In the duty room of the Ministry of Revenue offices, an oil lamp flickered unsteadily.
A shadow stretched long, then short against the wall, like a man hanging from a beam.
Wu Daoqing sat alone behind his desk. Before him lay a blank sheet for drafting a memorial, with the summary Zou Mo had sent by a messenger beside it.
Several names were listed with perfect clarity in the summary.
Two Granary Superintendents from the Southern Capital Granary Depot, three deputy superintendents, and four Granary Registrars—nine men in all.
At the end of the summary, Zhao Huan had personally written six characters.
"Suicide out of fear of punishment. Case closed."
Wu Daoqing had been staring at those six characters for an hour.
He had neither drafted the memorial nor summoned anyone to grind ink.
He merely sat there numbly, both hands flat on the desk, his face ashen.
He had risen from a provincial examination graduate out of Guilin Prefecture to a Ministry of Revenue Vice Director through years of struggle. He was no fool.
The moment the summary reached his hands, he had worked everything out.
Those nine names were nothing more than an "outcome."
What Shen Duan wanted was to use those nine lives to seal the mouths of the Three Judicial Offices.
Petty granary officials had taken bribes and perverted the law, then killed themselves out of fear of punishment.
The investigation would stop with them and go no higher.
But someone had to write up this outcome.
Someone had to stamp it, and someone had to bear responsibility.
That someone was Wu Daoqing.
A Ministry of Revenue Vice Director responsible for auditing and clearing the accounts of the Southern Capital Ever-Normal Granary.
Once his name went on this memorial, it would amount to his declaring