Chapter 316: South Mountain, Backing-Yin River, Yongji Grain Depot

The black-umbrella man lowered his head.

"So you do know what she said."

"Because you can only borrow the dead to speak." Lu Yuan sheathed his blade. "Anyone who truly knew her would never take her name and use it to lock away her own son."

The black-umbrella man's grip on the umbrella handle turned ever so slightly.

The black "Liu" character on the ground instantly tightened, like hemp ropes soaked through with water, coiling toward Xu Erxiao's ankles.

Xu Erxiao cut down with his sword, but the blade passed through the black character without severing it. Instead, a force dragged him forward half a step.

"Brother Lu!"

Wang Cheng'an abruptly raised the Iron Abacus.

There were no beads in the abacus frame, only several crisscrossing thin lines. The moment those lines touched the snow, they revealed dense footprints beneath the black character.

The footprints did not extend from beneath the black-umbrella man's feet.

They came all the way from Liu family gully.

"He's not alone," Wang Cheng'an said. "Someone wrote these characters from inside the village."

Lin Zhaoxuan had already pinned three yellow talismans to the earthen wall.

The yellow talismans ignited without wind, but the flames did not rise upward, they spread flat along the ground.

Wherever the firelight reached, a thin red line appeared beneath the snow, as if someone had drawn an enormous formation through the village using cinnabar.

The red line crossed the frozen river, skirted the old houses of Xiawan, and finally converged beneath the old locust tree at the eastern edge of the village.

"The feeding ground is in Liu family gully," Lin Zhaoxuan said.

Zhou Heng frowned. "That's not right. The lines here were added later. There are at least three kinds of cinnabar."

"The first layer is the clan boundary." Song Qinghe studied the red line. "The second is the marriage household, and the third is the feeding."

"Feeding what?" Missing-Rim Liu asked.

The black-umbrella man suddenly raised his face.

Beneath the umbrella rim was a pale face with no eyebrows, but eyes as black as two dry wells.

"A child with no name."

Xu Erxiao froze.

The black-umbrella man extended one hand, a red cord caught between his five fingers.

"A child with no father, no clan, no name."

"Such a child is easiest for the mountain deity to harvest."

"As long as his name remains in the clan register, the mountain deity will remember him."

"Remember him?" Xu Erxiao gritted his teeth. "You're using my name to feed something in the mountain?"

The black-umbrella man said, "Not us."

"It was Liu family gully that begged for your life."

"If your mother hadn't taken you away, you would already be a boy-servant beneath the mountain deity's seat."

"She took you away, and that is what made the mountain deity remember you."

As the words landed, a low thud came from the hollow of the old locust tree.

Like someone knocking from inside.

Once.

Twice.

Three times.

The black characters at Xu Erxiao's feet suddenly all stood upright, transforming into shadowy figures with wild, disheveled hair. Those figures had no faces, but each wore a wooden tablet on their chest.

The tablets did not bear names, only the same two words:

"Erxiao."

The color drained from Xu Erxiao's face.

Lu Yuan leveled his blade across, blocking in front of him.

"Wang Cheng'an, find the offering accounts."

"Already looking."

Wang Cheng'an spread the duplicate register across the snow, fingers flipping rapidly through the pages. The fragmented names on the pages turned on their own, one by one, finally stopping on a completely blank sheet.

Water marks slowly seeped through the blank paper.

First a vertical stroke.

Then a horizontal one.

As if someone were writing on the paper.

Wang Cheng'an stared at the handwriting, his voice tight. "It's not Erxiao."

"What is it?"

"It's 'Child-Guard.'"

Lin Zhaoxuan's expression changed.

"Child-Name Public Guard."

Those four characters floated up from deep within the register's pages, the ink darkening layer by layer. Then, beneath the surface, another line of small text surfaced:

"Liu family gully Xiawan. All children without a father's name belong to the Child-Guard."

"Upon reaching seven years of age, sent to Old Dragon's Back."

"If any flee, the mother's name repays in their stead."

Xu Erxiao looked at the black-umbrella man.

"My mother died because of me?"

The black-umbrella man did not answer.

He simply yanked the red cord backward.

The red lines under the old locust tree suddenly blazed, and a chorus of doors opening echoed through the village. One, two, a dozen villagers walked out of their houses, white cloth draped over their shoulders, wooden expressions on their faces.

Each of them cradled a bowl in their hands.

The bowls held black water.

