The Imperial Provisioning Depot of the Lower Ninth Court was built to hold twenty thousand bushels of immortal grain.
Instead, it held mold.
Lin Ke stood in the cavernous, vaulted warehouse, his boots crunching on damp, rotting husks that gave off a foul, fermented vapor. Beside him, Zhao Wuji held an oil lantern high, lighting up row upon row of collapsed cedar racks. Where five million high-grade spirit stones and padded silk tunics should have been stacked, there were only rusted iron hoops and cracked clay jugs coated in cobwebs.
“Look at this ledger,” Zhao Wuji whispered, his fingers flying across an open dark rock tablet resting on a check podium. “On paper, Depot Seven took delivery of four hundred crates of genuine cold-jade protective vests three weeks ago. Share-out value: five million spirit stones, signed off by the Grand Minister’s office for ‘Scribe Occupational Preservation.’”
“And where are the vests?” Elder Wu DeZheng asked. He peeked nervously over Zhao Wuji’s shoulder while clutching his water-damaged scroll metal tube.
“They never left the dock,” Lin Ke said, his eyes scanning the stone carving. “Or rather, they were checked in and checked out in the exact same heartbeat.”
A heavy iron bolt clicked behind them.
