Chapter 321: Inspecting the Boat

Shen Qiushuang stared at the scene, all color draining from her face.

She knelt and shuffled backward half a step. The key ring slipped from her hand and clattered down beside the edge of the ink pool.

“It wasn’t me…”

Her voice was faint, as if she were explaining herself to the people around her, or perhaps to the younger version of herself who had chased after that carriage years ago.

“I was only seventeen that year.”

The old scene in the giant eye did not stop.

A fierce snowstorm raged as the old carriage jolted along the mountain road. The young Shen Qiushuang, chasing behind it, fell, her knees sinking into the snow.

She got back up, still clutching half a plum-blossom lock, and shouted something toward the carriage.

But the scene had no sound.

Lu Yuan stared at the carriage.

His younger self was holding a girl in his arms. A faded red cord was tied around her wrist. At its end hung a tiny copper piece,

with what looked like writing on it.

The image in the giant eye abruptly zoomed in.

It wasn’t a copper piece.

It was a thin wooden tablet.

The words on it were unmistakable:

“Temporarily Kept, Awaiting Recognition.”

Wang Cheng'an drew in a sharp breath.

“This rule existed long ago.”

Shen Qiushuang slowly raised her head, shock and pain filling her eyes.

“Impossible.”

“That seal was left by my father.”

She looked at the safekeeping seal in Wang Cheng'an’s hand, her voice gradually trembling.

“My father was named Shen Bonian. He was a bookkeeper at Yongji Grain Depot. He wasn’t guarding the depot on behalf of the Southern Register. He guarded the grain depot because he wanted to preserve evidence, old names, and a way home for those who had been separated from their families.”

“Then the Southern Register came.”

“They said the safekeeping office was too chaotic, that wandering names had no master, and that every piece of paper ought to be entered into a single register, so no one could use being separated as an excuse to evade taxes or conscription, or seize someone else’s land.”

“My father refused to hand over the seal.”

The black-cloaked man slowly rose to his feet, the blue lamp lighting half his face.

“Shen Bonian defied orders, hid old names, and tampered with transfers. The evidence of his crimes is conclusive.”

Shen Qiushuang didn’t even look at him.

“He died beneath this iron pillar.”

“They said he threw himself into the ink pool.”

She gazed at the old carriage disappearing into the distance within the giant eye, then suddenly let out a laugh, one more painful to hear than a sob.

“So before he died, he still managed to send two people away.”

“Not two,” Lu Yuan said.

The little girl in the giant eye had never shown her face.

But Lu Yuan saw how tightly his younger self held her. It wasn’t the clinging of two children who were strangers to each other. It was as if he feared that if he loosened his grip, she would be erased from the world.

“Gu Changgeng took three names away,” he said. “Mine, hers, and the name of the person who blocked the road for us.”

Shen Qiushuang closed her eyes.

“I chased the carriage because I wanted to give you the lock.”

“But the carriage was too fast. I only made it as far as the ferry crossing. The people there told me it had already passed North Mountain Pass.”

“Later, my father was taken away. They forced me to stay at the grain depot and keep their accounts. I thought that lock had fallen into the river…”

The half of the silver lock in Lu Yuan’s palm suddenly grew hot.

As if sensing that they were about to piece together the clues, the names on the giant eye’s white sclera began racing wildly across it.

“The old case may be examined.”

“Exchange five traveling together for one who was separated.”

“Exchange one close relative for two pieces of old evidence.”

“Exchange Lu Yuan’s name for Gu Changgeng’s life or death.”

Its words appeared one line at a time, as calm as the terms of an ordinary transaction.

Zhou Heng was still suspended from the iron pillar, the wet hand brushing against his ankle. The black water in the ink pool continued to rise, already covering half his leg.

Lin Zhaoxuan gripped the ink lines with both hands, veins bulging at his temples.

“Lu Yuan! It’s stalling!”

“I know.”

“If you keep watching, Zhou Heng won’t hold out!”

Lu Yuan raised his blade and slashed at the crack in the iron pillar.

Before the blade could fall, another scene suddenly appeared in the giant eye.

A dilapidated courtyard.