Missing-Rim Liu looked at those bowls and suddenly gripped the celadon bowl in her own hands.

"Offering rice."

"Offering rice to whom?" Song Qinghe asked.

"To those not yet remembered."

"Liu family gully offers rice every year at the winter solstice. The clan says the rice in the bowl must not be left over, or the mountain deity will come for the children."

She looked at the crowd of villagers, and for the first time, fear rose in her eyes.

"But what's in their hands isn't rice."

From the black water, tiny faces floated up one after another.

Boys and girls alike, all around seven years old.

They crowded at the bottom of the bowls, mouths open but no sound coming out.

One face suddenly turned toward Xu Erxiao.

It was a little girl with a red hair ribbon.

Her lips opened and closed.

Xu Erxiao heard her voice.

"Brother."

He lunged forward a step.

Lu Yuan caught his shoulder.

"Don't go over there."

"She called me brother."

"She's not calling you."

"Then who's she calling?"

Lu Yuan looked at the bowl of black water.

"She's calling everyone written as 'Child-Guard.'"

Lin Zhaoxuan bit his fingertip and drew a talisman on the back of his blade.

"These aren't living souls, they're shadows of names."

"The Malevolent Deity hasn't eaten the children's souls." Zhou Heng said, "What it eats is their possibility of being acknowledged."

"Once a name is recorded under Child-Guard, all that's left of the child is a title used for sacrifice."

Song Qinghe suddenly looked up.

"Black-umbrella man, who exactly are you?"

The black-umbrella man slowly rotated the umbrella's surface.

From beneath the umbrella fell a cuff ragged from long wear, embroidered with a fish with its eyes closed.

"What I guard is the register."

"If the register exists in the mortal world, the deity has roots."

"If you destroy this ledger, every child's name in Liu family gully will scatter."

"Scattering is better than being fed to your god," Lin Zhaoxuan said.

"You don't understand." The black-umbrella man said, "A soul without a name can't even find the road to reincarnation."

"So you tie them all to one place?" Lu Yuan said. "Make them guard the gates for something in the mountain forever?"

The black-umbrella man raised a hand, pointing at Xu Erxiao.

"He has already been remembered."

"If you take away his name, the mountain deity will follow his blood out."

"When that happens, not a single person in Liu family gully will survive."

Several villagers at the village entrance knelt simultaneously.

They lifted the black bowls over their heads and chanted in unison:

"Return to the register."

The voices rose higher with each repetition, as if emerging from underground.

Xu Erxiao looked at those kneeling figures and suddenly asked:

"Did my mother kneel here too, back then?"

The black-umbrella man was silent for a moment.

"She didn't kneel."

"She smashed the offering table."

"Then she fled with you."

Xu Erxiao closed his eyes.

When he opened them again, he took out the wooden fragment from the evidence register and placed it in his palm.

The two characters "Erxiao" on the wooden fragment were crooked, the carved marks worn shiny from handling.

"My mother said, Erxiao is just Erxiao."

"No one can add anything to my name in my stead."

He turned to look at Wang Cheng'an.

"Write my name in."

Wang Cheng'an was stunned.

"In which register?"

"The main register."

"What do you want to write?"

Xu Erxiao thought for a long time, then gripped his blade and carved character by character onto the back of the wooden fragment:

"Son of Liu Sanniang, Xu Erxiao."

"Takes his own name. Does not belong to Child-Guard."

As the final stroke fell, a thin crack split across the wooden fragment.

The black-umbrella man surged forward.

"You must not write that!"

Lu Yuan blocked him in a single step.

Blade and umbrella handle collided, sending snow fragments flying in all directions. For the first time, anger appeared on the face beneath the umbrella. A withered hand extended from the sleeve, five fingers long and thin, each nail carved with human names.

"You'll get everyone killed!"

Lu Yuan looked at the names on his nails.

One of them had already been half worn away.

"You have a name too."

The black-umbrella man's movement halted for an instant.

Lu Yuan raised his blade and flicked open his cuff.

On that wrist was an old red cord, and beneath the cord, half of a cinnabar seal was revealed. The seal's characters were blurred, leaving only a "Shen."

Shen Yanshan?

No, not that.

The edge of that seal had an extra chip compared to the old seal Shen Yanshan had left behind.

When Wang Cheng'an saw it clearly, his face went pale.

"Wang Shouyi."

The black-umbrella man recoiled sharply.

"My father?" Wang Cheng'an blurted out.

