> On the night of the winter solstice, I saw someone burning paper offerings in the cold palace, so I approached with my palace lantern.
> The scholar in an indigo cotton robe raised his face. He was the only son of General Pei, who had been beheaded three years ago.
> “Your Highness,” he said, snow clinging to his eyelashes. “There is more to the Pei family's bloodshed than meets the eye.”
> I hid him in the library and spent every night searching through case files for him, until my fingertips were raw and bleeding.
> At the New Year's banquet, Father, drunk, asked what reward I wanted.
> I pulled the white-robed scholar out from behind a screen. “I beg you to reopen the Pei family case.”
> In the deathly silence that filled the hall, he suddenly opened his robe
> The crisscrossing old scars on his back formed four blood-red characters: The army rations were innocent.
