Both Sect Heads Wanted Out of the Marriage, So They Tried to Ruin the Town Together novel · Chapter 17 of 24

Chapter 17: Trial of the Ledger

The Trial of the Ledger was held in the ferry office, at a long table the Chair had carried down from the temple.

By the first bell, half of Crooked Ferry was crammed into the doorway to watch two people have their sums checked.

Zhuyuan's books went first, three leather volumes with silk bookmarks and a ribbon for every month.

The Chair turned a page, and then another.

"Perfect," she said, with distaste. "Is there a flaw?"

"One, Madam Chair," said Zhuyuan miserably. "A blot, on the ninth of the fourth month. I apologized to the page."

The Chair made a mark so small that nobody could say what it meant.

"Jade Kettle," she said. "Your books, Mistress Tang."

Xiaohe wheeled in a barrow of forty-one jar lids, each one chalked with prices, thumbprints and a recipe for pickled radish.

"Everything about a jar is written on its own lid," said Luoyi. "It's the only honest way."

"It is a pile of crockery," said the Chair. "Show me the third month."

Luoyi picked up a lid, turned it over, and picked up a second.

Someone in the crowd laughed and was shushed.

She had kept the Hall's money in her head since she was nineteen, and in her head it was perfect.

Out loud, in front of a woman with a voice, it sounded like soup.

Xiaohe stood at her elbow holding out the pickled-radish lid, saying nothing at all.

Steward Ma had already opened a clean page of his ledger and uncapped his brush.

Luoyi let out a breath.

"Xiaohe, read the lids," she said. "Ma, you write. Zhuyuan, don't apologize to anything."

He apologized to the barrow.

It took the three of them until noon, and by then the Hall's money stood in Ma's neat columns and added up.

"The sums are sound," said the Chair. "The method is a crime."

"Thank you," said Luoyi.

"It was not praise."

Then an old Silverbell clerk stepped out of the crowd, the one who had kept the Hearth's rent rolls since the first week.

He bowed to the Chair, and then to Zhuyuan, with real warmth.

"Head Jiang, a small favor while the Chair is here," he said. "Would the Hearth waive my nephew's mooring toll for the season?"

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