The night my grandfather died, the door to the accounting room was bolted from the inside.
The official description was "stroke" - I drank two glasses of wine too much, it was cold, and I had an old illness. But Di Huaijin knew two things: his grandfather had been drinking medicinal wine for forty years, one drink every night, and he could not move the door; he would never bolt the door for the rest of his life.
The young master of the Jinggu Hall on Sima Road studied law, but he knew how to read things: when looking at paintings, he first looks at the paper, and when looking at people, he first looks at his hands. He dug out the miscalculated amount on the last page of the account book, the square mark on the velvet at the corner of the desk, and an empty box that no one admitted to taking away——
The box was empty, but people came three times. Wearing a long gown, gold-rimmed glasses, riding in a car, and just asking when entering the door: Are you willing to give up your ancestral belongings?
One murder, one empty box, four cities. Paper lies, hands don't.
