The Enforcer Hunting My Pen Name Reads Every Chapter novel · Chapter 14 of 24

Chapter 14: The Hearing

Sheet two hundred and seven went out on the market morning, and by the afternoon every bench in the Discipline Hall's hearing room was full.

Nobody had been invited.

Eighty disciples had simply arrived, in clean robes, with folded paper in their sleeves.

Shen stood at the back wall with his arms folded.

He had a cloth in his pocket for his lip, and he had not needed it yet.

"Term four," Mo had told him at the door, quietly.

"The Hall will ask questions about the Pavilion. I will not. It is the Hall's question and not mine."

"Accepted."

"If your tally warms, signal me." Mo's tone was brisk.

"How?"

"I will see it." Mo went to his place.

The Inspector's clerk sat at a side table with a brush and a stack of blank leaves.

Elder Fu sat beside him, hands in his sleeves, to witness.

Yuan Qianhe sat on the witness stool with his green robe pressed and his jade ruler on his knee.

"Lord Yuan," Mo began. "The Hall thanks you for coming. This is a matter of missing stock."

"I came because I was summoned." The ruler tapped once. "I am exact, and I dislike gossip. What stock?"

"Forty-two jars of Spring Dew, drawn from the Pavilion's store."

"Forty-three."

A small stir went along the benches.

"Forty-three," Mo agreed, and the clerk's brush scratched.

"Drawn on the twenty-third of the ninth month, twelve years ago, on your signature."

"Do you remember the date?"

Qianhe's ruler tapped. "Of course I remember."

"Where were you?"

"At the Whitewater Retreat." Qianhe's voice was even and clear. "In the hour of the Ox. It did not rain."

Somebody in the third row made a noise into a sleeve.

It was the line from sheet ninety-eight, and every disciple in the room had it by heart.

The Prince's brother had said it in the same order of words.

Qianhe's eyes moved across the benches, and the ruler began to tap faster.

"The Retreat keeps a gate register."

Mo opened a folder.

"I have a copy. It records that the Retreat was closed by flood from the twentieth of that month to the twenty-fifth."

"No person came or went."

Qianhe did not blink. "The register is wrong."

"In what way?"

"The flood began on the twenty-fourth." Qianhe's lips thinned.

"The twentieth is the date of the first rain, which was a drizzle. The gate was never closed until the twenty-fourth."

He lifted his chin.

"Whoever copied it did not trouble to be exact. The Retreat was open on the twenty-third. I came and went as I pleased."

"Then who let you in?"

"The gatekeeper." Qianhe sniffed.

"His name?"

"I did not ask it. He was eating a pear."

The ruler struck the palm.

"He ate it badly. He had the juice down his sleeve."

Shen heard the Elder's breath go out.

On the bench beside him, a boy of eighteen put both hands over his own mouth.

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