A corner of the umbrella surface was lifted by the wind.

That face finally revealed itself.

Not an old man, not a middle-aged one either.

It was a face that had been dead for many years.

Wang Shouyi's face.

Except a long black needle was pinned between his brows, the needle's tail connected to countless red threads, the other ends threading into the hollow of the old locust tree.

Wang Cheng'an stood frozen, fingers trembling uncontrollably.

"You didn't die?"

"I died." That face said.

"Died at Old Dragon's Back."

"But the mountain deity wouldn't let me leave."

Wang Shouyi slowly raised his hand, pointing at the wooden fragment in Xu Erxiao's hand.

"Back then, I drew up the contract for your mother because I wanted you to live."

"Later, when the clan wanted to send you into the mountain, I tore up the child register for her."

"But I couldn't get you far enough away."

"She hid you under the cart and stayed behind to block the pursuers."

Xu Erxiao stared at him blankly.

"What happened to my mother after that?"

An expression close to pain surfaced on Wang Shouyi's face.

"She didn't die on the road."

"She was brought back to Liu family gully."

"The last time she appeared was beneath the old locust tree."

"She wrote her own name into the offering register."

"In exchange for removing you from the ledger."

The wooden fragment fell from Xu Erxiao's hand into the snow.

"Then where is she now?"

Wang Shouyi did not answer.

From deep within the tree hollow, a woman's singing suddenly emerged.

Low, hoarse, precisely the "Crossing the River Song" that the old man had sung while striking the willow basket earlier.

The singing came from the old locust tree, spreading inch by inch along the red lines. The black water in the village began to boil. The tiny faces at the bottom of the bowls all lifted their heads simultaneously, gazing toward the tree hollow.

A crack split open in the locust tree's bark.

Inside the crack was not tree heart.

Only a stone staircase extending downward.

At the end of the stone steps, there was a faint bronze bell ringing.

Lin Zhaoxuan took out the compass.

The needle on the compass spun madly, finally pointing at the tree hollow.

"The Malevolent Deity's feeding ground isn't at Old Dragon's Back."

"It's beneath Liu family gully."

Zhou Heng drew his short sword and stood at Lu Yuan's side.

"Wang Shouyi is also a gatekeeper."

"He led us here not to stop us."

Song Qinghe looked at those red lines.

"It was so we would cut them for him."

Wang Shouyi raised the black umbrella.

Dense old names surfaced on the umbrella's canopy.

Some had already faded, some were only half remaining, some were scribbled over with black ink until they could no longer be deciphered.

"Go down."

"Find the real offering register."

"Find it, and you can restore a complete name to Liu Sanniang."

"But once the register opens, everyone the mountain deity remembers will wake."

"When they wake, the first thing they'll do is look for their mothers."

Xu Erxiao bent down and picked up the wooden fragment.

He tucked it back into his clothes and looked up at Lu Yuan.

"Brother Lu, I want to go too."

Lu Yuan nodded.

"You walk in the middle."

"I'm not afraid."

"It's not about whether you're afraid."

Lu Yuan gazed into the darkness below the tree hollow.

"The road down there might make you hear the last words your mother ever spoke."

"Even if you hear them, they may not be real."

Xu Erxiao gripped the wooden fragment tightly.

"Then I'll listen to the end, and decide for myself what's true and what isn't."

Wang Cheng'an closed the duplicate register and wrote "Liu Sanniang's" name on the very first page.

The instant the ink landed, the singing in the tree hollow stopped.

Then, from underground came an extremely soft sound.

"Erxiao."

Xu Erxiao shuddered all over.

That voice was gentle, weary, carrying the most distant warmth in his memory.

"Mother is here."

He lifted his foot to descend.

Lu Yuan suddenly pressed down on his shoulder.

"Wait."

"What is it?"

Lu Yuan stared into the depths of the tree hollow.

A second call came from within.

This time, the voice had turned shrill and cold.

"Erxiao, come down."

Wang Shouyi jerked his head up.

"That's not her."

At the bottom of the tree hollow, the bronze bell suddenly rang wildly.

Blood-red lamplight flared on the six stone steps simultaneously. Between the lamps, a wooden deity statue with no facial features slowly opened its mouth.

A freshly peeled page of ledger paper was caught in its mouth.

On the paper was written a single line:

"Next, Lu Yuan."

Wang Cheng'an read the line aloud, the last two characters suppressed very low.

The bell in the tree hollow suddenly stopped.

