Chapter 311: Shen Yanshan

The moment Wang Cheng'an's cry of “Present” fell, the shadow by his feet snapped apart at the waist.

His upper body was still standing in the snow, but his lower body was dragged southward by an invisible force.

The black shadow rapidly stretched along the ground, passing through the stone platform and crossing the discussion altar that had just collapsed, like a rope being pulled from a well.

Wang Cheng'an's face went deathly pale.

“I wasn't the one who answered.”

Lu Yuan grabbed him by the back of his collar.

“I know.”

From the direction of Ma family gully, another call of names rang out.

“Wang Cheng'an.”

This time, a trace of urging had entered the voice.

Wang Cheng'an clenched his teeth and kept his mouth shut.

Yet the remaining shadow beneath his feet spread open of its own accord and answered for him:

“Present.”

The voice came from beneath his feet.

The black shadow suddenly went taut, and Wang Cheng'an's entire body was dragged forward across the ground.

Xu Erxiao caught him by the belt with his free hand. Lin Zhaoxuan and Zhou Heng pressed down on their shoulders from either side, while Song Qinghe shone the bronze lamp at the ground beneath Wang Cheng'an.

When the green flame descended, everyone saw a string of words floating within the black shadow:

“Wang family village chief account, Ma family gully first register, six people short one.”

Wang Cheng'an lowered his head and stared at the line of words.

“It didn't count me among the six people.”

“It counted you as an account.”

Lu Yuan crouched down and used the tip of his knife to pry open the edge of the shadow.

What emerged from the black shadow was not Wang Cheng'an's face, but a sheet of old account paper.

The paper recorded one household's relocation, land allotment, marriage registration, and grain share in Wang family village. In the final column, it read:

“Chief account inheritance: Wang Shouyi's son, Wang Cheng'an.”

Wang Cheng'an shuddered all over.

“My father's name.”

“Not your father,” Lu Yuan said. “It was written as your father's inheritance by someone else.”

“Your father never accepted it back then, so this column remained empty. When you refused Qi Shousuan in the counting house just now, it tried to force this empty ledger back onto you.”

At the other end of the snowfield, the remaining half of the Gate Master's body suddenly moved.

Only his wooden chest and abdomen remained, and most of the blank paper on his face had already been blown away by the wind.

At this moment, he raised one wooden hand and pressed it against the old account paper within Wang Cheng'an's shadow.

“I... haven't finished writing.”

Lu Yuan looked at him.

“What name did you take?”

The wooden man lowered his head and looked at his own hand.

On the half sheet of white paper, the unfinished character slowly grew. First came a slanted stroke, then a horizontal stroke, and finally a crooked character emerged.

“Self-guarding.”

“It wasn't decided for me by someone else.”

“I chose it myself.”

“Then why are you still helping them capture people?”

“I only know how to establish gates.”

The wooden man raised his head.

“When a gate stands there, those who arrive naturally have to follow the rules.”

“If you know the rules will harm people, will you still establish the gate?”

The wooden man remained silent for a long time.

“If I don't establish it, someone else will establish an even worse one.”

“So you let the bad gate go up first?”

Lu Yuan sheathed his knife.

“Whether a gate is good or bad doesn't depend on who establishes it first.”

“It depends on whether the people behind the gate can come out.”

The wooden body of Self-Guarding trembled faintly. He looked toward Wang Cheng'an's restrained shadow, thrust his wooden fingers into the blackness, and actually began tearing the old account paper apart bit by bit.

The voice calling names beneath the well at Ma family gully immediately became shrill.

“The discussion altar's abolished rules must not interfere with village registers!”

“Guardian Mountain does not manage village registers!”

“Retreat to the mountain pass!”

Self-Guarding's wooden fingers were snapped by a force. The broken finger fell to the ground, and thick black ink seeped from within it.

He did not retreat.

“You said the Twelve Deliberations of Guardian Mountain had been abolished.”

“But the registers of the Thirty-Six Villages are still using them.”

He raised his other hand and seized a second sheet of paper within the black shadow.

“Then I will establish another gate.”

Wang Cheng'an was startled.

“You still want to establish a gate?”

