Chapter 259: The Tug of War (III)

Countless eyes quietly watched the two of them.

If there was really something going on between this Wen Ren Yue and Le Qianzhang, then there'd be a real show to watch.

Unfortunately, Le Qianzhang got the cold shoulder.

Seeing there was no drama to enjoy, the officials sulkily looked away.

Only Zhang Yuanye, the Chief Justice of the Court of Judicial Review, remained staring intently at Le Wuya, his gaze deep and troubled.

...Wen Ren Ming Ke.

What a man, this Wen Ren Ming Ke.

When he first took over the Tian Youde case from the Ministry of Justice, Zhang Yuanye had seen at a glance that this Scholar Tian was a complete reputation-grubber, nothing more than a man willing to step over his own child's corpse to buy himself a bright future.

Otherwise, why else would he have put on that bloody show of killing his son in a temple?

The man got six dou of grain a month and four taels of silver a year—not enough to starve, but hardly rich.

When others were polite, they called him "Old Mingjing"; when they were not, they mocked him as "King Tong," sneering that he had studied until his hair turned white, yet was still just one step above a beginner.

To put it bluntly and cruelly: if Tian Youde had really gotten the emperor's praise off the back of his mother's illness and his kid's death, and then shot up the ranks, made money, and taken a few concubines—would he have been short on heirs?

But Zhang Yuanye went back and forth, still not daring to overturn the case and demand a retrial.

Why make more trouble for yourself?

The Emperor championed filial piety—who among the court officials didn't rush to show off their filial piety?

Why should he go making a fuss and annoy the Emperor?

With this thought, Zhang Yuanye frowned deeply, looked into the distance, and sighed softly.

He'd started out as a local judge, well-versed in criminal law, but unfortunately his nature was indecisive, too soft and weak.

In the provinces, he could use his skills to make something of himself, but once he arrived in the capital, seeing it packed with high officials and censors everywhere, he felt himself shrink by three inches.

If that man were still here...

In a daze, Zhang Yuanye seemed to hear that lazy, teasing voice again: "What are you scared of him for? Just go all out and try the case. ...A son of the Ministry of Rites' Vice Minister? How impressive—I thought it was some royal prince. If the sky falls, I'll hold it up for you; if the ground gives way, I'll be your cushion. With me around, let's see who dares to lay a finger on you, Zhang Yuanye."

However, barely a month after Zhang Yuanye had entered the Court of Judicial Review, before he'd even gotten comfortable, Le Wuya received a transfer order.

And before departing, Le Wuya personally took Zhang Yuanye into the palace to recommend him to the emperor for the post of Vice Chief Justice.

Never mind Zhang Yuanye himself—even the emperor was shocked: "Ridiculous. Zhang Yuanye's only been a judge for a month—aren't you afraid this will look too obvious?"

"He's a top-notch case handler, but he's got the guts of a sparrow," Le Wuya said with a lazy grin, not at all shy about asking for a reward. "Your Majesty, do him a favor, give him a little more backbone. Otherwise, just send him back where he came from, so he doesn't spend every day second-guessing himself and shaking in his boots, wasting all that talent."

Xiang Zheng was speechless for a moment, then shook his head with a wry smile: "Alright, alright. You've always had a sharp eye. I'll go along with you."

...At the time, Zhang Yuanye didn't know the inside story. He just thought he'd witnessed a fine example of a ruler and his minister in perfect harmony, and he secretly envied it for a long time.

Right before he officially left his post, Le Wuya summoned him to his office. He tossed a sealed brocade pouch to Zhang Yuanye like a game of catch.

Zhang Yuanye held it with both hands, respectfully: "Lord Yue, what's this?"

Le Wuya had just gotten over an illness. He looked tired, with dark circles under his eyes, but his eyes still had a sharp gleam: "Do you like hearing a good tale?"

Zhang Yuanye didn't get it: "Listen..."

Le Wuya lazily pointed at the pouch: "This is that Sleeping Dragon's brilliant scheme. When you hit a wall you can't get past, open it up and take a look—it'll save your skin."

Because Le Wuya sounded so utterly at ease, Zhang Yuanye was completely lost, and answered blankly, "Yes."

He really was an honest man.

Whatever Le Wuya said, he did.

Thanks to Le Wuya's recommendation, his career went much more smoothly—no one dared to give him grief—and he hid the pouch in a secret drawer, never once looking at it or even thinking about it.

Until the day everything suddenly changed.

For some reason, Le Wuya had fallen out of the emperor's favor.

When the emperor ordered all officials to report Le Wuya's crimes, his cold, searching gaze rested on Zhang Yuanye for a moment.

