Names On Paper.

The wind through the paper windows was louder than usual. It groaned against the old wood, rattling the walls like it had something urgent to say.

I dipped my brush in ink, smoothed the scroll with one hand, and added a new name under the others: Maid Yuling.

So far, the list read like this:

- Bai Ruolan: too sweet, too clean, too involved

- Yu Meixiu: former laundry maid turned pharmacy helper, vanished

- Shen Qingyan: not guilty, probably, but not innocent either

- Old Madam Bai: sharp eyes, colder than the ancestral tablets

- Physician He: responsible for the prescriptions

- Maid Yuling: brought the food during the final days

Names on paper. That's all they were. But one of them had watched Bai Ningwei die and thought it was convenient.

The System floated its reminder again:

[Investigation Progress: 19%]

[Soul Token Retrieval Locked until 70%]

[Warning: 6 days remaining.]

At least it hadn't accused me of slacking yet. That would come later.

I leaned back and stared at the ink drying on the scroll. In the candlelight, the words looked like accusations. They probably were.

There was a knock at the shop's front door. Istood and made my way down the narrow stairs, brushing off the dust on my sleeves.

Old Scholar Lin had already opened the door. A pale-faced woman stood there, hunched under a plain brown shawl. She looked up when she saw me.

"Third Miss Bai," she said, voice low. "You don't remember me?"

I blinked. Her name rose from the haze like a hand reaching through water. "Yuling."

The maid who once brought food without ever looking me in the eye. She'd been silent then, too but not stupid.

"I heard you were alive," she said, stepping inside without waiting for permission.

Old Scholar Lin raised a brow, but said nothing. He retreated to his corner like a turtle into its shell.

Yuling stood awkwardly by the door. Her hair was messy. Her hands trembled when she took off the shawl.

"I'm not here to beg," she said quickly. "But someone's watching me. Ever since you came back."

"Who?"

"I don't know. I work at the temple now. They send someone every few days. Pretend they're there to pray, but they ask questions. About the Bai residence. About you."

"Did you tell them anything?"

"No." She paused. "But I know something. About that day."

I gestured for her to sit.

She didn't.

"After you collapsed in the peach courtyard, Madam Bai said not to call a physician. She said if you lived, it would be harder for the family."

That part, I already suspected.

Yuling hesitated. "She also told Bai Ruolan to retrieve something from your room. A letter, I think. I saw her burn it behind the kitchen house."

I frowned. "A letter?"

Yuling nodded. "With red thread tied around it. I only saw the edge. There was a seal, but it was broken."

"Do you know what it said?"

"No. But she looked afraid after reading it. Really afraid."

"Do you know who wrote it?"

"I think it was from the Shen family. I saw that same thread on one of their old envelopes before."

Ruolan burning a Shen letter. That didn't fit the perfect-sister mask she wore in public.

I made a note beside her name.

-Burned letter

-Possibly from Shen family

-Acted on orders

Yuling stared at the ink with wide eyes. "You're investigating?"

I didn't answer.

She took that as permission to speak again. "If you find out who really did it… will they be punished?"

I looked her in the eye. "That depends. Do you want to know the whole story?"

She shook her head. "I want to forget. But if I can't, then I want someone to remember. That's all."

Her voice cracked.

Old Scholar Lin silently handed her a handkerchief. She took it without a word and left a moment later, as quietly as she had come.

The door clicked shut behind her.

"Nice girl," Lin muttered. "Terrible liar."

I looked at him. "You think she's hiding something?"

"She's a maid. Maids always hide something. It's how they survive."

Fair enough.

He went back to his scrolls, and I returned upstairs.

The list had grown longer. So had the gaps between the facts.

I wasn't sure if I was closer to the truth or just further from the lie.

————

The next morning, a package arrived.

Wrapped in coarse paper, tied with string. No name. No seal.

I opened it carefully.

Inside was a folded robe - pale blue, well-stitched, clearly not mine - and a small paper note tucked inside the collar.

For Third Miss. Courtesy of Young Master Shen.

There was no other message attached.

I didn't need a message. The gesture itself was a statement.

I placed the robe aside and didn't touch it again.

Old Scholar Lin peeked over my shoulder. "A gift from the past?"

"From a complication."

He nodded. "Those make the best stories."

"Not if you're the one stuck in them."

———-

That afternoon, I made my way to the medicine hall in the outer district. The place was run by an old physician who owed my scholar a favor and didn't ask too many questions.

I found him bent over a ledger, surrounded by dust and dry herbs.

"I need help," I said.

"You look like it," he replied without looking up.

I placed a copy of Bai Ningwei's old prescription on the counter. "This was the my prescription. Can you check if anything's off?"

He adjusted his glasses. Read it once. Then again.

"This dose of white peony is too high," he said. "It thins the blood. Makes fainting more likely."

"Could it kill someone?"

"If their body's already weak, yes."

He looked up. "But this isn't the doctor's error. Someone changed it."

I stiffened. "How can you tell?"

"See here?" He pointed to a faint smudge near the middle character. "Ink dragged sideways. Like someone scraped it and rewrote the amount."

Not an accident, then. A deliberate change.

I bowed. "Thank you."

He waved me off. "If you find out who did it, tell them they owe me two herbs and a bottle of win."

————

Back at the bookshop, I added the note to the scroll:

- Prescription altered

- Ink tampered

- Likely done by someone in charge of final copy

!!Check: Yu Meixiu, Physician He!!

That evening, the System blinked to life again.

[Investigation Progress: 33%]

[Deadline: 5 days remaining]

[Warning: Target may act if progress continues.]

"Of course they might act," I muttered. "Who wouldn't panic when their crime gets uncovered?"

The System didn't reply. It never did when it had nothing clever to say.

I looked down at the robe from earlier. Still folded. Still untouched.

A strange thing, to be seen as valuable only after your death. Or worse, only after your usefulness returned.

Bai Ningwei had died without fanfare. But this time the story would not end quietly.

I sat back down, dipped the brush into ink, and kept writing.