Chapter 4

Chapter 4

She wiped her face.

“I went to the Lin Family to file a complaint, but Master Lin refused to see me. Later, someone passed the written complaint out through the back gate and told me not to come through the front again. I knew Miss had written it.”

Father’s expression darkened.

“Absurd. Do you know how many people go in and out of the Lin Family’s back gate every day? And one scrap of paper is enough for you to decide who wrote it?”

Cui Yanxing ignored him and only asked me, “What else do you have?”

I said, “If Your Honor is willing to seal off the Lin Family study, there’s a confession hidden in a secret compartment. And if you’re willing to send men to the Incense and Paper Shop in the back alley behind Fu’an Temple, there are three chests there.”

Father whipped his head toward me.

This time, he failed to keep himself composed.

“Qingcai.”

His voice dropped.

It was no longer the tone of someone telling me to come home.

I placed my hands on my knees.

My fingertips pressed against my skirt, and they still hadn’t warmed up after a long while.

“Most of what’s in those chests are copied case files I’ve transcribed for Father over the years, read through, and altered for him. Some can’t be used as evidence. Some can be matched against the originals in the prefectural yamen. Some can be matched against witness testimony.”

I paused.

“And some of them match the gifts of thanks the Lin Family accepted.”

Father’s face changed completely.

My elder brother unconsciously took a step back, his sleeve brushing the pillar of the hall.

Cui Yanxing looked toward the bailiffs.

“Go get them.”

Father spoke. “Your Honor, privately keeping copies of case files is itself a crime.”

I nodded.

“Yes.”

He stared at me, and there seemed to be a layer of frost in his eyes.

“You knew that and still did it?”

I looked back at him.

“I knew.”

“Are you trying to destroy the Lin Family?”

He said it very softly.

Heavier than a curse.

I remembered when I was little and copied one character wrong in the study. He had asked me in exactly that same way, “Are you trying to ruin your brother’s essay?”

Mother had said, “Your father isn’t blaming you. He’s just anxious.”

My brother had said, “Little Sister just needs to be more careful next time.”

I lowered my head and wiped my palm against my skirt.

“Didn’t Father already write it out for me last night?”

He said nothing.

Outside the hall, the sun had risen. A strip of sunlight shone in and fell by Father’s boots.

He stood in the light, but his face was colder than a rainy day.

The bailiffs were gone a long time.

By the time the three chests were carried into the courtroom, it was nearly noon.

They were old wooden chests, their corners gnawed by insects, sealed tight with oiled paper, still dusted with ash from the Incense and Paper Shop. Mama He’s son had been brought in as well, and knelt below the hall trembling.

“Miss Lin left them there for safekeeping,” he said. “This lowly one only thought they were old books and old papers. I didn’t dare look.”

When the lids were opened, a damp paper smell rushed out.

The first chest contained land deeds, debt contracts, marriage documents, and family division papers.

These weren’t deadly on their own, but they proved one thing: many of the dates, amounts, and witnesses that Master Lin later called “accidental mistakes of memory” were already different when I copied them.

The second chest contained complaints, testimonies, and witness lists.

Some of the paper edges had been soaked in water. Some had been singed by fire. I had completed them one by one and arranged them by year. The one on top was the original deposition in the Luo Family Case.

Clipped beside it was another small slip of paper recording what Luo Yuniang had been wearing when she came to the Lin Family back then: a gray cloth skirt, a patch on the left sleeve, and the way she kept clutching the copper coin at her waist while she spoke.

That wasn’t the sort of thing that belonged in a case file.

But I remembered it.

The third chest was the smallest.

Inside were only a dozen or so letters and a few thin account books.

The letters bore no signatures, only the Blue Qilin Pattern Paper commonly used by Duke An’s Mansion. The account books didn’t write “bribe silver” either, only “brush fee,” “gift of thanks,” and “carriage and horses.” But the date of every single payment matched exactly the dates when the Lin Family changed residences, when my brother entered the academy, and when Father altered testimony for the Xiao Family.

When Father saw the third chest, he closed his eyes for a moment.

The three chests could only prove what the Lin Family had done over the years.

The one document that could truly kill the Lin Family, I had not put inside.

It was in my sleeve.

Father looked at my cuff and, for the first time, said nothing.

Neither did I lower my head again.

In the past, I cut paper for him, cut complaint sheets, trimmed and shaped the life-and-death words others delivered into the Lin Family’s hands.

Today, it was my turn to pass judgment on the Lin Family.

No one in the hall spoke again.

When the clerk raised his brush, the tip tapped lightly against the inkstone with a soft sound.

Cui Yanxing looked at those thin account books and did not turn the page for a long time.

Father was the one who spoke first instead.

“Privately keeping case file copies is already a grave crime.”

He said every word without the slightest tremor.

But I heard it.

The moment those words fell, I understood.

He didn’t want an answer. He wanted me to stop talking.

Cui Yanxing did not finish examining them in court.

He closed the top account book and signed the order.

“Seal the Lin Family study.”

Father’s expression changed.

Without even looking at him, Cui Yanxing continued, “Seal the accounting room. Summon the owner of the Incense and Paper Shop, summon the clerk who handled the Luo Family Case back then, and summon the person from Duke An’s Mansion who delivered these letters. From today on, no one in the Lin Family is to privately remove case files or make contact with witnesses.”

The bailiffs below the hall answered in unison, “Yes, sir!”

Father did not tell me to come home again.

As Father was led away, he paused when he passed by me.

“Your mother won’t be able to bear this.”

I kept my eyes lowered and did not look at him.

“She already bore it last night.”

Father’s shoulders stiffened slightly.

After he left, the wind rose outside the hall.

I had knelt too long, and when I stood up my legs were so numb they hurt. A bailiff reached out to steady me. I reflexively shrank away, and he said nothing.

Cui Yanxing looked at me from the bench.

“Miss Lin, what you handed up today was not a written complaint.”

I looked up.