A White Banner hung in the yard. Gu Changgeng knelt before the mourning hall, his back as withered as a dead tree. There was no spirit tablet in the hall, only an old wooden box. Inside lay half of a yellowed photograph, showing a little girl with her hair in twin buns.

Words appeared over the image in the giant eye:

“Gu Changgeng still lives.” “Knows the girl’s whereabouts.” “With half the lock, she may be seen.”

Lu Yuan’s blade stopped in midair.

Xu Erxiao was so anxious his face had gone white.

“Brother Lu, listen to it! That thing baits people with what matters most to them!”

Lu Yuan didn’t turn around.

“Erxiao.”

“I’m here.”

“Remember what you just said to Liu Sanniang’s lamp.”

Xu Erxiao froze.

Lu Yuan looked toward the giant eye.

“People aren’t entries in an account book.”

“And they certainly aren’t things you can use to settle one account with another.”

“Whether Gu Changgeng is alive or dead, I’ll find out myself. I’ll investigate who that girl is, too. You don’t get to name your price for what you know.”

As soon as he finished speaking, he brought his blade down.

The blade didn’t strike the giant eye.

Instead, it severed the thickest chain in front of it.

Crack!

The chain snapped, its fragments shooting outward.

The Name-Crossing Boat on the river lurched violently. Its bow rose high, nearly turning sideways across the river. Hundreds of white paper lamps went out at once.

The black-cloaked man screamed, “You dare sever the auxiliary anchor!”

The force of the recoil hurled Lu Yuan several steps back, slamming him into the long table. Wang Cheng'an hurried to support him.

“Brother Lu!”

“I’m fine.”

Lu Yuan’s palm had split open, and blood ran down the hilt of his blade. He looked up at the iron pillar. The giant eye in its crack was now half-open.

There was no anger in that eye.

Only an extraordinarily deep hunger.

It gazed at Lu Yuan’s flowing blood. The names on its sclera suddenly stopped moving. Then a line of dark red text emerged from the depths of the eye:

“Lu bloodline. The old seal may be used.”

The black-cloaked man’s face turned deathly pale.

“Don’t let it recognize his blood!”

Shen Qiushuang also jerked her head up. “Lu Yuan, get back!”

But it was already too late.

A drop of blood from Lu Yuan’s palm passed through the broken chain and fell into the ink pool.

The entire pool boiled with a thunderous roar, as if oil had been poured into it.

Countless account books at the bottom of the pool flipped open. Their pages slapped against the water, making a rapid, shrill racket. The giant eye on the iron pillar opened fully. In the center of its pupil was a plum-blossom seal identical to the one on the silver lock in Lu Yuan’s hand.

The seal didn’t have five petals.

It had six.

The half-lock in Lu Yuan’s hand, the half-lock Shen Qiushuang had carried when she chased the carriage, and the missing piece together made only five petals.

The sixth petal had always been in the Southern Register scribe’s hands.

“So that’s it.” Song Qinghe’s expression darkened. “It isn’t investigating your origins.”

“It’s been waiting for you to come back and complete the seal.”

Shen Qiushuang stared at Lu Yuan.

“You weren’t just some child Gu Changgeng happened to rescue.”

“You’re the key to the old seal.”

A distant scene surfaced in the giant eye.

It showed a stone chamber, larger than the grain depot. A six-petaled plum blossom was carved into its floor, with an enormous black register lying at its center. The register turned its pages without any wind. With each turn, someone’s name faded from the stone walls.

Six people stood around the chamber.

Five wore different masks, each pressing down on one petal of the plum blossom.

The sixth position was empty.

In a corner of the chamber, a woman holding a child was being dragged away. When she turned her head, a half plum-blossom lock hung from her neck,

but Lu Yuan had never seen her face.

Still, he knew.

She was his mother.

Another line appeared in the giant eye:

“Six Sealkeepers of the Day Seal: one dead, one fled, two betrayed, two lost.” “The Lu seal-bearer must return to his place to reopen the master register.”

Xu Erxiao cursed. “Reopen my ass! You burn people’s names like firewood, and now you want Brother Lu to add more fuel?”

“What it says may not all be false,” Lin Zhaoxuan said gravely.

