The Invincible Female Ghost Is A Bit Of A Hopeless Romantic
Chapter 319: The Southern Register
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Naskah di bawah ini ditampilkan sementara dari versi English asli.
The wooden cart shot out of the mountainside, down the final stretch of slope beside the underground river.
The river gathered behind Yongji Grain Depot into a long, narrow landing. Rough wooden stakes lined the bank, with grain boats moored to them.
The night wind swept in from the river, carrying the damp smell of grain husks, mildew, and a faint trace of incense ash.
The depot was brightly lit.
Dozens of carts stood outside its gates, their sacks piled higher than a person.
A sheet of white paper was pasted to every sack. Names crowded the pages. Some listed a single person, while others read “daughter of so-and-so,” “child without a father,” or “migrant household pending verification.”
On the cart nearest the river, one of the sacks suddenly stirred.
A faint cough came from inside.
Xu Erxiao’s expression changed at once.
“There’s someone alive in there.”
“Don’t go over yet.” Lu Yuan raised a hand, signaling everyone to crouch low. “The guards haven’t noticed us.”
Their wooden cart was mixed in with the old carts that had shot out of the underground river, and a row of abandoned reed mats along the bank happened to hide it.
Song Qinghe covered the green lamp, leaving only a pinprick of light. Lin Zhaoxuan wrapped an ink line around the axle of the foremost cart to keep it from rolling farther.
Wang Cheng'an crouched on the cart bed and opened the duplicate register.
The names that had been corrected earlier in the underground granary were now glowing, page by page.
The light was faint, but it revealed several different seals at the depot entrance.
“Brother Lu, there are three layers of account seals on the gate.”
“Which three?”
“The grain-tax seal is on the outside, the merchant seal in the middle, and the innermost one...” Wang Cheng'an narrowed his eyes. “It’s the Southern Register’s closed-eye fish seal.”
“The grain depot is a shell,” Zhou Heng said. “The names, evidence, and replacements sent up from below all pass through here.”
“Where do they go?” Xu Erxiao asked.
Wang Cheng'an looked toward the back of the grain depot.
There stood a tall watchtower, with a large, two-deck boat moored beneath it. Its hull was black, and its sails were furled, but white paper lanterns hung all over its mast.
Each lantern bore the name of a place.
The foremost one read “Liu Family Gully.”
“The boat,” Wang Cheng'an said. “The Southern Register’s central archive might not be on shore. It could be on the boat.”
Lu Yuan glanced at the river.
The boat had no name. Only a closed-eye fish was carved into its bow.
Beneath the fish’s tail, an old wooden tablet had been nailed in place. Rain had washed away most of the characters, leaving only the words “Crossing Names” legible.
“The Name-Crossing Boat.” Lin Zhaoxuan’s voice grew heavy. “It was mentioned in old records from inside the pass.”
Song Qinghe looked at him. “You know about it?”
“It wasn’t a Daoist case. It was an old rumor left over from the early days, when household registers for disaster refugees were being sorted out across the country.
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“People said someone used a boat to register people without household status and transfer their names. At first, it was done for a good cause.
“But over time, more and more names were taken aboard. Anyone could send one in, and no one had to take responsibility.”
“What happened in the end?” Xu Erxiao asked.
“In the end, the names went aboard, and no one could find the people again.”
The river wind swept past.
A copper bell rang inside the grain depot.
The gates slowly opened, and more than a dozen workers pushed empty carts out. They all wore short gray jackets, but narrow black bands were tied around their necks.
Each person had a string of wooden tablets hanging from his waist. When the tablets knocked together, they gave off tiny, broken cries.
The worker at their head held a ledger and stood before the carts, inspecting the white sheets on the sacks one by one.
“Liu Family Gully, Xiawan, child-household balance: four.”
“Ma Family Gully, seven fragmented names from the righteous well.”
“Wang Family Village, three land deeds under temporary custody.”
“Little Stone Village, one nameless girl-child, half a plum-blossom lock.”
Xu Erxiao’s hand clamped hard onto the edge of the cart.
Lu Yuan pressed down on the back of his hand.
“Remember the location.”
Xu Erxiao clenched his teeth and nodded.
The worker turned to the next page and frowned.
“Why hasn’t B-Nineteen arrived?”
Someone beside him murmured, “Something went wrong downriver.”
“What went wrong?”
“I heard someone changed the child register for Liu Family Gully.”
“Who changed it?”
“A few people checking the accounts.”
The worker’s expression darkened. He looked up and scanned the river.