The villagers kneeling in the snow still held up their bowls, but they no longer shouted "Return to the register." They all turned their faces at once, their gazes passing over Xu Erxiao and landing on Lu Yuan.

Xu Erxiao shifted a step forward.

Lu Yuan pressed his shoulder, pulling him back to his side.

"Stand steady."

He did not look at the ledger paper first, but at the person beneath the black umbrella.

"You claim to be Wang Shouyi."

The figure gripped the umbrella handle, the red threads on his wrist still leading into the tree hollow.

"Cheng'an recognizes me."

"He recognizes this face."

Lu Yuan took the duplicate register from Wang Cheng'an's hands and flipped to the page with the land deed.

"Earlier you said Liu Sanniang wrote her own name into the offering register in exchange for removing Erxiao from the ledger. But Erxiao's name is still there. Even the wooden fragment in the old house was watched by you lot."

The black-umbrella man said nothing.

"What did she trade? Whether the trade went through or not, you never made it clear. Now you're rushing us to go down."

Lu Yuan closed the register.

"First, put down the umbrella."

Wang Cheng'an slowly raised his head.

He was thin, his cotton jacket sleeves too wide, the hand holding the brush exposed to the cold, going somewhat blue.

"My father had a habit when doing accounts."

The black-umbrella man looked at him.

"When he finished, the last stroke always had to be tapped back." Wang Cheng'an said, "Do you know why?"

"Afraid of making a mistake."

"No."

Wang Cheng'an hugged the empty abacus frame to his chest.

"I asked him that when I was little too. He said, once the last bead clicks, the people waiting at the door for their wages know the accounts are settled and they can come in."

Wind passed between the two of them.

The corner of the black-umbrella man's mouth twitched, and that familiar face rippled gently like a reflection in water.

Wang Cheng'an did not retreat.

"Did you actually meet him, or did you only collect his name?"

After a long silence, a sigh came from beneath the umbrella.

"I collected his testimony."

"What testimony?"

"Guaranteeing for Liu Sanniang, privately altering the child register, releasing someone from the village without authorization."

"Show it to me."

"It's down below."

"Down below again."

Lu Yuan glanced up at the tree hollow.

The paper in the wooden deity's mouth was slowly extending outward. There was writing on the back too, but it was too far to make out clearly.

Song Qinghe raised the lamp higher.

The cyan lamplight swept across the umbrella rim, and a narrow paper edge appeared on the black-umbrella man's face. So that face was pasted on too. The brows and eyes were painted with extreme care, right down to the crow's feet Wang Cheng'an remembered.

Wang Cheng'an stared at it, and only spoke after a long while.

"Don't use his face anymore."

The black-umbrella man lowered his head and slowly pressed the umbrella down.

When he raised it again, only a yellowed sheet of paper remained beneath the umbrella, with four small characters written on its surface.

Proxy Oral Testimony.

Lin Zhaoxuan stepped closer, making out the mark on the paper's corner.

"Ledger-Transfer Paper Servant. The old archives office within the pass used this method too. To relay words for someone, it can only speak according to the characters that were stored."

Zhou Heng looked at the tree hollow. "So those words just now..."

"We need to find the originals." Lu Yuan said.

Wang Cheng'an reopened the register and added a line beside the entries he had just recorded.

"Paper servant relay. Not yet verified."

When he reached the column for his father, he paused, then pressed the brush steady again.

This time the ink did not bleed.

Song Qinghe walked to the nearest villager and turned the lamp shade half a rotation. The light shone into the bottom of the bowl, and the tiny faces inside gradually dispersed, revealing thin paper cutouts in the shape of human figures.

The big man holding the bowl shuddered, and his eyes finally moved.

"This... how did I end up at Xiawan?"

His arm had already gone stiff, but he couldn't put the bowl down.

Missing-Rim Liu pressed her celadon bowl against the rim of his. The black water flowed over bit by bit. The man's shoulders relaxed, and he nearly sat down in the snow.

"Don't drink it, and don't pour it out." She said, "One at a time."

A-Lamp followed beside her, collecting the empty bowls from those who had woken.

Lu Yuan waited until the man caught his breath before asking, "Who told you to come out?"

"The bell rings and we deliver the offerings." The man said blankly, "It's been that way since my grandfather's generation. But every year it's at the winter solstice. It shouldn't ring today..."

"Where do the offerings go?"

"To the Xiawan Rent Collection Office."

The six of them exchanged glances.

