Two hours after Chu Qingwu entered the Huai Bei Salt Transport Office, Lu Si tossed her a ledger of deductions from the Guangxu granary's kiln workers and demanded that she sign her name. He told her to draw a circle if she couldn't write. She pointed out that the ninth line said Zhou Youtian had actually delivered 236 jin, while the deducted amount was written as 232 jin and 3 liang. The difference was 3 jin and 7 liang, but the ledger did not say where it had been deducted. If she signed off on the accounts, someone would ask who had written it. A slave accused of falsifying the books would face a severe sentence, so she refused to sign.
Lu Si sneered and changed her punishment: she would copy the whole ledger from the beginning that night, because it was needed in the morning. The old night watchman, Lao Cao, muttered, "Don't put the pen in the wrong place." One of the women workers said she was finished: Manager Lu never held a grudge, he only kept accounts.
While copying, she noticed a speck of fresh ink in the corner of the fifth page. It was bright and sweet-smelling, while the rest of the ledger was written in ink that had aged for two years. She concluded that someone had tampered with the books three days earlier.
She kept copying until midnight, when rain began to fall. Just as she spotted the blank space at the end of the ledger, Lu Si returned.
But on the page that had been turned beside that fresh ink, what entry had been removed?