Lu Yuan immediately ducked lower.
But it was already too late.
A sheet of white paper labeled “nameless” floated up from one of the sacks. It drifted through the night wind and landed gently in front of their cart. The moment it fell, every worker along the bank stopped in unison.
The man at the head slowly turned around.
“A cart not in the register has come up the river.”
“Run?” Zhou Heng whispered.
Lu Yuan looked ahead.
There were too many people on the bank, the river was behind them, and wooden stakes hemmed them in on both sides. If they forced their way through, Wang Cheng'an and all the evidence and the duplicate register he carried would be easy to intercept.
“We’re not running.”
“Then what do we do?” Xu Erxiao asked.
Lu Yuan jumped down from the cart.
“Go through the front gate.”
Everyone looked at him.
Lu Yuan drew his knife, but did not head toward the grain depot. He drove the blade into the muddy riverbank and drew a straight line through the earth.
“Their rule is that you need a document to enter the depot.”
Wang Cheng'an immediately understood.
“We have a document.”
“Take it out.”
Wang Cheng'an pulled out the document they had taken from the underground rent-collection office.
“Six outside auditors, collecting the belongings of old households and assuming their outstanding offering quotas.”
Lu Yuan said, “Cross out the second half.”
“Will they accept it if we cross it out?”
“Whether they accept it or not, they’ll have to.” Lu Yuan looked at the workers at the depot gate. “They only recognize the seals on the paper, not how the paper came to be.”
Wang Cheng'an gritted his teeth, dipped his pen in ink, and drew a heavy line through the six characters meaning “assuming their outstanding offering quotas.”
Then he wrote beside them:
“The old offering quotas are incorrect. Evidence carried for re-verification.”
When he had finished, he handed the document to Lu Yuan.
Lu Yuan led the other five out from among the carts behind the reed mats.
All the workers in front of the grain depot gathered around them.
When the man at their head caught sight of the document in Lu Yuan’s hand, a flicker of surprise crossed his eyes.
“Which route are you from?”
“The northern route from Liu Family Gully,” Lu Yuan replied.
“The northern route isn’t subject to re-verification at Yongji.”
“Something went wrong with B-Nineteen.”
Lu Yuan handed him the document.
“We were told to bring the evidence and check the accounts again.”
The worker took the document. He first saw the original black seal, then the new words Wang Cheng'an had added. Frowning, he rubbed his fingertip back and forth over the paper.
“Who wrote this correction?”
Wang Cheng'an stepped forward.
“I did.”
“Who are you?”
“An auditor.”
“From which government office?”
“None.”
The worker gave a short laugh.
“You don’t even have an office, and you dare change the Southern Register’s accounts?”
Wang Cheng'an’s face paled, but he did not retreat.
“You’ve mixed child households, land deeds, the dead, and the living together in your accounts. Of course I dare change them.”
The surroundings fell abruptly silent.
Several workers reached for the wooden tablets at their waists.
Xu Erxiao tightened his grip on his shovel and was about to step forward when a woman’s voice suddenly came from inside the grain depot.
“Let them in.”
Her voice was not loud.
Yet every worker at the gate immediately lowered his head.
A woman wearing a dark blue padded jacket emerged from within the gate. She looked to be in her thirties. Her hair was neatly pinned up, and she wore round-framed glasses on the bridge of her nose. She held a ring of copper keys in one hand, and a long, slender brush was tucked at her waist.
She glanced at Lu Yuan, then at the duplicate register in Wang Cheng'an’s arms.
“My surname is Shen. I manage the accounts at Yongji Grain Depot.”
Wang Cheng'an stared at the keys at her waist.
A closed-eye fish seal hung from the key ring.
“What’s your given name, Shen?” he asked.
The woman smiled.
“My name doesn’t matter.”
“To you people, no one’s name matters,” Xu Erxiao said coldly.
The woman looked at him.
“Xu Erxiao?”
“That’s me.”
“Liu Sanniang’s son.”
“How much of the things my mother left behind did you take?”
The woman did not answer. She merely stepped aside from the gate.
“Come in and check.”
“Do you dare?”
Lu Yuan watched her.
She was far too calm.
Either she truly did not fear an audit, or the grain depot had already laid out its accounts and was waiting for them.
“Go in,” Lu Yuan said.
The six of them followed her into Yongji Grain Depot.
The depot looked wide from outside, but it was deeper within than they had imagined. The front hall was packed with grain sacks, each marked with a standard measure. Beyond the hall lay one storehouse after another, divided by iron bars. Wooden racks stood in every storehouse, but they held not grain, only oil-paper packets.
