You're a young man from a clan, and all you want is to study and pursue an official career?
Accepted. But the civil service examinations are abolished, and your path ends there.
You think you hold nothing more than a key to the ancestral hall?
Accepted. But that key locks away more than clan property: it guards the last vestige of dignity in the old order.
You think the ledger only records money coming and going?
Accepted. But every line and character about salt taxes, railway shares, and granary funds can change the fate of an entire city.
You say you're just a telegraph apprentice?
Accepted. But electricity travels faster than a horse, and is worth more than a human life.
You say you're just a junior partner in a small factory?
Accepted. But every strike and negotiation at the factory gates could cost lives.
The turmoil of the Xinhai Revolution, the Railway Protection Movement, the calls of May Fourth, foreign investment taking root, the Northern Expedition marching south...
For more than thirty years, amid thunder and upheaval, they played a deadly game of fate for Linjiang, between the ancestral hall and the factory gates.
Some died because of words; others lived because of them.
This is the secret of the Gengzi ledger, and the destination of the two keys.
They weren't heroes, just ordinary people.
Yet before the river rushed into the sea, they had to make sure those who came after them knew: the truth had once been put into print.
