The Heavenly Dao Honors the Debts I Record

The third time Chen Yan went to the Zhou residence to collect a debt, the gatekeeper threw a basin of foot-washing water onto his shoes.

Zhou Jingwen tore up the IOU in the street and said, "I'll be a jinshi in April. You'll never get farther in life than the entrance to Willow Lane."

Chen Yan crouched down and picked up the scraps one by one. He said only, "The one you tore up was a copy."

That night, the Zhou residence caught fire. The next day, the metropolitan examination results were posted, and Zhou's name was nowhere on the list. On the third day, his fiancée broke off their engagement. On the fourth, Zhou Jingwen knelt outside the money house and paid back every last tael, mace, and fen of the thirty-nine taels and four qian he owed.

No one knew that Chen Yan had found a broken brush at the very bottom of the storeroom.

Whatever he writes into this ledger, Heaven's will will collect for him.

But he soon discovered that the brush came at a price. Six tally marks had already been scratched onto the ledger's first page, beside three words: The Seventh One.

The first six people who wielded the brush all died. The seventh is still alive.