The Hanlin Academy.
Wang Kan sat alone at his desk, troubled and unable to concentrate on his book.
"Strange, very strange!" Wang Kan frowned and sighed softly.
Wei Nisheng had been entirely unlike himself today.
Yet Wang Kan could not quite put his finger on what was wrong.
So he leaned back in his chair, closed his eyes, and went over the day's events from the beginning.
At the hour of the Rabbit, Wei Nisheng had arrived at his duty room, then gone to see the Academy Director. He had stayed there a long time.
After returning, he had shut himself away all day, skipped lunch, and kept his door tightly closed, seeing no one.
It all seemed perfectly normal, but in Wang Kan's recollection...
In the three years since Wei Nisheng had entered the Hanlin Academy, all his colleagues had taken to calling him "Wei Punctual."
He arrived at the hour of the Rabbit, ate when the bell rang, and left when the drum sounded. Not even thunder could budge him from his routine.
Indeed, many of the academy's senior editors often joked among themselves:
"Wei Compiler has a sundial in his belly, more accurate even than a water clock."
Before the lunch bell rang, his brush was already down.
The moment the dismissal drum sounded, he was already out the door.
He never arrived early, never left late, and never made an exception.
But today, "Wei Punctual" had not been punctual.
The more Wang Kan thought, the stranger it seemed, and the colder his spine grew.
He promptly rose and began pacing back and forth in his duty room.
"What Zi'an discussed with me was the compilation...
But why would a compilation require a visit to the Academy Director?"
Wang Kan compiled the Veritable Records too, yet he