“A gate that lets people enter and lets people leave.”

“Who will guard it?”

“No one.”

“Then who will open it?”

“Those who want to leave will open it themselves.”

Using his broken wooden finger, Self-Guarding drew an arc in the snow.

The arc did not close. A gap remained at its end.

It was different from every gate that had come before.

Lu Yuan looked at the gap and nodded.

“This gate was left correctly.”

Beneath the arc, the black shadow beneath Wang Cheng'an suddenly loosened.

The old account paper tore in half and fell to the ground. The four words “chief account inheritance” turned to ash, and Wang Cheng'an's shadow reconnected to his feet.

However, the voice calling names beneath the well at Ma family gully did not stop.

“Wang Cheng'an, short one.”

“Wang Cheng'an, first register pending verification.”

“Wang Cheng'an, return to the village for registration.”

Wang Cheng'an took several hurried breaths.

“It knows we're going to Ma family gully.”

“It doesn't know,” Lu Yuan said. “It's waiting.”

Lin Zhaoxuan crouched down to inspect the red paper.

The well shadows on the thirty-six sheets of red paper were gradually deepening. At first they had only been drawings, but now watery light was surging from the mouths of the wells. Seven shadows stood beside every well. Six of them huddled close together, while the seventh stood at the bottom of the well, looking up at them.

“Every village has a righteous well.”

“The well is an entrance to the old accounts,” Wang Cheng'an said. “Ma family gully is the first village, so it registered us first.”

Zhou Heng picked up a sheet of red paper.

The place names on its surface suddenly changed.

“Ma family gully: The First Village Must Register Names.”

“Liu family gully: Marriage Register Re-recording.”

“Little Stone Village: Mother's Name Under Investigation.”

When Xu Erxiao saw the final five words, his fingers immediately tightened.

“They want to use my mother's name as bait.”

Lu Yuan said, “Return to Ma family gully first.”

“But isn't the fake Zhou Heng beneath that well?” Zhou Heng asked.

“The fake Zhou Heng has already been taken away by the old shadow of the master altar.”

“There is still something beneath the well.”

“That is precisely why we have to return.”

Self-Guarding's wooden body had already grown increasingly faint.

He traced the unfinished arc onto a wooden tablet and handed it to Lu Yuan.

“This is the Gap Gate.”

“From now on, everyone may leave a gap in a gate.”

“When you dismantle a gate, don't fill in the gap.”

Lu Yuan accepted the wooden tablet.

“You're staying here?”

“I have no name.”

“You do now.”

“Self-Guarding is only a name I chose for myself. People may not recognize it.”

“Recognize it yourself first.”

Self-Guarding lowered his head and looked at the arc on the wooden tablet.

“Then I will guard this gap.”

After he finished speaking, his wooden body scattered into a layer of fine ash and fell onto the twelve new-rule tablets. On the backs of all twelve wooden tablets, a tiny character for “self” appeared at the same time.

The group did not stop again.

They hurried south along the route they had come by.

The sky had gone completely dark, yet the snowfield was cast in a dim glow by the thirty-six sheets of red paper. Whenever they passed one, the well shadow on it made a sound like splashing water, as if someone at the bottom had turned over.

When they reached the vicinity of the wooden staging ground, Wang Cheng'an suddenly stopped.

“One sheet is missing.”

Everyone looked toward the red paper.

Among the thirty-six sheets, the one that had originally belonged to Wang family village was gone.

Wang Cheng'an reached toward the ancestral account in his robes.

The ancestral account had not changed, but a damp mark had appeared on its back cover, as if it had just been retrieved from well water.

The dampness slowly spread, revealing several words:

“Wang family village does not welcome its former master.”

Wang Cheng'an was silent for a moment.

“Did my father leave from here back then?”

“Didn't you say he had never come to North Mountain Pass?” Lu Yuan asked.

“That is what my family told me.”

“Do you believe them?”

Wang Cheng'an did not answer.

He suddenly remembered the final years before his father died. His father often sat behind the counting house in the middle of the night, gripping that old abacus in his hand, yet never moving a single bead. Once, Wang Cheng'an had asked him why he did not calculate anything. His father had only said:

“Some accounts cannot be acknowledged, even after their results are calculated.”

