Halfway through the clatter of abacuses on Tide Tax Day, Luo Chen said the salt tax was short by 1,200 taels. Xue Laoliu told him to stop talking nonsense. Luo Chen replied that the receipt for the spring salt tax showed 1,080 taels deposited in the treasury, and that the missing twenty percent wasn't lost to spoilage. It had been siphoned off. Shen Moyuan brought over documents altering the official accounts and told him to press his fingerprint onto them. Luo Chen looked first at the paper, then the seal, then the blank space where the signature should go. He said the two warehouse overage and loss entries had both been recorded at the end of the month on the same day, when no grain ship had entered the port. The porterage fee had been inflated by seven taels. Who had collected it? There was a signed receipt. The 1,200 taels had been passed through the accounts, with 327 people listed as tax offsets, yet last year's register showed only 170 approved names. Who had authorized the extra 157? Every colleague in the room said in unison that Luo Chen had copied the accounts. He recognized every face, but not a single voice. Four hands forced his right hand down onto the desk, and his fingerprint sank into the vermilion ink. Luo Chen said the first copy of the warehouse receipt was on the grain guild's ledger boat, and the second was in the salt and iron alliance's warehouse register. Check them against each other, and you'd see whose sleeve the 1,200 taels had ended up in. Shen Moyuan took his vermilion brush and struck Luo Chen's name through with a single stroke. There was no sound, no blood, but Luo Chen felt as if someone had cut a piece out of his chest from the inside. He clutched the old man selling flatbread and said, "Uncle Chen, I'm Luo Chen."
