Chapter 136: Details Of The Ledger

Back at Lu Feng’s estate, Han Lin set the ledger down on the bed close to Lu Feng with the same careful reverence she always seemed to handle it with, then straightened and offered a small bow toward them both.

"I’ll leave you two to it," she said, already backing toward the door. "It’s clear this is important, and I’ve still got Aunt Gao’s list to finish going over."

"Thank you, Han Lin," Lu Feng said, glancing up from the ledger long enough to offer her a warm smile. "For finding this, and for bringing it now."

She waved off the thanks with an easy smile of her own, glanced briefly between him and Ye Chenxue with the faintest hint of knowing amusement, then slipped out and pulled the door shut quietly behind her, leaving the two of them alone with the ledger and the soft morning light spilling in through the window.

Lu Feng pulled the book toward himself and opened the cover properly for the first time, the worn leather creaking faintly under his fingers.

It took him only a few pages to understand what he was looking at. This was indeed a ledger, methodical and precise, each page divided into careful entries recording names, purchased items, payment amounts, payment methods, outstanding debts where they existed, sales made, and a date marking when each transaction had occurred.

Someone had kept this record with obsessive discipline over what appeared to be years, page after page filled with the quiet, patient bookkeeping of someone who clearly never intended for it to be seen by anyone outside their own circle.

The handwriting itself was consistent throughout, small and controlled, each column aligned with a precision that suggested whoever had kept this book took real pride in the work, or at least understood how much depended on getting every figure exactly right. Whoever this belonged to hadn’t trusted memory alone, not for dealings this valuable, this sensitive.

There was a problem, though, one that became apparent within the first several pages. While nearly every page carried writing, the majority of it was rendered in a script Lu Feng didn’t recognize at all, dense and angular, nothing like the common trade characters he’d learned to read fluently over the years.

Whatever this ledger truly recorded in full detail remained locked behind a language he had no way to decipher on his own. He’d need someone with real expertise, someone who could be trusted not to ask too many questions about why a merchant’s household suddenly needed an obscure script translated.

That realization didn’t stop him from working through what he could understand in the meantime. A portion of each entry, it seemed, had still been recorded in plain trade script, likely for whoever handled the day to day bookkeeping without needing to know the deeper context behind each deal. He began turning pages slowly, scanning through names and figures, looking for anything that stood out.

The first name that caught his attention did so before he could explain why. It felt familiar somehow, a faint tug of recognition he couldn’t place to any actual memory, though he was certain he’d never met anyone by that name in his life.

The entry beside it recorded the purchase of over a dozen quality swords, paid for in full with several hundred gold coins, dated years back, with no outstanding balance listed. Ordinary enough, on its surface. A wealthy buyer stocking a private armory, perhaps.

He turned another few pages and found a second entry that drew his eye, this one for protection arrays alongside a batch of low grade cultivation pills, again paid for entirely in gold coin, again with nothing suspicious in the numbers themselves.

At first glance, none of it looked like anything more than the ordinary business of a well connected merchant catering to wealthy clients. But Lu Feng had learned, over these past months, not to trust first glances where money and secrecy were concerned, and something about the sheer volume of untranslated entries surrounding these plain ones told him there was far more happening beneath the surface than a simple trade in swords and pills.

Too many of the entries were locked away in that unreadable script for this to be an ordinary ledger kept for an ordinary business. Whoever wrote it had gone out of their way to make sure most of what mattered here stayed hidden from anyone who might stumble across it without the right knowledge to read it properly.

He was already turning over the shape of a plan in his mind, a way to test exactly how ordinary this ledger truly was, even before he found anything that confirmed his suspicion outright.

If he could track down even one of the names recorded in plain trade script, someone still alive and reachable within Crimson Vale or nearby, that person might be willing to confirm or deny what kind of dealings this book actually represented, without ever needing to know why Lu Feng was asking.

He found it a dozen or so pages later.

The name attached to this entry meant nothing to him at all, no flicker of familiarity this time, only a cold, growing unease as he read through what had been recorded. Six female slaves, purchased outright, paid for partially in gold coin, with a remaining balance still listed as owed. And at the very end of the section dedicated to this particular buyer, inked in stark, deliberate red, sat a single mark shaped like an X.

Lu Feng stared at that mark for a long moment, turning the implication over carefully before he let himself settle on a conclusion. A debt left unpaid, followed by a red mark drawn with obvious finality. It didn’t take much imagination to guess what that combination likely meant. Whoever kept this ledger didn’t simply record failed payments. They most likely recorded consequences as well.

