Heng led the way. She had been infiltrating the army for three years, and she knew exactly which roads had sentries and when the shifts changed. The three of them hugged the wall, bypassed the guards, and silently arrived at the back window of the secret archive.

"The guards will change shifts at midnight, giving you about the time it takes for an incense stick to burn," Su Heng whispered, deftly prying open the old window. "Just this short time. Go in, find the ledger for the northern front, write down the important information, and leave immediately."

The three of them turned and went inside.

Inside the secret archives, a pungent smell of old paper mixed with mildew filled the air. Rows of wooden shelves reaching to the rafters were densely packed with dusty files. These were the military archives of the Western Camp accumulated over the past decade, files that ordinary soldiers couldn't even find their way to.

Qin Ying stood guard at the window, listening intently to any sounds outside. She carefully shielded the tiny flame in her hand, letting only a sliver of light shine through. Su Heng, relying on the sharp eyesight honed during her three years of infiltration, swiftly searched through the vast sea of ​​files. She knew the filing system of this secret archive room as well as she did her own kitchen.

"Northern front, armaments, found."

She pulled out a ledger sealed with sealing wax from the most inconspicuous corner.

Yang Hu leaned closer and, by the dim light, turned the pages one by one.

The ledger contained details of the military equipment allocated to the northern passes three years ago. Each entry was neatly written, the numbers clearly marked, and at first glance, every stroke was clear and watertight.

An ordinary person flipping to this page would only think it's an extremely well-organized military supply ledger.

But Yang Hu's eyes, which could see the root of the illness from the steady pulse, quickly caught a very subtle abnormality hidden beneath the seemingly impeccable lines of ink.

The same principle applies to diagnosing illnesses and investigating cases. The most fatal flaws often lie hidden in the most ordinary places.

"Look here," he said, pointing to one entry. "The account records that a thousand arrows and five hundred spears were allocated to the northern pass. But this allocation occurred three days before the pass fell."

Su Heng's pupils suddenly contracted.

"The pass my father was guarding had just been replenished with a thousand arrows and five hundred spears three days before it fell." Her voice trembled slightly, almost as if it were being squeezed out from between her teeth. "But that night, I heard from the surviving brothers that the arrow towers on the city walls didn't even have a full quiver of arrows! The brothers were practically empty-handed, risking their lives to fill that pass."

She stared intently at that line of text in the ledger, her knuckles turning white from the pressure.

"This batch of weapons was clearly transferred from the records, but it never even reached the pass!"

"The orders were placed in the accounts, but the actual supplies never arrived." Yang Hu said, emphasizing each word. "This batch of weapons was either intercepted en route or sent directly to the barbarians' camp."

A false account covered up a heinous crime of collusion with the enemy.

The army was sent to "reinforce" the border, making it seem as if the court had not mistreated the border troops; however, the supplies were intercepted by that hand and given to the barbarians. Then, with the help of the barbarians, the more than a thousand brothers guarding the empty camp, along with the deputy general who knew the inside story, were all wiped out, and they were given the title of "fighting to the death for their country".

The witnesses are dead, the physical evidence has been swallowed up, and only this shoddy, fake account book remains, lying quietly in the deepest corner of this secret archive.

"The people who signed this ledger." Yang Hu's fingertip landed on the names that had been signed at the end of the ledger.

Besides the already "suddenly died" Military Advisor Sun, there was another signature that appeared repeatedly, stamped with a small seal.

Yang Hu was very familiar with the pattern of that seal; it was exactly the same as the seal on the documents that the supply officer had passed around when he bumped into him outside the central command tent.

The line went up again, and a section was added.

Just then, footsteps suddenly came from outside the secret archives.

It wasn't the footsteps of a shift change. It was hurried, alert footsteps heading this way.

"Oh no, someone's coming!" Su Heng's expression changed.

That hand eventually noticed.

Its network of informants within the central command tent was as dense as a net. The activity of the three men searching through the secret files eventually alerted it.

"Did you write it down?" Su Heng lowered her voice, quickly sealed the ledger back to its original position, and stuffed it back in its place.

"I've memorized it." Yang Hu's eyes sharpened as he memorized the pattern of the seal and the details of the fake account.

The three of them darted out of the back window, narrowly avoiding the group of people who had come searching based on the sound.

Back at the wounded soldiers' camp, all three were covered in cold sweat, their clothes soaked through on the back.

That group of people just now were clearly there because of the unusual activity in the secret archives. If they had been a step later and been trapped in that pile of scrolls, none of the three of them would have made it out alive.

"That was close." Su Heng breathed a long sigh of relief, her face still a little pale.

"That hand knows someone is investigating it." Qin Ying's cold voice carried a hint of solemnity. "Next, it will definitely use tonight's events to investigate us in return. Everyone in the army who walked near the secret archives tonight will be investigated by it one by one."

"Investigate if you will." Yang Hu showed no fear whatsoever. A flame burned in his calm eyes. "The more eager it is to kill people to cover it up and investigate the situation, the more it shows that it is guilty. We have already caught a piece of its tail."

"The three of us each have our own cover," he said in a deep voice, assigning tasks. "I am the assistant physician, so my patrols are perfectly legitimate; Miss Su is a clerk, and no one can find fault with her handling of the files; Miss Qin is disguised as a medicine boy, so she is the least conspicuous. As long as we remain calm and don't reveal the slightest flaw, even if they turn the entire camp upside down, they won't be able to find us."

Su Heng and Qin Ying exchanged a glance, both seeing in each other's eyes a resolute determination to fight side by side.

That rigged account book, that familiar seal, that recurring signature.

A thread leading from a three-year-old case on the northern front to the hand hidden deep within the central command tent was finally pulled out by the combined efforts of the three. This was the first time since Yang Hu began investigating that they had truly touched upon its deepest, most vital core.

But the name on the slip was that of a mid-level clerk in charge of documents, far from being the real hand. It was merely a pen used by that hand to balance accounts and erase traces.

The true form of that hand remains hidden behind layers of darkness, its depths unfathomable.

And finally, it turned its sinister gaze upon these three fools who dared to expose its secrets right under its nose.

A perilous situation, where the hunter and the prey could switch places at any moment, quietly unfolds on the eve of the decisive battle.