The day the bookkeeper's son got out of prison, he brought back nothing but a blue-cloth ledger.
His father had been dead for five years. The old folks on Dock Street all said he had died of illness. Only Chen Mo knew the truth: his father had kept accounts his whole life, and in the end, entered himself as one more line in the ledger.
Thirty years ago, a warehouse full of grain drained the Xiong family business. Twenty years ago, a shipment of goods cost three people their lives. Five years ago, a promissory note sealed his father's fate. Liang Shixiong, the owner of the Xiong family business, had sat in that chair for thirty years, thinking the books had long since been burned clean.
He didn't know that accounts could never truly be burned.
Chen Mo is back. This time, page by page, he will lay bare thirty years of hidden accounts beneath the sun on the docks.
