The Ledger Keeper of Zhenyao Pass

Beneath Zhenyao Pass lies an iron rule: names in the ledger, lives at the pass. Nineteen-year-old Chen Yan entered the Zhenyao Bureau as a copyist clerk. A pen pusher is never allowed to leave the city's northern thirty li, because those who wield pens don't deserve locks—writers' lives are cheap, and demons look down on them. On his first day on duty, he saw a name on a ghost-summoning notice for the Ghost Festival: Chen Wu. That was his sister. Three years ago, everyone forgot her—even on her deathbed, his mother asked, "Who did you just call?" Only he remembers. So he took up a blue pen mixed with demon blood and, in Yanhui City, cracked false cases, exposed fake merits, verified true names, and wrote verdicts. Every time he judged a demon, the demon's debt transferred to him; for every additional name, he lost a bit of himself. He climbed all the way up, past the three thousand two hundred forty bronze locks of the Thousand Lock Grotto, to the Roll-Call Tower at the top of the pass— Only to discover that Zhenyao Pass doesn't suppress demons. It suppresses this city. And the eighth seat at the top of the pass has always been empty. "Records are based on facts, not likes or dislikes." "Once a verdict is spoken, it is final." "I am the one who specializes in auditing accounts." — Description from novelcodex.orgFull novel: The Ledger Keeper of Zhenyao Pass — read the rest free on N​o⁠v​e⁠l​C⁠o​d⁠e​x⁠.​o⁠r​g⁠