At the time, he had not understood.

Only now did he realize that his father might not have never come to North Mountain Pass. He might have come, but refused to become part of the old rules.

Wang Cheng'an took out the ancestral account and turned to the final page.

Beneath the ancestral instruction, another sentence had appeared at some unknown time:

“If the abacus ever sounds by itself, do not replace the former master.”

Wang Cheng'an's hand began to tremble.

“My father wrote this.”

“It wasn't meant for me.”

“Then for whom?”

“For the person who takes up the abacus later.”

Lu Yuan looked at him.

“Your father knew this abacus would eventually find its way back to the Wang family.”

In the distance, a tiny flame suddenly lit within the wooden staging ground.

It was neither a green lamp nor an oil lamp.

It was a paper lantern hanging from a ruined wooden frame.

A woman stood beneath the lantern.

She wore an old padded coat, her hair pulled into a tight knot, and carried a bamboo basket in her hand. With her back to the six people, she was speaking to a well sealed with wooden planks.

“Wang Cheng'an has returned.”

“Are you still not coming out to welcome him?”

Xu Erxiao said in a low voice, “Who is she?”

Wang Cheng'an shook his head.

“I've never seen her.”

The woman slowly turned around.

Her face was utterly ordinary. Her brows, eyes, nose, and lips held nothing unusual. It was simply that she had no shadow on her face.

“The Wang family is just the same as ever.”

“They recognize the abacus, but not the road.”

She placed the bamboo basket beside the well and lifted the white cloth covering it.

Inside were six bowls of steaming soup.

Despite the bitter cold of the snowfield, the soup still gave off heat, and six pairs of chopsticks rested beside the bowls.

Xu Erxiao smelled the fragrance, and his stomach let out an involuntary growl.

The woman smiled.

“You've been traveling for so long. Have a bowl first.”

Song Qinghe immediately blocked the lantern light.

Under the illumination of the green flame, what floated in the six bowls was not chopped scallion, but thin sheets of paper bearing names.

Each bowl corresponded to one person.

Lu Yuan's bowl bore the name “Lu Yuan.”

Wang Cheng'an's bowl bore the name “Wang Cheng'an.”

But Xu Erxiao's bowl bore the name “Xu Liushi.”

Xu Erxiao's expression changed at once.

“That is my mother's name.”

The woman said, “Weren't you looking for her maiden name?”

“Drink this bowl, and someone beneath the well will tell you.”

Xu Erxiao took a step forward.

Lu Yuan barred his way with his blade.

“How do you know Xu Liushi?”

“The well at Ma family gully knows.”

“Wells don't have ears.”

“There are people from the Thirty-Six Villages inside the well.”

The woman reached out and picked up Xu Erxiao's bowl.

The paper bearing the name in the soup flipped over. On its back, a line of tiny writing appeared:

“Liu family gully, Liu Sanniang.”

Xu Erxiao's breathing stopped.

The woman held the bowl toward him.

“This is your mother's maiden name.”

“Drink it, and you will remember what she looked like when she was young.”

Xu Erxiao reached out to accept it.

Lu Yuan turned the tip of his blade and knocked the bowl away.

The bowl shattered on the snow, and the hot soup froze rapidly. A young woman's face appeared within the ice, raising her head to look at Xu Erxiao.

“Erxiao.”

The voice was soft and faint, as if coming from beneath the eaves of a distant house.

Xu Erxiao froze from head to toe.

“Mother?”

The woman within the ice called again.

“Erxiao, don't go with them.”

“Come back.”

“Mother saved food for you.”

Xu Erxiao's eyes reddened.

Many years ago, his mother had called him to eat in the kitchen at Little Stone Village. He had still been young then and, annoyed that the food was too hot, had deliberately dawdled. His mother would always set the bowl beside the kang bed, scold him a couple of times, then pick out the largest piece of meat and hide it beneath the rice.

The voice sounded too much like her.

Even the ending of each sentence was exactly the same.

Lu Yuan, however, stared at the ice.