Everyone looked at him.

Lin Zhaoxuan stared at the six-petaled plum-blossom seal in the giant eye.

“The Southern Register wasn’t always what it is now. At first, perhaps people really did try to use it to organize the names and household records lost to

</path> war, famine, and migration.”

</path>ReadHistory

“The Six Sealkeepers may have been the original six guardians of the register.”

“But then the register began to devour people, and the sealkeepers split apart. Some wanted to seal it, some wanted to use it, some fled, and some died.”

“Lu Yuan’s branch was probably the one that escaped.”

Shen Qiushuang’s voice was hoarse.

“Gu Changgeng took you away to keep the old seal from being reopened.”

“But why did he take only you and that girl?”

Wang Cheng'an lowered his gaze to the duplicate register.

“Because the others could no longer be taken away.”

He opened the fragment he had brought earlier from the underground granary. The water-wrinkled writing on it now looked especially clear in the giant eye’s awakening.

A note hidden beneath ink lines appeared on the fragment:

“The plum seal is split between two locks; the children take separate paths.” “One bears the name, the other bears the proof.” “The name must not enter the register; the proof must not fall into the seal.” “If the two reunite, the old gate will open of its own accord.”

Wang Cheng'an’s voice stopped as he read the last line.

Song Qinghe continued for him:

“So that girl wasn’t just someone who had been separated from her family.”

“She carries the other half of the key.”

Lu Yuan tightened his grip on the silver lock.

“Bear the name, bear the proof.”

“Which one am I?”

No one answered.

The giant eye answered for them.

“Lu child, bears the name.” “Nameless girl, bears the proof.”

“The name-bearer may open the register.” “The proof-bearer may determine what is true.”

“When the two are joined, ten thousand names return to one.”

As the four words “ten thousand names return to one” appeared, every white paper sheet being held in safekeeping inside the grain depot trembled in unison.

Shen Qiushuang’s expression turned grim.

“It doesn’t want to reopen the old register.”

“It wants to swallow everything that can prove what’s true or false into its register, too.”

“Names, physical evidence, land deeds, family ties, testimony. If it decides what’s true and false, no one in the world will be able to prove for themselves who they are.”

Wang Cheng'an gripped the safekeeping seal so tightly his knuckles turned white.

“That’s why they wanted to mix all the registers together.”

“As long as names can be exchanged for land, land for debt, and debt for lives, whoever holds the master register can change everything in the end.”

The black-cloaked man beneath the giant eye suddenly laughed.

“You understand only now? Too late.”

He lunged at the stele and turned the blue lamp upside down over the corrected rules Wang Cheng'an had just written.

Blue flames spread across the words on the stele.

The four characters “Temporarily Kept, Awaiting Recognition” twisted first.

Wang Cheng'an rushed forward, but the blue flames seared a string of black scorch marks into the back of his hand. He grunted in pain, yet still pressed the safekeeping seal against the stele.

“Cheng'an!” Xu Erxiao rushed over to pull him away.

“Don’t touch it!” Wang Cheng'an gritted out. “The fire is searching for the seal!”

The blue flames weren’t burning the stele.

They were burning the new rule they had just established.

If “Temporarily Kept, Awaiting Recognition” were erased, all the white paper would lose its destination again, and the chains of the Name-Crossing Boat would reconnect.

Lu Yuan swung his blade, forcing the black-cloaked man back.

Zhou Heng shouted from the iron pillar, “I can’t hold on!”

The wet hand had already climbed to his knee.

Lin Zhaoxuan’s ink lines began to snap one by one.

Song Qinghe looked toward the Name-Crossing Boat on the river and suddenly said, “We have to destroy the name-verification plate at the bow!”

Shen Qiushuang said, “The name-verification plate is underwater at the bow. You can’t see it from the outside. It’s connected to the master register. If it’s destroyed, the Name-Crossing Boat will go out of control.”

“Perfect.”

“But there are more than three hundred lamps on the boat!”

“So we don’t destroy all the lamps.” Song Qinghe’s gaze sharpened. “We make it unable to verify names.”

Wang Cheng'an raised his head, enduring the pain in his hand. “Make it verify physical evidence only.”

