My name is Gu Zhao, and I run an inconspicuous tea shop on the old street.
By day, I sell tea. By night, I keep accounts, not of money, but of lives.
Whoever has enjoyed luck they shouldn't have, and whoever has suffered hardships they shouldn't have, must have the reason recorded in my ledger.
Ten years ago, my father disappeared while investigating a case of "borrowed luck," leaving me half a ledger.
I had hoped to run the tea shop in peace for the rest of my life, until one rainy night, a woman rushed in carrying an unconscious child, begging me to look at her daughter's illness.
I opened the ledger. When I saw the line of red characters under the child's name flickering nonstop, I suddenly understood something:
There are some accounts I've been avoiding for ten years, but in the end, I can't escape them.
Later, a tax inspector who cared only about the ledger showed up.
She investigates money; I investigate lives. She says there is no such thing as a ledger of lives, yet whenever I get into trouble, she's always the first to push open the tea shop door.