“Xu Erxiao, what did your mother call you?”

“Erxiao.”

“If she were truly beneath the well, would she know how old you are now?”

Xu Erxiao said nothing.

“Would she still call you Erxiao?”

The woman in the ice continued smiling.

“Erxiao, come back quickly.”

Xu Erxiao slowly crouched down and reached toward the ice.

The face within the ice suddenly changed.

The woman's mouth split all the way to her ears, and her eyes were filled with well water.

“I found your mother's name for you.”

“You should leave your own name behind as well.”

The wooden planks beside the well began trembling at the same time.

The black shadow behind the woman spread across the ground. There were actually seven shadows. Six surrounded Xu Erxiao, while the one in the very center held up a wedding tablet.

Xu Erxiao abruptly withdrew his hand and brought his short sword down.

The ice exploded.

That face, together with the fragments of the soup bowl, sank into the snow.

The woman sighed.

“You are always like this.”

“You clearly want to know, yet insist on pretending you don't.”

Lu Yuan said, “A true name would not use a relative's voice to force someone to drink soup.”

The woman looked at him.

“How do you know that wasn't her?”

“Because if she truly had something to say, she would first ask whether you had been well all these years.”

“She would not first ask whether you were willing to enter the register.”

The smile slowly disappeared from the woman's face.

She raised her foot and stepped backward onto the well cover.

“Then come down and see for yourselves.”

Her entire body folded into the well like a sheet of paper.

Beneath the well cover, there was nothing.

After the woman fell, not even a sound came from below. Only the paper lantern beside the well continued swaying, its lamp shadow falling across the wooden planks as if nothing had happened.

Xu Erxiao rushed to the well and flipped away the remaining half of the cover.

There was no water in the well.

The well walls were densely covered with red paper, each sheet filled with the names of the Thirty-Six Villages. Beneath every sheet of red paper lay a black thread. The threads converged toward the bottom of the well and were finally tied to a square stone slab.

The words “first village” were carved into the center of the slab.

Wang Cheng'an leaned over and glanced down. His expression suddenly darkened.

“This isn't a righteous well.”

“The righteous well is above.”

“What lies below is the master well.”

Xu Erxiao asked, “What's the difference?”

“The well above gives people water.”

“The well below takes people for the registers.”

The sound of an abacus being moved suddenly came from the bottom of the well.

Once.

Twice.

On the third sound, the empty abacus frame in Wang Cheng'an's robes floated up by itself and flew toward the mouth of the well.

Lu Yuan slashed down and pinned the wooden frame in place.

The frame was pressed against the edge of the well by his blade, yet it continued to tremble without pause. The palm impression in the seventh groove grew increasingly distinct. Knuckles gradually emerged on its five fingers, but all the fingertips pointed toward Wang Cheng'an.

“It is still searching for the chief account,” Wang Cheng'an said.

“It isn't searching for the chief account,” Lin Zhaoxuan said as he looked at the red paper. “It is searching for someone who can sign on behalf of the Thirty-Six Villages.”

The woman's voice rang out from the bottom of the well:

“Descendant of the Wang family, write one stroke, and the Thirty-Six Villages will acknowledge you.”

“Ma family gully will acknowledge you, Wang family village will acknowledge you, and Little Stone Village will acknowledge you as well.”

“You will restore their names, divide their land, and decide who belongs to a household and who is a runaway household.”

“From now on, the registers beyond the Great Wall will never again be disordered.”

Wang Cheng'an stared into the bottom of the well.

“What is the price?”

“There is no price.”

“Then those aren't your words.”

The woman beneath the well laughed.

“The price is merely that you remain in the first village forever.”

“You will have a house, grain, and people who call you Sir.”

“When you set down one stroke, everyone will obey you.”

“Isn't that exactly what your Wang family wants?”

Wang Cheng'an tightened his grip on the hilt of his knife.

“My father was never called Sir in his entire life.”

“He only kept accounts for other people.”

“Because he refused to rule on other people's behalf, you branded him an account thief and a fugitive from his accounts.”

The red sheets on the well wall suddenly flipped over one after another.

Behind each sheet was an old scene.

