My name is Heifu, a petty official in Anlu County.
In the twenty-sixth year of Qin Shihuang's reign, I began to copy household registrations and investigate cases in the county government. I thought Qin Law was the most just thing in the world, until I found someone who couldn't be checked, saw an account I didn't dare to report, and cut off a fugitive's head with my own hands.
I escorted the civilians to build the Great Wall and found a corpse stuffed under the wall. I brought back the piece of city wall soil and gave it to my daughter-in-law who cried for three days and three nights.
I watched the First Emperor go on tour, die, and have imperial edicts usurped, I watched Fu Su commit suicide, Li Si was cut in half, Zhao Gao turned a deer into a horse, I watched Chen Sheng shout, "Princes and generals, Xiang Ning has the right kind," and I watched Xiang Yu burn Xianyang Palace.
Thirty years later, the world has changed its master. I was still sitting in the county government office, copying the same household registration and investigating the same cases.
Before I died, I buried all the bamboo slips I had handled in my life into my grave.
More than two thousand years later, someone dug up my tomb.
They asked me: What have you left behind in your life?
I said: Nothing is left. Nothing was left.