"Not to the ancestral hall?"

"The ancestral hall is up above." The man pointed at the tree roots. "Down below used to be grain storage. Then it was sealed, saying the mountain Master is enshrined inside and outsiders must not enter."

Lu Yuan looked again at the stone stairs leading underground, finally understanding what had felt off.

The edges of the stairs had two straight old grooves.

Worn there by grain carts pushing back and forth.

"Erxiao, take out the land deed."

Xu Erxiao quickly pulled the oil-paper package from his clothes.

Lu Yuan didn't unfold it, only had him flip to the back. Near the fold crease on the paper's back, there was a square seal so faint it was almost invisible.

Xiawan Rent Collection.

Zhou Heng crouched and swept the surface snow from the stair entrance. The same seal was on the stone.

"They turned the rent collection office into a feeding ground."

"Let's go in and take a look first."

Lu Yuan had Missing-Rim Liu and A-Lamp stay on the surface to look after the villagers who hadn't yet regained clarity. The old man with the willow basket sat by the old wall, silent for a long while, then suddenly raised his head.

"If you see a low door down there, don't rush to push it open."

"Why?"

"Look at the threshold first."

The old man reached into the willow basket and felt around for a long time, then took out a small, polished wooden wedge.

"My father gave it to me. He said that back then, someone used this to keep the door open for a night."

Xu Erxiao took it.

One end of the wooden wedge had a faint groove carved into it, like half an abacus bead.

Wang Cheng'an saw it but didn't recognize it immediately.

"Bring it." He said, "We'll compare when we get there."

The six descended the stairs one by one.

Lin Zhaoxuan left ink lines along the way. Zhou Heng counted the steps and stopped at the nineteenth.

"From outside there were only six."

"The lamps only illuminate six." Song Qinghe said.

She lowered the lamp, and more than a dozen steps were revealed below. The stone walls were damp, with small niches for bowls embedded at intervals, the openings piled thick with incense ash.

Xu Erxiao stared at those niches.

Some were very low, requiring crouching to reach.

At the end, there was indeed a low door.

The door had no lock, and a thread of warm yellow light squeezed through the gap. From inside came the sound of an abacus being manipulated, slow then fast, and Wang Cheng'an's footsteps halted at the sound.

Lu Yuan crouched to examine the threshold.

The lower edge of the wood had a triangular notch, its edges worn smooth. Xu Erxiao placed the wooden wedge against it, a perfect fit.

"This is the place."

The abacus sound inside the door stopped.

Someone asked, "Which household are you here to pay for?"

Lu Yuan didn't answer, first jammed the wooden wedge tight, then pushed the door open.

The room was larger than expected.

A dozen grain cabinets lined the walls, village names written on the cabinet doors. Liu family gully, Ma family gully, Wang family village, and further in a few that had already blurred beyond reading. A long table was set in the center of the room, and behind it sat a wooden statue.

Precisely the one seen in the tree hollow.

Its mouth held paper, an abacus sat before it, but beside the abacus was a tea bowl that a living person had used.

Steam still rose from the rim.

Zhou Heng reached out to feel it.

"Just left."

Two passageways ran along the back wall, one leading upward, one deeper into the mountain's belly. Damp footprints remained in the upward passage, the soles with cross-hatch patterns, the strides very large.

Lin Zhaoxuan did not pursue, first tying off the entrance with ink line.

Lu Yuan walked to the long table and pulled the paper from the wooden statue's mouth.

The front read "Next, Lu Yuan."

The back, however, was a newly filled voucher.

"Outside register-inspectors, six in number, claiming old household relics, inheriting unsettled offering quota."

Below were listed the six names.

Xu Erxiao immediately reached for the fragment in his clothes.

"We took my mother's things, so we have to pay their offerings for them?"

"That's what the paper says."

Lu Yuan laid the voucher flat.

"But there are no fingerprints of ours on it."

Song Qinghe raised the lamp over the signature section, and six blank circles emerged together. When those villagers had lifted their bowls, the black water clinging to the rims had been exactly this size of a circle.

Zhou Heng said grimly, "It wants us to take the bowls."

Xu Erxiao remembered that "Brother" on the river ditch, and a chill crawled up his back.

If he had reached out then, he would have been counted as having taken on the offering quota.

Wang Cheng'an, however, was staring at the very top of the voucher.

"Brother Lu, this paper has a serial number."

In the upper left corner, ink characters the size of a needle tip read: South Road, Winter Offering, Bing, Nineteenth.