The guardian of Wang family village said Wang Shouyi had stolen the abacus.

The guardian of Ma family gully's well said Wang Shouyi had secretly altered the accounts.

The Clan Leader of Little Stone Village said Wang Shouyi had refused to surrender the master register.

The voices of the Thirty-Six Villages overlapped, becoming a deafening roar:

“Debt unpaid.”

“Master name not returned.”

“Descendant of the Wang family, inherit your father's account.”

Wang Cheng'an's expression grew uglier and uglier.

Lu Yuan did not look at the old scenes. He only stared at the lowest sheet of red paper on the well wall.

In extremely small writing along its edge were the words:

“These words have not been confirmed by the person concerned.”

Lu Yuan threw his broken blade.

The blade pinned the red paper in place, and a palm impression that had been scraped away immediately appeared on its surface.

“Wang Cheng'an, stop listening to what they are saying.”

“Look at who wrote it.”

Wang Cheng'an suddenly understood.

He took a white bead from his bag and flicked it toward the well wall.

The white bead struck the red paper, and the writing separated layer by layer.

The surface layer was the collective seal of the Thirty-Six Villages.

The middle layer contained the words “Public Deliberation.”

At the very bottom was only a palm impression wearing a white glove.

Han Shoumo.

No, more accurately, it was an old palm impression previously used by Han Shoumo.

Beside that palm impression was another line of new writing:

“Establish the first village chief account in the name of the Thirty-Six Villages.”

The signature was not Han Shoumo's.

It was half of the character for “Shen.”

Shen Yanshan.

Xu Erxiao cursed. “Wasn't he dismantling the tablets at the discussion altar?”

“Shen Yanshan only dismantled the old altar on the mountain,” Lu Yuan said.

“He did not touch the village registers below the mountain.”

Wang Cheng'an pulled the empty abacus frame out from beneath Lu Yuan's blade.

“He knew long ago that we would come to Ma family gully.”

“So he revealed the red paper of the Thirty-Six Villages in advance.”

Lin Zhaoxuan said, “He doesn't want you to take over the chief account.”

“He wants to force you to the bottom of the well, then have you dismantle all the old names of the Thirty-Six Villages in his place, using your refusal as the reason.”

“Isn't that a good thing?” Xu Erxiao asked.

“What happens after they are dismantled?” Zhou Heng said. “No one will clean up the mess.”

“Shen Yanshan can then claim that only the discussion altar can clean up the aftermath.”

Lu Yuan nodded.

“He wants the old rules to collapse first, then wants everyone to beg for a new master altar.”

The woman's voice beneath the well turned cold and sinister.

“If you refuse to return everything to the public, then let the Thirty-Six Villages fight among themselves.”

“Every well contains old accounts.”

“Marriage registrations, land deeds, ancestral names, the dead, and runaway households.”

“Can you sort through them one stroke at a time?”

Lu Yuan said, “Even if we cannot finish, we must begin with the first stroke.”

“Then begin by descending into the well.”

The red paper on the well walls ignited at the same time.

The flames were not red, but ghastly white.

In the darkness at the bottom of the well, a stone staircase slowly emerged.

Paper figures stood on both sides of the stairs. Each had a sheet of red paper pasted to its chest. Some bore the words “Village Head,” some “Clan Elder,” some “Daoist Priest,” some “Marriage Master,” and others “Nameless Communal Guardian.”

They raised their heads in unison.

“Those who descend the well must first state their birth names.”

Xu Erxiao said, “This again.”

“If you do not state it, you cannot descend.”

“Then I don't want to descend either.”

He pointed toward the very bottom of the well wall.

“But my mother's name is down there.”

“If you want to know Liu Sanniang's true name, then state that you are the son of Xu Liushi.”

Xu Erxiao's fingers slowly tightened.

“That isn't my name.”

The paper figures opened their mouths simultaneously.

“But it is the only identity you possess.”

Xu Erxiao stepped onto the edge of the well.

“I am Xu Erxiao.”

“The son of Xu Liushi is one part of me.”

“It is not all of me.”

A shriek suddenly rang out from the bottom of the well.