Tags of different colors were attached to the packets. White tags bore names.
Red tags marked evidence.
Yellow tags marked land deeds and household records.
The black tags bore nothing at all.
As Song Qinghe’s lamplight swept over them, faint human silhouettes appeared on the black tags.
“These haven’t been investigated yet.”
Manager Shen said coolly, “Uninvestigated items should naturally be kept in temporary storage.”
“Where are they stored?” Lu Yuan asked.
“Until the investigation is complete.”
“What if it’s never completed?”
“Then they can never be released.”
Xu Erxiao sneered.
“What a fine principle.”
The woman led them to a long table. Six teacups had been set out on it, each with a thin piece of paper floating in it.
The names of all six of them were written on the papers.
Lu Yuan, Wang Cheng'an, Xu Erxiao, Lin Zhaoxuan, Zhou Heng, and Song Qinghe.
“Names must be verified before entering the depot,” the woman said. “Just place your hands on the rims of the cups.”
Wang Cheng'an stared at the black water in the cups.
“This isn’t a name verification.”
“Then what is it?”
“Taking on the accounts.”
Manager Shen pushed up her glasses.
“Someone has to take on the accounts.”
Lu Yuan placed the document on the table.
“We came to review them, not take them on.”
The woman looked at the document, its second half crossed out, and the corners of her mouth lifted slightly.
“You think the accounts disappear just because you crossed out a line on a piece of paper?”
She raised her brush and pointed it at the air.
The papers in all six teacups floated up at once.
The backs were densely covered with the names of people they had found along the way:
Han Qi.
Liu Sanniang.
Ma Fusheng.
Liu Siya.
Wang Shitou.
The nameless girl-child from Little Stone Village.
After every name was a line of faint red writing:
“Found by Lu Yuan and the others; temporarily carried by them.”
Wang Cheng'an’s face changed at once.
“These are forged annotations.”
“Whether they’re forged isn’t for you to decide,”
Manager Shen said. “Every name you recover, you pull out of its original old register. If you don’t take responsibility, who will? With nowhere else to go, they can only return to the Southern Register.”
Song Qinghe said, “They can return to the people themselves, to their relatives, or to their original homes.”
“Their original homes?” Manager Shen laughed. “Can Liu Family Gully acknowledge Liu Sanniang? Can Ma Family Gully acknowledge the fragmented names in the righteous well? Little Stone Village has even burned its old genealogical records. What you call returning them is just throwing a group of names with nowhere to land back out into the snow.”
Her words struck like a needle, piercing the hardest truth the group had been avoiding all along.
Finding a name did not mean finding a home.
Writing it into the official register did not mean someone would look after it from then on.
Xu Erxiao lowered his head and touched the wooden piece at his chest.
Wang Cheng'an, meanwhile, looked at the duplicate register, his fingers slowly tightening around it.
Manager Shen turned to Lu Yuan.
“The more you do, the more you owe.
“You want to save people, but you don’t understand that once a name leaves the Southern Register, someone has to guarantee it.”
“Who guarantees them?”
“You do.”
She picked up her brush and lightly touched the tip to Lu Yuan’s name.
Black flames suddenly rose from the paper in the cup.
A face appeared in the fire.
The face was very young, but its features bore some resemblance to Lu Yuan.
He wore an old padded jacket, with half a plum-blossom silver lock hanging around his neck. He was sitting in a jolting cart, holding a little girl who was crying nonstop.
Lu Yuan’s breath caught.
It was no one else.
It was himself as a child.
The little boy in the fire looked up, as if gazing at him across the years.
The girl’s face remained hidden by her hair.
Manager Shen spoke softly:
“Look. The Southern Register didn’t lie to you.”
“The night Gu Changgeng took you away, you really were riding in the same cart as a girl.”
“Do you want to know who she was?”
Lu Yuan stared at the black flames.
“Where is she?”
“On the Name-Crossing Boat.”
“Alive?”
“As long as her name remains, you can count her as alive.”
Xu Erxiao snapped, “Go to hell! A name can remain even when the person doesn’t!”
Manager Shen glanced at him, her expression unchanged.
“What about your mother? Would you be willing to trade her name for her place on the boat?”
Xu Erxiao raised his shovel.
But Lu Yuan spoke first.
“If she really is on the boat, why not take us to her directly?”
Manager Shen fell silent for a moment.
Lu Yuan continued:
“Because all you can do is use names you’ve already seized to deceive people.”