He didn’t know who owned this ledger, not yet, not with any certainty. But he was increasingly certain it wasn’t the work of some minor merchant dabbling in questionable side deals. Whoever this was operated with real reach, real influence, and apparently very little hesitation when it came to enforcing what they were owed.

He finally looked up from the pages, meeting Ye Chenxue’s eyes across the desk. She’d been watching him quietly this entire time, patient as always, letting him work through it at his own pace without interrupting.

"It’s a ledger," he said. "Completely normal trades mixed with distinctly illegal ones, from what little I can read of it. Weapons, protection arrays, pills. And at least one entry for slaves, with what looks like a death mark beside an unpaid debt." He tapped the page gently. "Whoever kept this book was either very powerful, very well connected, or both. This isn’t the work of someone operating quietly on the fringes."

Ye Chenxue let out a slow breath, her expression thoughtful rather than surprised. "What do you intend to do with it?"

"For now, hold onto it," Lu Feng said. "Most of it is still locked behind a writing I can’t read, so there’s a limit to what I can actually learn until I find someone trustworthy enough to translate the rest. But it’s safest kept close, here, rather than passed off to anyone else while I’m still working out who might have a reason to want it back."

"A reasonable approach," Ye Chenxue agreed. "Though I imagine finding someone both capable of reading that script and trustworthy enough not to ask why won’t be simple."

"No," Lu Feng admitted. "It won’t be. But it’s a problem worth solving properly rather than rushing." He closed the ledger carefully and set it aside on the desk, the weight of the morning’s discoveries settling for a moment into comfortable silence between them.

He studied her for a moment longer before speaking again, something in her posture catching his attention now that his mind wasn’t fully occupied with the ledger’s pages.

"How are you doing, truly?" he asked. "Your cultivation. Where does it stand?"

Ye Chenxue hesitated for just a fraction of a second before answering, which told him more than her actual words did. "I finished absorbing the pills you gave me a while back. I’ve progressed to the second level of the Blood Condensation Stage."

Lu Feng straightened, genuine surprise crossing his face. "That’s excellent progress. Why didn’t you tell me sooner?"

She shrugged, not quite meeting his eyes. "I didn’t want to bother you with it. You’ve had enough weighing on you these past days, between Lin Laifu, Han Lin, and now this ledger. A minor progress in my own cultivation didn’t seem urgent enough to add to that."

"Chenxue." He said her name with a mild edge of reproach, though there was no real anger in it, only concern. "That’s not something you should be keeping to yourself. A progress like that means you need more resources, more pills, possibly a different training approach altogether. I would’ve provided everything you needed the moment you reached that level, had I known."

She scratched the back of her neck, an oddly bashful gesture from someone who moved through combat with such effortless precision. "I know. I just didn’t want to add to your list of things to worry about."

Lu Feng shook his head slowly, rising from behind the desk and crossing the short distance between them until he stood directly in front of her, close enough now that she had to tilt her head slightly to keep meeting his eyes. He placed a hand gently on her shoulder.

"You are never a burden to worry about," he said, his voice quiet but firm. "Whatever you need, whenever you need it, you come to me. I mean that. I’d rather you tell me a hundred times over something that turns out to be nothing, than stay silent about something this important because you thought it wasn’t worth my attention."

Ye Chenxue held his gaze for a moment, something unreadable flickering behind her sharp eyes, before she finally gave a small, quiet nod. "I understand."

Standing this close to him, his hand still resting on her shoulder, a faint warmth crept up along the edges of her ears, spreading just slightly across her cheeks before she caught herself and glanced away, clearing her throat softly.

"I’ll remember that," she added, a touch quieter than before, "for next time."

Lu Feng, either too preoccupied with the morning’s discoveries to notice or simply choosing not to comment on it, only nodded and let his hand fall away, turning his attention back toward the ledger sitting closed on the desk, already thinking ahead toward everything that still needed to be done.

There was the auction to plan, the ledger’s remaining pages to decipher, a translator to find and vet, and now, a fresh batch of pills to sort out for Ye Chenxue’s continued cultivation on top of everything else.

The list seemed to grow longer with every conversation lately rather than shorter, but for the first time in days, none of it felt entirely unmanageable. If anything, watching Ye Chenxue’s quiet progress, and knowing Lin Laifu was finally on the mend, gave him a steadier footing to stand on as he turned to face whatever came next.

"We should get started properly," he said, glancing toward her with a faint, tired smile. "Both on the ledger, and on getting you what you actually need going forward."

"Together, then," Ye Chenxue said, and for the first time all morning, something almost like ease settled over the room between them.