The foremost paper figure burned to ash, yet another line of blood-red writing appeared on the stone stairs:

“Xu Erxiao, refused to return to the household.”

Wang Cheng'an glanced at it.

“It treats refusal as a crime too.”

“Because its register has no column for unwillingness,” Lu Yuan said.

He took out the wooden tablet left behind by Self-Guarding and pressed the unfinished arc against the edge of the well.

The blood-red writing on the well wall immediately broke apart.

A faint light descended from the arc on the wooden tablet, leaving a gap precisely at the mouth of the well.

“Now it does.”

Lu Yuan addressed the bottom of the well:

“People may descend into the well, and they may also choose not to.”

“They may state their names, and they may refuse to state them.”

“If you still insist on forcing an identity upon them, then no one will enter this well today.”

Silence came from the bottom of the well.

Xu Erxiao looked at Lu Yuan and nodded.

“I'll go down.”

“But not because it ordered me to.”

“I want to see my mother's name for myself.”

He stepped onto the stone stairs first.

The stairs were extremely narrow, and each step felt as though it were covered in damp paper. With every step downward, the paper figures on either side softly called out a name.

“Zhang Youcai.”

“Zhang, Guardian of the Well.”

“Zhang, Second Household.”

“Zhang, Dead Shadow.”

The same surname was split into four different designations, finally turning into a wave of weeping.

Xu Erxiao did not stop.

“One person is one person.”

Wang Cheng'an followed behind him.

“Duplicate records should be handled in separate registers.”

Lin Zhaoxuan said, “Old names and new names should be listed side by side.”

Zhou Heng said, “Record the dead without restricting them to shadows.”

Song Qinghe said, “Investigate fragmented names before verification, and do not force an identity upon them.”

Lu Yuan descended into the well last.

As he passed the mouth of the well, he suddenly saw another figure standing in the snow outside.

Shen Yanshan stood in the center of the ruined wooden staging ground. There was neither a lamp nor a footprint beside him.

He did not stop them. He only gazed from a distance at the mouth of the well.

Lu Yuan paused for a moment.

Shen Yanshan raised a hand and pointed toward the empty abacus frame Wang Cheng'an had left behind.

At some unknown time, another line of tiny writing had appeared on the wooden frame:

“Beneath the master well, someone awaits the master.”

Shen Yanshan then turned and walked south.

Lu Yuan withdrew his gaze and continued down the stone stairs.

The bottom of the well was broader than they had imagined.

At the end of the stairs was a circular stone chamber. A black wooden cabinet stood in the center. The cabinet had thirty-six drawers, and the name of a village was carved onto each drawer.

The woman stood before the cabinet.

She no longer looked like the ordinary woman from before.

Thirty-six strips of red cloth draped over her body, while her face had been divided into thirty-six sections, each corresponding to the old face of one village.

“The first village has been reached.”

She pointed toward the wooden cabinet.

“Every drawer contains a batch of names.”

“If you simply sort the drawers properly again, you will find Liu Sanniang.”

Wang Cheng'an walked up to the cabinet.

“What is inside the drawers?”

“Household registers.”

“Open one and let us see.”

The woman did not move.

Lu Yuan used his blade to pry open the nearest drawer.

Inside was not a register, but layer upon layer of tightly wound red lines. Small wooden tablets bearing names were tied to the ends of the lines. Three lines pulled on every tablet, connecting it respectively to “origin,” “marriage household,” and “master name.”

One of the wooden tablets began to sway.

“Zhao Yulan.”

The back of the tablet read:

“Original home, Liu family gully. Married into Ma family gully. Returned to the Zhao clan's master household.”

Lu Yuan severed the red line marked “master name.”

The wooden tablet immediately grew lighter, and the three characters “Zhao Yulan,” which had originally been blurry, became clear.

The woman shrieked, “You cannot sever it!”

“A marriage household must have a master.”

“A marriage household has a husband and wife, children and a home. That does not mean one side must swallow the other.”

Wang Cheng'an opened the second drawer.

The wooden tablets inside were packed tightly together, all bearing the words “Pending Verification.”

Some had “No Guarantor” written beneath them, some “Runaway Household,” and others only “A certain family's daughter.”