“You don’t know where she is.”
The gaze behind the woman’s glasses finally turned cold.
“I don’t know?”
She swept out a hand.
All the grain sacks in the front hall suddenly split open.
What flew out wasn’t grain, but sheets of white paper. Like snow, they filled the grain depot in an instant. Names appeared on the pages, which whirled toward the crowd.
Lin Zhaoxuan’s ink line shot out, pinning the first flying sheets to the beams and pillars.
Zhou Heng swung his sword to block the others on the opposite side.
Song Qinghe raised the green lamp above her head. Its flame suddenly blazed, and the light revealed red seals on the backs of the white sheets.
“These aren’t names from the Southern Register!” she shouted.
“They’re unregistered wandering names!”
Song Qinghe’s voice pierced through the paper snow.
Within the circle of green lamplight, the red seals on the backs of the countless white sheets glittered like stars. Every seal bore a different inscription.
Some read “Awaiting Return,” some “Awaiting Recognition,” and many more bore the crooked character “Alive.”
Manager Shen’s brow twitched.
“Wandering names?”
“The Southern Register only takes names of the dead, the seized, and the offered.”
Song Qinghe lowered her lamp. The white sheets filling the hall scattered like startled birds, hurtling toward the surrounding walls.
“These names have never been entered in your register. They came out on their own, carried by the living.”
She raised her hand. The flame shot three feet higher, transforming into a pillar of green light that surged into the ceiling.
The black tiles overhead were blown away, exposing the night sky.
Wherever the pillar of light passed, every white sheet clinging to the walls burst into red flames.
The fire did not burn the paper. It burned only the black ink on it. The ink turned into azure smoke and dispersed; the pages turned white again and drifted gently down.
One that landed in Lu Yuan’s palm bore the name “Han Qi.”
One that landed by Xu Erxiao’s feet bore the name “Liu Sanniang.”
The one that landed on Wang Cheng'an’s duplicate register bore a whole row of names:
“Ma Fusheng, Liu Siya, Zhao Xiaoshuan, Wang Shitou, Chen family’s daughter, the nameless girl-child from Little Stone Village...”
Manager Shen pushed up her glasses. For the first time, a crack appeared in her gaze behind the lenses.
“Wandering names don’t belong to the Southern Register.”
“But they have nowhere else to go.”
She took a copper coin from her sleeve and flicked it out.
The coin vanished into the night. At the same time, four lamps lit up at the four corners of the grain depot.
The lamps did not illuminate objects. They illuminated names.
Four pillars of light rose from the ground, forcing Song Qinghe’s green light back toward the ceiling.
“There is a Northern Lamp for the northern route, a Central Lamp for the central route, and a Southern Lamp for the southern route.”
Manager Shen’s voice was terrifyingly calm.
“Yongji Grain Depot is the junction. Only when the names of all the routes reach here can their fate, whether to stay or leave, be decided.”
Lu Yuan saw what lay beneath the four lamps.
A person knelt beneath each one.
Or rather, each lamp held a person captive.
Inside the Eastern Lamp was an old scholar in a blue robe, holding an abacus whose beads were all human skulls.
Inside the Southern Lamp was a woman dressed in mourning hemp, holding a wooden tablet for the children’s ward, inscribed with “Child Guardian.”
Inside the Western Lamp was a one-armed man carrying a coffin on his back. Black water seeped through the coffin’s seams.
The Northern Lamp was empty.
Only a Red Cord hung from its center, tied to half a plum-blossom silver lock.
Lu Yuan’s gaze fixed on the Northern Lamp.
The half-lock was identical to the ones in his hand, in Xu Erxiao’s arms, and on the clay figure’s chest. Each was one-third of the same lock.
“Gu Changgeng left it behind,” he murmured.
At that, Manager Shen was, for once, visibly moved.
“You knew Gu Changgeng?”
Lu Yuan did not answer.
He walked to the long table and picked up the document with its second half crossed out.
Wang Cheng'an understood and handed him the ink and brush.
In the blank space on the document, Lu Yuan carefully wrote:
“Wandering names are not offering names, rent names, child names, or household names.”
“Wandering names belong to the wanderers, not the Southern Register.”
“Yongji Grain Depot may store them in good faith, but has no right to hold them by force.”
“From this day onward, every wandering name we have verified shall be released.”
When he had finished, he slapped the document down on the table.
“Manager Shen, do you dare accept this account?”
Manager Shen stared at the words for a long time, then suddenly smiled.
