Morning sunlight spilled across the roof tiles of the Hall of Official Records, casting long amber strips across the courtyard. Clerks had been awake since before dawn; some still had ink smudges on their cheeks, others clutched steaming tea bowls with trembling fingers.
Word had spread across the administrative compound:
The Prince and Dali Temple Vice Minister were returning today to begin the formal comparison.
No one wanted to look unprepared.
When Jianyan stepped into the hall, the air shifted. Not because he was intimidating — he wasn't looming, wasn't cold — but because he carried himself with that disarming warmth that made people feel like he saw every flaw on every scroll the moment he walked in.
"Morning," Jianyan greeted lightly, waving lazily at the assembled clerks. "Benwang hopes everyone slept better than benwang did."
A few clerks bowed so fast they nearly hit the table.
One whispered, "Wangye speaks kindly… that is rare…"
Chen Yuantai arrived right behind
Jianyan, crisp and alert, carrying two bamboo boxes under his arm.
"Wangye," he said dryly, "you slept perfectly fine. I heard you snoring."
"That was not snoring," Jianyan replied. "That was benwang exhaling society's flaws."
Clerks hid their laughter behind sleeves.
Tension eased, just enough for real work to begin.
Senior clerks approached with carefully stacked scrolls — two years' worth of Jinzhou prefectural land cases, collected overnight with emergency dispatches.
Chen examined the arrangement, nodded. "Good. Begin with the boundary disputes."
Jianyan settled beside the long table, hands behind his back, eyes sharp. "Let's start listening to the ink, shall we?"
The first scroll unfurled. The prefectural seal glistened red.
Chen crouched, analyzing its angle.
"Three degrees clockwise."
The next scroll:
"Three degrees."
Another, "Three degrees."
A hush fell.
One junior clerk swallowed.
"W-wangye… Vice Minister Chen… could it be the same man stamped all of these?"
Jianyan tapped the table with two fingers, steady and rhythmic. "Unless Jinzhou's earth tilts on its own… yes. One hand. One habit. One mind behind the seal."
Chen nodded. "Seal Master or someone accessing his tools."
Clerks exchanged anxious looks.
A senior scribe hurried over with a wooden tray lined with
moisture-tested parchment strips.
"Wangye, Vice Minister," he said nervously, "these are ink-age comparisons. We ran them across twenty prefectural scrolls."
"Show us," Chen said.
The scribe laid out the strips.
County files, Ink darkened naturally , aged months.
Prefectural files, ink behave as if written recently, regardless of the official date.
Jianyan's brows lifted, amusement mixing with razor intelligence. "So the prefecture time-travels with ink?"
Chen's voice went cold but steady. "Or they rewrite scrolls periodically, keeping them 'fresh.'"
Clerks stiffened with dread.
Jianyan's voice softened, not unkind. "No need to fear. Ink cannot incriminate the innocent. Only the guilty."
Three clerks brought forward two maps — the county original and the prefecture revision.
The knot between Chen's brows deepened. "The prefecture changed the curvature of the boundary line."
"And the brushwork's different,"
Jianyan added. "See the stroke at the river bend? The county scribe drags his brush slightly. Prefectural one lifts at the end."
"Deliberate replacement," Chen concluded.
The hall audibly exhaled in shock.
Jianyan waved a hand. "Don't faint yet. Benwang still needs witnesses alive."
Another clerk rushed forward with the bamboo attendance book.
"Vice Minister—here! Prefect Liu was absent these weeks!"
Chen flipped the pages quickly.
"Prefect attended provincial tax inspections. Yet the prefectural seal appears on rulings issued on those exact days."
Jianyan chuckled softly. "A hand that stamps when the Prefect isn't even home? That's either a ghost or an accomplice."
The clerk nearly tripped bowing. "Wangye, should we… record such phrasing?"
"Record everything," Jianyan said. "Good ink deserves posterity."
The door slid open.
A dusty courier rushed in, bowed low.
"Vice Minister Chen! Delivery from the Provincial Administration!"
Chen accepted the sealed bundle, sliced the wax, scanned it—then passed it silently to Jianyan.
Jianyan's eyes skimmed the lines.
"Only three clerks had legal access to the prefectural seal this past year?"
Chen's expression hardened. "And one left Jinzhou months ago."
"So only two left." Jianyan grinned.
"Two men holding a system of ink hostage. Efficient."
The clerks shivered.
A young scribe, emboldened by the moment, whispered:
"It must be the Seal Master!"
Chen turned sharply. "Speculation is premature."
The boy flinched.
Jianyan stepped beside him, placing a hand on his shoulder. "You're eager. Benwang appreciates that. But careful—names carry weight. Let the evidence name the guilty, not our mouths."
The boy nodded rapidly, relief flooding his face.
Two clerks rolled out another map—one from a small unrelated land case from months earlier.
Jianyan leaned in, and his expression shifted from amused to focused.
Chen saw it too.
"The tilt?" Chen asked.
"Three degrees clockwise," Jianyan confirmed.
Another scroll.
Another tilt.
Another.
Same tilt.
Two years.
Dozens of disputes.
Different judges.
Different clerks.
Different disputes.
One rotation angle tying them togather.
Chen spoke softly: "This isn't just forgery. It's consistency. Discipline. Repetition."
"Arrogance," Jianyan added cheerfully. "Benwang admires criminals who are committed to their craft."
Several clerks paled.
A senior clerk brought the magnifying stones.
"Vice Minister, Wangye… this scroll's date has two layers."
They magnified it.
Under the prefecture's neat date…
faded ink whispered a different date.
The county's date.
Chen nodded once. "Overwritten."
"And rewritten again," Jianyan added. "See the lift at the brush end? Different wrist."
The hall erupted with horrified murmurs.
Chen stepped back, surveying the table. Dozens of scrolls.
Hundreds of seals. Ink patterns that never lied.
Date rewrites.
Testimony mismatches.
Map replacements.
Attendance contradictions.
Jinzhou prefecture hadn't made a mistake.
It had crafted a system.
Jianyan's tone softened but was deadly clear. "Chen-daren, Jinzhou isn't bending rules."
"No," Chen said. "They are making their own."
Jianyan straightened. "Tomorrow, we move to testimonies."
Chen nodded. "The couriers."
"And after that," Jianyan added with a bright, gentle smile that somehow made everyone more terrified—
"Benwang would like to visit the place where the ink stinks the strongest."
"Jinzhou?" a clerk whispered.
Jianyan winked. "Where else? and then Benwang can use the shoes, Benwang prepare".