Zhou Heng saw one wooden tablet and suddenly reached out to pick it up.

“Chen Qiuyue.”

Only a Taoist name was written on its back:

“Outer disciple of Green Pine Temple, separated during the twelfth lunar month.”

Zhou Heng's fingertips trembled faintly.

He had seen this name in the old registers of Green Pine Temple.

Chen Qiuyue was not his senior sister, but a fellow disciple who had fled with him during the chaos. When the mountain gate was destroyed that year, they had broken through in different directions. Zhou Heng had always believed that she had died within the pass.

Yet another line of newly added writing appeared on the back of the wooden tablet:

“Married into Ma family gully, renamed Ma Qiu.”

Zhou Heng looked toward the woman.

“She is still alive?”

“She was alive once.”

“Where is she now?”

“Her name entered the cabinet, but her destination was not recorded.”

“You took her name, but did not record where she went?”

“Those who came later did not report it.”

“Then it should be investigated.”

“No one in Ma family gully was willing to investigate.”

Zhou Heng gripped the wooden tablet tightly.

“I will investigate.”

He used a copper coin to circle the three characters “Chen Qiuyue,” then wrote on the back:

“Fellow disciple Zhou Heng of Green Pine Temple recognizes her old name. Destination pending investigation. She must not be replaced by Ma Qiu.”

One of the black lines on the wooden tablet immediately snapped.

The woman lunged toward him.

Lin Zhaoxuan cast out an ink line, binding her thirty-six strips of red cloth.

“She relies on these village registers to maintain her form.”

“Separate the lines first!”

All six people rushed toward the wooden cabinet.

Lu Yuan was responsible for severing the lines of “master name.” Wang Cheng'an rearranged the numbering. Xu Erxiao specifically selected tablets marked “No Master” and “Attached Household.” Lin Zhaoxuan separated the tangled origin lines. Zhou Heng organized names that overlapped between Daoist methods and marriage households. Song Qinghe used the green lamp to reveal the unmarked tablets already saturated with black energy.

Every time a line was severed, the stone chamber rang with a deep, heavy bell.

The thirty-six drawers began opening and closing by themselves.

The woman's thirty-six faces shrieked simultaneously:

“Do you know what will happen when there is no master name?”

“The clans will scatter!”

“The villages will descend into chaos!”

“Husbands and wives will separate!”

“No one will offer sacrifices to the dead!”

“No one will take in the refugees!”

Xu Erxiao severed another red line.

“My mother had no master name, and she lived her whole life just fine!”

“It was only after she died that you pressed her beneath a master household!”

“Her son still remembers her!”

He severed another line.

“If one son remembers her, then she has not been left without anyone to offer sacrifices!”

The red cloth on the woman's body began falling away strip by strip.

Each strip bore a surname.

“Li.”

“Zhao.”

“Ma.”

“Xu.”

“Liu.”

“Zhou.”

“Chen.”

After leaving her body, the surnames transformed into a flock of paper birds that crashed wildly around the stone chamber.

When Song Qinghe's lamp shone over them, she discovered that the belly of every paper bird concealed the same tiny character:

“Return.”

“They want to return to their respective places,” Song Qinghe said.

“But the lines have been cut, and no one is leading them.”

Lu Yuan said, “It isn't that no one is leading them.”

“It is that one person cannot be allowed to lead them all.”

Wang Cheng'an spread the seven ledgers of indexes across the wooden cabinet.

“Each village has a duplicate register.”

“Origin, destination, personal testimony, and physical evidence must be preserved separately.”

“These thirty-six drawers cannot all be destroyed.”

“If they are destroyed, many names truly will never be found again.”

Lu Yuan said, “Then destroy only the parts that bind people.”

When the woman heard this, she suddenly stopped struggling.

The thirty-six faces slowly merged together, returning to the ordinary woman she had first appeared to be.

She looked at Lu Yuan.

“You want to take them away?”

“Distribute them.”

“Who will preserve them?”

“Village communities, households, Daoist methods, and fellow travelers.”

“What if they refuse to preserve them?”

“Then leave the duplicates beside the well.”

