My dao to eternity

The reception hall's senior clerk was not a man Li Fan had ever spoken with directly. He'd delivered his sealed pouch, years ago, to a junior steward long since reassigned elsewhere, and had no reason since to set foot in that particular building at all. He went now on the thinnest pretext he could construct — a commissioned nameplate for the hall's outer chamber, a piece of work Old Mu had genuinely been contracted for weeks earlier and simply hadn't yet delivered.

The clerk who received it was old, sharp-eyed despite his years, and paused halfway through signing the delivery ledger when Li Fan gave his name for the record.

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