In the 22nd year of Zhaoning in the Dayan Dynasty, the Duzhi Division found out that a garrison soldier who had been dead for eight years was still receiving annual wages in Shule.
Yan Zhen, a Gou official from Hedong Aifang, was ordered to go west to check the accounts. In Shule, he met the young interpreter secretary You Liang. Yan Zhen believes that the accounts will not lie, but You Liang knows that a name can both prove a person's existence and send him to death.
As the investigation deepened, they discovered that the so-called "empty pay" did not really come true: the food in the name of the deceased fed the homeless people, the inflated military expenditures filled the deficit of the border town, and the forged vouchers maintained the shaky credit of the entire dynasty. An old account from eight years ago involved two people who had never known each other at the same time.
If the truth is revealed, tens of thousands of people who have lived under false names may be convicted, and the border army and the cabinet will collapse together; if they continue to conceal it, they will become new accomplices in this lie.
From Yongjing to Hedong, from Hexi Post Road to Shulegu City, two people who had changed the facts began to trace a real world that relied on false accounts.
Purpose: Using an empty wages case as a clue to write about commercial credit, border management and ordinary people's survival choices. The truth does not naturally represent justice, and concealment does not necessarily stem from malice; what is really difficult is to allow the victims to have the right to know and choose, and for the person who made the decision to bear the consequences.