“What if the well is destroyed too?”

“Copy another set.”

The woman whispered, “They cannot all be copied.”

“The living could not finish copying them in an entire lifetime.”

“Then copy them for an entire lifetime.”

Lu Yuan looked toward the lowest part of the wooden cabinet.

“You do not truly want to guard these registers.”

“You are only afraid that no one will remember.”

The woman's face moved faintly.

“I was among the first people to be detained.”

“What were you called?”

“I don't remember.”

“I only remember that I delivered soup to passersby beside the well at Ma family gully.”

“Later, someone said that I had no husband and no household, so I could not enter the village.”

“They left me beneath the well and ordered me to collect names for them.”

“After collecting them year after year, the only thing left of me was the act of collecting names.”

Xu Erxiao asked, “Are you the woman from before?”

“No.”

“I am a shadow raised by this well.”

“Then what is your birth name?”

The woman shook her head.

“It was severed long ago by the master household line.”

Lu Yuan approached her.

“If you don't know, record it as unknown.”

“But unknown cannot remain in a register.”

“Who said that?”

Wang Cheng'an opened the register of fragmented names.

“This register is specifically for recording the unknown.”

“The unknown can have physical evidence, an origin, and witnesses.”

Song Qinghe lifted the lamp toward the woman.

An object emerged from the woman's chest.

It was a celadon soup bowl with a small piece missing from its rim.

A very faint character for “Liu” was carved into the bottom of the bowl.

Xu Erxiao suddenly looked toward her.

The woman also stared at the bowl.

“This is a bowl from my mother's family.”

“Was your mother's family in Liu family gully?”

“Perhaps.”

“Can you sing a little tune?”

The woman thought for a long time, then softly hummed several notes.

Xu Erxiao froze completely.

It was precisely the song he could never remember in full.

The song his mother often hummed in the kitchen.

The woman did not look at him.

She said softly, “Someone sang it like this when I was little.”

Xu Erxiao's voice trembled.

“Are you...”

Lu Yuan pressed down on his shoulder.

“Don't identify her yet.”

The woman also stepped back.

“I am not your mother.”

“I have neither her memories nor her destination.”

“This well only borrowed a fragment of a song from Xu Liushi's fragmented name.”

Xu Erxiao lowered his head, his eyes full of disappointment.

“Then what are you called?”

“Nothing.”

“Then we'll call you Missing-Rim Liu for now.”

The woman looked at him.

“Is that a name?”

“Not a complete one.”

“But you have a missing-rim bowl, and your surname may be Liu.”

“If we find more information later, we can change it.”

The woman touched her chest.

The shadow of the celadon bowl slowly merged into her body.

“Missing-Rim Liu.”

When she repeated the name for the first time, all thirty-six drawers stopped trembling at once.

The shadow behind the woman no longer connected to the wooden cabinet. Instead, it fell back beneath her own feet.

A small portion of her separated from the well shadow.

Only a very small portion.

Lu Yuan handed her the register of fragmented names.

“Write it yourself.”

The woman held the brush, her fingers trembling violently.

She wrote:

“Missing-Rim Liu.”

On the next line:

“Beside the well at Ma family gully, once delivered soup to passersby.”

On the following line:

“Mother's family may be in Liu family gully, pending investigation.”

After she finished writing, a drawer at the bottom of the wooden cabinet, one that had originally been empty, opened by itself.

Inside was a wooden tablet without a master name line.

The woman took out the tablet and pressed it against her chest.

The thirty-six old faces disappeared completely.

She was no longer the sheltering shadow of the righteous well, but merely a woman holding a worn wooden tablet.

At last, the sound of water beneath the well stopped as well.

But at that very moment, a soft sound came from the deepest part of the wooden cabinet.

Behind the thirty-sixth drawer, there was actually a hidden compartment.

Inside the compartment lay a white glove.

Beside the glove was a blank seal, and beneath the seal was a folded sheet of paper.

Wang Cheng'an opened the paper.

There was only one sentence:

“The first village account has been thrown into disorder. The second village shall manage itself.”

The signature was still half of the character for “Shen.”

Shen Yanshan.