During the Chongning era of the Northern Song, Tokyo had no shortage of timber. What it lacked was someone who could explain where that timber had come from.
Li Cunqing inspects materials at construction sites. He relies neither on inherited secrets nor on a supernatural ability to see through things at a glance. He trusts only ink lines, wood grain, joints, and accounts recorded one entry at a time. During an inspection of warehouse beams, he picks out a patched timber from a batch of seemingly sound fir. Following that piece of wood, he discovers a reality far more complicated than the one described in The Treatise on Architectural Methods: The book sets fixed standards for timber dimensions, but rafts on the river are damp, laborers' wages have deadlines, merchants' IOUs accrue interest, and official seals can be borrowed to conceal flaws.
To save a riverside grain warehouse and ensure there is evidence to recover withheld wages, Li Cunqing joins Wen Ji, the owner of a paper shop, foreman Zhu Liu, and county clerk Xue Mi. Together they visit timber yards, docks, and old warehouses. They aren't up against a single convenient villain, but an entire old system in which everyone can take a small advantage, while the burden ultimately falls on ordinary people.
This is a story that steps into ancient books but does not hide inside them. Wood rots, paper gets wet, and systems are misunderstood. Only by seeing every small task through will history agree to preserve people's names.
