The next day, just before dawn.
“My lord, have something while it’s still hot.” The steward set a bowl of porridge on the long table.
With an absentminded glance, he noticed that the map was nowhere to be seen. Instead, an old, yellowed slip of paper lay spread across the table. Its edges were frayed, and its surface was covered in rows of tiny characters.
The steward needed only one look for his heart to begin pounding.
“Jiangning County Office, Household Registry Department Archive Vault. Section A, No. 3; Section B, No. 7…” he murmured. Then he looked up in astonishment. “My lord, is this the duty roster and transfer record for the archive clerks? You never left this courtyard last night. Where did you get something from inside the Jiangning County Office…?”
Xu Youde picked up his bamboo chopsticks and stirred the surface of the porridge.
“They say the King of Hell is easy to meet, but the little demons are hard to deal with!” He slurped down a large mouthful. Only after the warmth reached his stomach did he sneer. “When I sat in judgment at the Jiangning County Office, I knew those clerks inside and out—whether they wore split-crotch trousers or patched jackets.”
Xu Youde set down his bowl and wiped his mouth.
“If I truly intend to touch the land in Jiangnan, how can I fight these local snakes without first uncovering the tricks hidden beneath the surface? These rats have controlled the archive vault for generations. The old account books in their hands are sharper than blades. Prepare the carriage. We’re going to the county office.”
…
A little after the hour of Chen, in the Household Registry Department at the rear of the Jiangning County Office.
The frost outside had yet to melt, but the Household Registry Department was warm and comfortable.
Registrar Wu was a man in his fifties.
He had sat firmly in this position for nineteen years.
County magistrates came and went like lanterns on a carousel, but Registrar Wu remained as steady as Mount Tai.
At that moment, he was half reclining in a wicker chair, a cup of Mingqian tea in hand. With great contentment, he skimmed the tea foam with the lid of his pot.
“Master Registrar! Someone’s here outside… someone’s arrived!” A runner stumbled into the room. “They’re from Yingtian Prefecture!”
Registrar Wu’s wrist jerked, and the tea scalded the back of his hand.
He cursed as he set down the cup, slipped on his cloth shoes, and threw on his official vest. “What are you shouting for? Have you no manners?”
“Even when the prefectural office comes to take charge of an investigation, they still have to follow the procedures of our Household Registry Department. Let’s see how this old master sends them packing.”
Putting on an air of authority, he hurried to the front hall and swept aside the padded curtain.
“The two of you look unfamiliar…”
His drawn-out official greeting had barely begun when it caught in his throat.
Two people stood in the hall.
The leader was a potbellied middle-aged man in a gray cotton robe. He stood with his hands behind his back, watching Registrar Wu with an amused yet unreadable smile.
Registrar Wu’s eyes widened. This time, he was truly frightened.
“Ol—Old… Old Master Xu?!”
He would have recognized this man even if he had been reduced to ashes. Back when Xu Youde had served as the magistrate of Jiangning, he had kept their entire gang of local clerks and petty officials firmly under control.
Now, he had risen even higher. He had gone to the capital and become the Minister of Revenue, a man who held the purse strings of the entire empire.
Xu Youde said nothing. He merely shifted slightly to one side.
The clerk behind him stepped forward, drew a roll of bright yellow silk bearing an official document from inside his robes, and slapped it onto the desk.
Registrar Wu stole a trembling glance at it. The document bore the large seal of Yingtian Prefecture. The watermark in the paper was even more unmistakable—it was an imperial commissioner’s warrant directly approved by the Grand Secretariat.
“Registrar Wu, you’re still looking quite hale and hearty. And this chief seat in the Household Registry Department—is it comfortable?” Xu Youde’s voice was calm and unhurried, yet the chill of an old grudge ran through it.
“M-my lord, you flatter this humble servant!” Registrar Wu’s face turned as white as paper. He immediately bent forward in a respectful bow. “This lowly official was blind and failed to recognize you! I had no idea that you had honored Jiangning with your return… May I ask what matter you have come to investigate?”