Zhang Yuanye, panicked and dazed, stumbled back to his quarters, when suddenly he remembered that long-sealed pouch.

...Inside the pouch was just a plain slip of paper with a case file number written on it.

Zhang Yuanye went straight to the archives, looked up the number, and pulled out a yellowed old case file.

—A rich brat named Liu had killed a common woman of the Song family in the street, been sentenced to exile, and died at the hands of bandits on the way.

With his sharp eye for criminal cases, Zhang Yuanye saw at once that this Liu's death was fishy.

What bandit in this world kills someone without robbing them and then just walks away?

This looked like a hired hit.

But the people with the most motive—the Song woman's parents—were plain, law-abiding commoners who couldn't afford to hire a killer, and they were so cut off from the world they didn't even know which way the courthouse faced, bumping around like headless flies without ever finding a way in. How could they have known when this Liu guy would leave the capital, or which road he'd take?

When Zhang Yuanye looked back at the slip of paper, he suddenly felt a chill, and his hands and feet went weak for a second.

He nearly ran mad into the records office and dug out the attendance registers from past years.

...That's it. On the very day that Liu brat died, Le Wuya had taken a day off.

Zhang Yuanye hid in the archives, clutching the case file and the attendance registers, and broke down crying.

Before he came to the Court of Judicial Review, he'd known that the Song woman's case was a stain on Le Wuya's record.

There was a lot of talk among the people, with many saying the trial was unfair and the verdict fishy.

But after seeing Le Wuya's skills firsthand, Zhang Yuanye had changed his mind, figuring the case probably had nothing hidden behind it.

Who would've thought Lord Yue would turn around and hand him this huge piece of leverage?

...All because, back then, he had recommended him.

And when his tower was about to fall, he didn't want to drag anyone down with him.

So he'd long ago handed Zhang Yuanye a sharpened blade himself, asking him to stick it in his back.

From then on, grievances and favors were settled, and no further debts remained.

The next day, Zhang Yuanye, forcing himself to rally, laid the old case before the throne as one of the pieces of evidence against Le Wuya.

This case exposed the quid pro quo of power and money between Jin Donglai, the young rake Liu's illegitimate father, and Le Wuya, toppling Jin Donglai from power and restoring the Song girl's good name.

Everyone got what was coming to them.

Zhang Yuanye continued in his role as the head of the Court of Judicial Review, but the swaggering confidence he had painstakingly cultivated was gone. He hunkered down, growing ever more timid and withdrawn, until he became just another face in the crowd.

…

Zhang Yuanye set down his brush and sat brooding for a long time, before finally returning to the cold, hard reality before him.

He sat there stiffly for a long while, then, with a sour, grudging reluctance, ruled Scholar Tian's case as "granted" and sent it back to the Ministry of Justice per procedure.

Unexpectedly, it was the newly installed Wenren Mingke who held firm against the pressure, personally journeyed to Zhangde to investigate, and hauled back a whole basketload of evidence.

What was most remarkable was that he had somehow slipped Scholar Tian some kind of magic potion, persuading him to come back with him to the capital.

Scholar Tian, thinking he was to be granted an audience with the emperor and rewarded, holed up in the inn, overjoyed, dreaming of overnight glory and riches.

When he woke from that dream, he found himself facing a joint tribunal of the Three Judicial Offices.

In Zhangde Prefecture, a place he knew well, Scholar Tian had maintained a semblance of putting on airs, with the guts to own up to his own deeds.

But in the unfamiliar capital, after only a brief interrogation, his scholar's spine turned to jelly, and he spilled every last filthy thought in his gut.

With one word, he ratted out his "co-conspirator."

It turned out that after swearing before the gods to offer up his son, Tian Youde's mother's condition really did get better with each passing day.

Having spent half his life struggling in the imperial examinations, Tian Youde had grown a bit unhinged, a firm believer in feng shui and the gods. Seeing the Bodhisattva "work a miracle," he grew panicked instead.

He couldn't bear to give up this son born in his old age, his only heir, yet feared that if he hemmed and hawed about fulfilling his vow, he would offend the gods and ruin his prospects. Distressed, he drowned his worries in wine.

It was a clerk working in the Zhangde Prefecture office who shook Scholar Tian awake.

This man, who had been his classmate for several years, oversaw the moral edification of the people. Recently, for failing to dig up any examples of filial sons or chaste widows, he had been dressed down to his face by Prefect Kou.

Hearing Scholar Tian's drunken complaints, the clerk's eyes brightened, and he urged, "As you say, this is your big break."

"The son is yours, and you gave him life. Now that the Medicine King Bodhisattva has shown favor and answered your prayer, if you keep making excuses not to fulfill your vow, aren't you throwing away this ready-made blessing for nothing?"

