The archive doors part under imperial writ, and the Tally Office ledgers are carried in like relics. Their iron corners gleam wetly in torchlight, gold seals pulsing as if they still expect obedience.
Empress Xifeng
Open them. All of them. Let the chamber see what was hidden.
A seal cracks. Then another. The first ledger falls open to columns of neat sums, crossed by fresh corrections in darker ink, each one matched to the smear Kareem already exposed on the Captain’s document.
Kareem Bishop
The same hand touched both records.
Magistrate Heshan
Those are clerical amendments, your Radiance. Routine revisions. The office keeps order by precision, not suspicion.
Magistrate Wei
No. These are concealments. The correction pattern points to deliberate falsification, and it reaches beyond his desk.
The Empress turns her gaze on Kareem, measuring the outsider at the center of her court, the man who has made the hidden ledger speak.
Empress Xifeng
Then name the path, Kareem Bishop. If the Tally Office is rotten, show where the rot begins, and who shields it.