"There are other accounting places on the South Road."

Lu Yuan nodded and tucked the voucher into the oil paper.

Just then, a soft humming came from the outermost grain cabinet.

Xu Erxiao's hand stopped dead.

It was "Crossing the River Song" again.

But this time only two lines were sung before someone whispered, "Don't sing. Someone's guarding outside."

Another voice answered, "The child can't sleep well."

Wang Cheng'an looked up.

That voice saying "Don't sing," he recognized it too.

Song Qinghe placed the lamp in front of the cabinet but did not open the door.

"The sound is coming from the paper."

A small tag was nailed to the cabinet door.

Liu family gully Xiawan, Guarantee Bond Number Three.

Lu Yuan peeled off the small tag, and the cabinet door loosened on its own. There was no one inside, only a stack of old papers and a flattened tin water flask.

The top sheet read:

"Liu Sanniang, carrying her child, left the village, temporarily stayed at the rent collection office for one night. Wang Shouyi provides guarantee."

Xu Erxiao quickly asked, "What's below?"

Wang Cheng'an flipped through each sheet.

No repayment in the mother's name.

No voluntary entry into the offerings.

Only an application repeatedly rejected. Liu Sanniang had pressed her fingerprint, requesting the removal of her young son from the child register. Wang Shouyi had signed his name, willing to bear the travel expenses, willing to check the father's household, willing to establish a separate clear account for the grain harvested from that one acre and three fen of sloping land.

On the final sheet, Wang Shouyi's writing was noticeably heavier.

"Rent grain goes to rent grain. Child household goes to child household. No conversion permitted."

Beside it was pressed a four-finger black print.

Beneath the print were two scribbled characters.

Not permitted.

Xu Erxiao bowed at the waist, gazing at those two characters for a long time.

"My mother didn't agree to them."

"In these pages, no," Lu Yuan said.

Wang Cheng'an continued flipping down and suddenly found a narrow slip of paper.

It contained no official jargon, only a few extremely short lines:

"Back door toward the riverbank. Cart behind the reeds."

"Wooden wedge keeps the door. Leave before dawn."

"Erxiao's wooden tablet, leave it behind. They need to check old items, can stall half a day."

Xu Erxiao reached into his clothes and touched the wooden fragment.

So it hadn't been lost.

That night, someone had left it here to buy an extra half day for a child.

Wang Cheng'an looked at the final stroke, his eyes slowly reddening.

That final stroke curved gently back at the end.

He recognized it.

Lu Yuan did not rush them, only returned the remaining papers to their original order.

At the bottom of the cabinet was a thin ledger.

The cover read "Transfer."

Lin Zhaoxuan flipped open the first page, and his expression darkened immediately.

The offering quotas collected from each village were sent every month to the same place.

South Mountain, Backing-Yin River, Yongji Grain Depot.

The handoff column bore the stamp of a closed-eye fish seal.

Song Qinghe looked at the still-warm tea bowl beside the wooden statue.

"The one who just left was the account collector."

Before the words faded, the sound of wheels grinding over stone came from deep in the mountain's belly.

Slow and heavy.

Like a fully loaded grain cart being pushed away bit by bit.

Lu Yuan handed the transfer ledger to Wang Cheng'an and lifted the lamp.

"Zhou Heng, watch the road. Zhaoxuan, keep the lines. Erxiao, put your mother's things away."

Xu Erxiao wiped his face and nodded solemnly.

The six of them walked toward the deeper passage.

Behind them, the wooden statue suddenly spoke again.

"Lu Yuan."

This time, the voice no longer resembled Liu Sanniang, nor Wang Shouyi.

It was calm, even carrying a trace of familiarity.

"You're so busy finding names for others. Don't you want to see your own page?"

Lu Yuan's footsteps paused slightly.

The wordless stone fragment in his clothes warmed faintly through the fabric.

Beneath the long table, a narrow drawer slid open on its own.

Inside was half a charred paper.

The notch on the paper's edge was identical to that charred remnant Lu Yuan remembered.

Xu Erxiao turned back.

"Brother Lu?"

The cart-wheel sound gradually faded.

Lu Yuan glanced at the drawer, then reached under the threshold, pulled out the wooden wedge, pressed it onto the charred paper, and pushed the drawer shut again.

"Remember this place."

He turned around, the lamplight illuminating two deep cart tracks ahead.

"First, we follow the account courier."