Shen Qiushuang stared at him, stunned.

Wang Cheng'an spoke quickly. “What does the Southern Register fear most? Not having anyone to collect. It fears names supported by evidence, evidence it cannot control.”

“It collects names by splitting people apart: names separate from names, objects from objects, family ties from family ties. As long as a name is separated from its proof, it can claim that anyone has no master.”

“We’ll do the opposite.”

“We’ll press all the physical evidence being held in safekeeping against the name-verification plate.”

“Before each lamp enters the register, it’ll have to come into contact with the thing it belongs with. If it can’t verify a complete name, it can’t forcibly collect it.”

Shen Qiushuang watched countless oil-paper bundles fly out of the storeroom, her breathing quickening.

“But there’s too much evidence.”

“Then we send as much as the grain depot has,” Wang Cheng'an said.

“How?”

Lu Yuan looked toward the narrow water channel in the rear wall, leading to the river.

“Use grain.”

Xu Erxiao was puzzled for a moment, then understood.

“Grain sacks float.”

“Right,” Lu Yuan said. “Pack the evidence into grain sacks and send them downstream to the bottom of the boat. Shen Qiushuang, can you open the rear hold from the bank?”

“Yes.”

“Lin Zhaoxuan, how much longer can the ink lines hold?”

“If that pillar stops draining their strength, one incense stick.”

“Zhou Heng, can you jam the chain from above?”

Zhou Heng gritted his teeth. “I can.”

“Song Qinghe, lend me the green lamp.”

Without hesitation, Song Qinghe handed it to him.

Lu Yuan took the lamp and turned to Xu Erxiao.

“Erxiao, take people to pack the sacks. Liu Sanniang’s lamp has already returned to its wooden piece. You don’t need to guard it here anymore.”

Xu Erxiao nodded hard.

“I’ll handle it!”

“Cheng'an, the stele is in your hands. Don’t let the fire erase the new rule here.”

“Understood.”

“Shen Qiushuang, lead us through the water channel.”

Shen Qiushuang looked at Lu Yuan as if she wanted to say something, but in the end, she only nodded firmly.

The black-cloaked man climbed to his feet. Half his face had been cut open by Lu Yuan’s blade. He glared at them, his eyes full of venom.

“You won’t get out.”

He reached down and pressed his hand into the ink pool.

The giant eye slowly turned. The six-petaled plum-blossom seal in its pupil began to spin. A deafening rush of water came from the river outside the grain depot, as if someone had twisted the entire river from beneath.

The Name-Crossing Boat slowly began to pull away from the bank.

It wasn’t drifting downstream.

It was heading straight for the grain depot.

“It’s going to smash into the grain depot!” Shen Qiushuang cried.

The closed-eyed fish emblem at the bow of the Name-Crossing Boat split open in the night, revealing rows of densely packed sharp teeth, like the edges of account-book pages. Hundreds of white paper lamps on the boat rocked wildly in the wind, and countless overlapping cries came from the names inside them.

At the highest point of the bow, a figure slowly rose to its feet.

The figure wore an old-fashioned long robe and a blank paper mask.

It held an enormous black register in its hands.

The register opened, and a line of text appeared across the river before Lu Yuan and the others:

“Name-bearer, board the boat.”

“Otherwise, all wandering names inside and outside the grain depot will be entered into the master register.”

Then a second line appeared:

“Nameless girl still lives.” “If you do not come before midnight, both the proof and the name will be burned.”

Lu Yuan stared at those two lines. The flame of the green lamp in his hand stood straight in the river wind.

He was silent for a moment, then handed the green lamp back to Song Qinghe.

“Stick to the plan.”

Xu Erxiao said anxiously, “Brother Lu, that person said she’s still alive!”

“I know.”

“Then why are you still…”

“Because she might be alive, we can’t board the boat on its terms.”

Lu Yuan drew his blade and pointed its tip at the approaching Name-Crossing Boat.

“It wants me to take the old seal aboard alone and open the gate.”

“Then we’ll take all the evidence it can’t separate and go aboard together.”

“This time, we’re not boarding the boat.”

“We’re inspecting it.”