Jinghe Year Fifteen, the sixteenth day of the third month, dusk.
In the rear hall of the Imperial Silk Bureau, Li Jin sat alone at his desk.
Before him lay a neatly transcribed stack of transaction Original Registers.
It was the very set he had sent to the Imperial Envoy's Headquarters the day before yesterday.
The Original Registers had been returned.
Their covers looked as good as new, their pages bore not a single alteration, and not even one extra corner had been folded down.
Wei Nisheng really had made only a copy before returning the originals, brisk and clean, without touching so much as a hair's breadth.
Yet the cleaner it all was, the heavier Li Jin's heart grew.
"Wei Nisheng..." Li Jin murmured to himself.
"If you had tampered with the books, I would actually feel reassured.
But you changed not a word and sent them back exactly as they were. That sends a chill down my spine..."
Outside the window, dusk deepened. Most of the courtyard's begonia blossoms had already fallen.
"Wind and sand have risen over Suzhou-
They spare the willow-lined banks, yet lash the tiles upon my eaves.
By day, people come and go with written orders; by night, I sit alone beneath the lamp, reckoning over old tea.
No end to the reckoning, no end to the reckoning, of the flowers blooming in those books-"
At that point in the song, Li Jin fell silent.
As the word "flowers" left his lips, even the tip of his tongue tasted bitter.
It was as though something that should never pass down his throat had slipped into the lyrics.
After a long while, he closed his eyes and slowly spoke the remaining line.
"These are no flowers. They are a talisman demanding my life."
With that,