Lu Chen died at the scene of a signing beneath a collapsing ceiling, then was reborn at a stall on Ash Street in Ember City. Duanjin brought the Boneworkers' Guild to collect three months' rent and three carts of bone materials, giving him three days to sign a transfer deed or be struck from the books. Seven people had already been crossed off. Lu Chen first calculated that crossing people off would leave fewer stallholders on the street, drive up everyone's share of the lamp oil costs, and lead to more debtors being crossed off. Duanjin was undermining his own business. Then Lu Chen knocked on the inner wall and pointed out that if they shoved the stalls, the whole row would collapse. He couldn't provide three carts of bone materials, but he did point out that the interest in the accounts was fabricated: the groove worn into the middle of the threshold showed that the previous tenant had hauled goods, and fresh soil mixed with broken tiles had been packed under the crooked flagpole at the street entrance. Duanjin's men dug up nineteen leftover sinew-core strips wrapped in torn hemp cloth. They were porcelain-white, each as long as a person's arm. An expert said they were valuable offcuts. After feeling them, Duanjin's expression softened, but he said they weren't worth three carts. But who buried those valuable offcuts?