“I want the original land records for the southern district.” Xu Youde had no patience for pleasantries. His gaze suddenly turned cold. “The complete original fish-scale cadastral maps of the southern district, all previous Yellow Register archives, and the supplemental registers of surveyed bow-measures.”
The ingratiating smile froze on Registrar Wu’s face.
The old records dating back to the founding of the Great Qian were all piled up in the archive vault. Finding them would be no easy task.
“My lord…” Registrar Wu bowed low and ventured to bargain. “As you know from your time in Jiangning, the old records are all piled at the very back of the vault. They’re covered in dust, and the rats have gnawed at them. If you really want to investigate them, it could take ten days or half a month before we make any sense of it…”
He lowered his voice and cautiously tested the waters. “Why don’t I have the newer Yellow Registers from the past thirty years brought out for you instead?”
Xu Youde looked up at the old slippery fox from years ago.
“Don’t try that bait-and-switch trick on me.” Xu Youde lowered his voice. “Back when I sat in this hall, I knew exactly how you people falsified your records. The fact that I didn’t deal with you then doesn’t mean I was blind. Open the vault.”
Registrar Wu’s heart pounded violently. He swallowed every excuse he had been about to make.
“This lowly official was confused! I’ll open it at once!”
…
Before long, Xu Youde and his subordinate covered their mouths and noses as they plunged into the vault.
Registrar Wu lit two oil lamps and handed them over. Then, using the clouds of dust as cover, he quietly took two steps backward.
“My lord, take your time with the search. I’ll go have a pot of hot tea brought over to warm you against the cold.”
The two men bent their heads and began rummaging through the dust. It was exhausting work.
“Cough, cough, cough!” The clerk coughed until his face turned red, all ten fingers black with grime.
“My lord, this one is from the seventh year…” The clerk held up a moldy bundle of records. “Yang Family Village. Two thousand mu of farmland. Notation… hereditary Yang property.”
Xu Youde nodded. “Set it aside.”
“This one is from the third year of the Yongxi era.” The clerk shook out his aching arm. “Dry, elevated land in the southern district. Still marked as hereditary Yang property.”
They continued turning back through the records, layer after layer. Every one of them declared the land to be unquestionable private property. The clerk grew increasingly dispirited and finally collapsed into the pile of dust on the floor.
“My lord, there’s no way to investigate this. The imperial Yellow Registers themselves are backing them up.”
Xu Youde remained expressionless, as still and unyielding as iron. When he had served in Jiangning all those years ago, he had already suspected that something was wrong with those choice plots in the southern district where the ancestral graves stood. But his rank had been too low then, and he had not dared to dig deeper.
Today, he had to strip away the truth, down to the last layer.
“There is no account in this world without a flaw.”
The last oil lamp in the archive vault was nearly spent.
The two men were nearly at the end of their search as well when they spotted several camphorwood chests against the wall, each secured with a copper lock.
Xu Youde kicked the lock off one chest and threw open the lid.
He crouched down and pulled out a bamboo-paper register from the very bottom. Insects had eaten away nearly half of it.
The brittle booklet was as fragile as a withered leaf. It almost crumbled in Xu Youde’s hands.
Xu Youde narrowed his eyes. The writing on the cover had blurred with age, but he could just make out the words: “Compiled in the twenty-sixth year of Xuande.”
His fingers paused.
“Hold the lamp closer.”
The clerk hurriedly raised the flickering oil lamp and brought it near.
Xu Youde gently separated the pages and began to read.
Deep down, he had not placed much hope in the register.
That was until he reached the thirtieth page.
There, in clear writing, it stated:
The southeastern corner of Yang Family Village in the southern district—the elevated, well-drained land at the heart of what is now occupied by the Yang family’s ancestral graves and ancestral hall.
Beside the description of the terrain, four tiny characters stood out in delicate regular script:
Official land—reclaimed and allocated.
Xu Youde’s hand remained unnaturally steady around the old register. A cold, ruthless curve appeared at the corner of his lips.
The clerk saw those four characters clearly, and his heart began to race. His face went deathly pale.
“My… my lord! Does this mean…” His voice trembled. “The land beneath the Yang family’s ancestral graves doesn’t belong to the Yang family at all. It is government property!”
