Chapter 12 · free to read
On the ninth day of the twelfth month, one bundle out of eleven did not come home.
The city magistrate had taken eleven hundred taels from a granary contractor in the spring. That much was true. That he had taken it in the Dowager's name was not, and it was in four ministries' mouths by the following noon.
He was dismissed on the third day, and the confiscated laundry came back untouched. Or so it looked to everybody but one pair of hands.
The route was safe. The magistrate was finished. And for the first time since the first thread, the hall had a hand inside it that was not ours.
Artwork and narration generated with AI.