Tablet on Paper: Who Is on the Score Sheet?

In western Sichuan at the end of the Qing Dynasty and the beginning of the Republic of China, a young apprentice Chen Yansheng followed the old genealogist Xue Huaibi to study music in the countryside. From the Western Sichuan Ancestral Hall to the Ziliujing Saltworks, from the Ancestral Hall to the Chongqing Guild Hall - he thought that revising genealogies was just about copying old names, arranging lineages, and determining generations. Until the tomb was being moved on a rainy night, the old coffin knocked over the incense table, and the tomb bricks, green lines, old genealogy and the temple's property accounts did not match up one by one. The Luo family wanted to bury "X" together in the ancestral tomb, but no one was willing to say her name. Chen Yansheng cannot cry out for the dead. All he can do is measure bricks, rub characters, inspect plates, check accounts, and leave traces one by one that others are eager to cover up. Shen Mingtang, the daughter of the book shop, looked at the edge of the knife, Xue Huabi, the old genealogist, held down the pen, people in the ancestral hall were fighting for dignity, and people outside the door were waiting for a name. He gradually understood: A line in the genealogy not only describes the ancestors, but also who is recognized, who is erased, and whose life can only be hidden in the marginal notes. To put a monument on paper, he wanted to write a book that would not deceive others. Compiling a genealogy is like erecting a monument. When the pen is written down, a person remains in the world.