Chapter 50: A Document Signed Willingly

The dead tax collector was perfectly happy to sign. He sat on a bench under the ginkgo in the front courtyard of the City God Temple in the green robe he had died in, with his hands folded on his knees, and looked at the paper on the little table in front of him as if it were a meal he had been promised for years. "Red," said Collector Fan. "With gold flecks." "Yes," said Ming. "Not plain red. Plain red is for a betrothal. Gold flecks is for the marriage letter itself." He leaned forward and peered at it. He was washed out in the spring sunlight, as all the dead were by day, and the grain of the bench showed at his elbows. "And the witness's column on the left. Not the right. People always put it on the right." "It's on the left." Collector Fan studied it.…