"For you, Brother Tian, isn't the most important thing to bring honor to your family name? If you rise to prominence, won't there be plenty of good days ahead with more sons to carry on the line?"

His words stirred Tian Youde's heart.

However, this clerk only fanned the flames in secret and certainly wouldn't personally instruct him on how to kill his son.

So, Tian Youde, thinking himself clever, charged off to the Medicine King Bodhisattva temple and put on a public spectacle of killing his son, thereby making a huge stink of the whole thing.

When the presiding officials of the Three Judicial Offices heard the tear-soaked confession of this foolish and venomous man, they all slapped their foreheads and ground their teeth in fury.

…If such a wretch were to receive official commendation, what face would the court have left? What would become of the very meaning of moral instruction?

In the court, after hearing Wang Su's report on the case, Xiang Zheng erupted in a thunderous fury: "Absurd!"

As if he were hearing about this for the first time, he thundered, "When Tian's mother was gravely ill, Tian Youde, as her son, should have sought medical treatment and cared for her with utmost devotion. How could there be any justification for killing his own son and ending his bloodline? This isn't saving his mother—it's dragging her into infamy!"

"If all the world were to imitate such acts of harming one's own flesh and blood for praise, then fathers and sons would turn on each other, and ethics would be destroyed—how would that make us any different from beasts? This man has read the sages' books, yet commits such wolfish deeds—he is a disgrace to the Confucian tradition!"

The officials, facing the emperor's wrath, naturally kept their heads bowed in solemn deference, nodding and murmuring their assent.

Xiang Zheng, his face dark and grim, delivered the verdict: "Tian Youde, stripped of his academic degree, shall be tried by the Ministry of Justice on the charge of 'deliberate killing of one's own offspring,' and exiled to Liuzhou, with no reprieve even under a general amnesty!"

"Li Jing, the clerk of Zhangde Prefecture, for instigating murder and bewitching Tian Youde into killing his son to flatter the gods, shall be dismissed from his post, never to be hired again in any official capacity, struck from the registry and reduced to commoner status, and his sons and grandsons barred from the imperial exams for three generations!"

"Kou Chun, the prefect of Zhangde Prefecture, for treating a heretical cult as an act of filial piety, unable to tell loyalty from treachery, wisdom from folly, shall be strictly investigated by the Censorate for negligence!"

With that, he cast his eyes downward and called out aloud, "Wenren Yue."

Le Wuya stepped forward: "Your servant is here."

Xiang Zheng praised, "Minister Wenren, bearing the weight of his judicial office, did not shy away from this case, investigated with clear-eyed precision, and truly proved worthy of being my right hand! I hereby raise your salary by one grade and grant you fifty taels of silver from the privy purse as a reward for your merit!"

Le Wuya immediately expressed his gratitude, not breathing a word about his earlier accusation against Kou Chun in the Shouren Hall, comparing him to "Zhang Jiao's schemes."

Xiang Zheng frowned inwardly.

…Sharp, isn't he.

His voice carried a coaxing, gentle tone: "In this case, does the Minister have any further thoughts? Speak freely."

Le Wuya replied without missing a beat: "Your Majesty, I have heard that the sage's teaching on filial piety begins with 'not daring to injure one's own body.' If the world were to follow Tian's example, fishing for fame and praise by maiming oneself and hurting others to chase fame and fortune, would that not go against Your Majesty's core intent of ruling the realm through benevolence and filial piety?"

Xiang Zheng: "…"

He felt like this man had hoisted him up on a pedestal again.

But since the words had been spoken, and every word was perfectly reasonable, Xiang Zheng could hardly wriggle out of it. After mulling it over for a moment, he praised, "What you say, Minister, is most apt."

Then, Xiang Zheng decreed: "From this day forth, any who maim their own limbs or harm their own flesh and blood, falsely claiming filial piety as a pretext, shall not be permitted to seek official commendation, and shall be turned over to the proper authorities for prosecution and severely punished in accordance with the law."

Le Wuya immediately knelt and bowed low: "Your Majesty is truly enlightened!"

His cry of praise came at precisely the right moment, drawing a thunderous chorus of "Long live the Emperor" from the whole court.

After the acclamations, Le Wuya sauntered back to his place among the civil officials.

The way he walked was at once haughty and debonair.

Xiang Zhiyun caught the sound of it and sneaked a sidelong glance at Xiang Zhijie, who stood silently behind him, the corner of his mouth twitching in disbelief:

…What sort of person did Sixth Brother go and find himself?

Since when does the master get put in his place while his man walks away with a raise and a reward?