Chapter 299: Breaking the Deadlock (6)

The young shop assistant, unaware of the shifting tides in the courtroom, walked in with his head held high, looking like he had everything figured out.

Wang Cheng followed the same approach, opening with the same question: "May I ask, what time did I enter the silk shop the day before yesterday?"

The shop assistant had long since memorized his testimony, so he answered with full confidence: "Right at the start of the Shen hour!"

Unexpectedly, among the listening commoners there was a sharp-eared, impatient soul who shouted at the top of his lungs: "Wrong!"

"Silence!" Zhou Wenchang slammed the gavel heavily, barking sternly, "Anyone who disrupts this court will be caned! Offend again, and there will be no mercy!"

Hearing this, the shop assistant's heart skipped a beat: ...Wrong? Where?

His voice wavered with uncertainty: "...This... this lowly one remembers it was right at the start of the Shen hour..."

"Indeed, it is wrong. It was exactly at the hour of Shen." Wang Cheng said without changing his expression. "When I entered the shop, the pawnshop next door had closed early, and the assistant had just hung up the sign reading 'Inventory at the Hour of Shen.' If you can't even get the time straight, yet you try to defame my character—that's truly infuriating!"

The young shop assistant was quick to respond, hastily rebutting: "It's just a quarter of an hour—who can remember that kind of detail!"

With that, he turned to face the grim-faced Zhou Wenchang, trying to muddy the waters: "Your Honor, you must see the truth here! This man clearly knows he's in the wrong, which is why he keeps harping on trivialities!"

Feeling pretty proud of his smear tactics, he stole a glance around—only to see that even the clerk beside had stopped writing, his eyes filled with suspicion.

The shop assistant completely lost his composure.

...Wh-what happened?

Wang Cheng exposed him unhurriedly: "You say that, yet the previous assistant claimed I entered the shop at the second quarter of the Shen hour, because that was when the county school rang its dismissal bell. Misremembering the time isn't unusual—but how is it that one of you misremembers it earlier, and the other later?"

The young shop assistant's head buzzed.

He silently cursed the earlier fool: You dumb bastard, who told you to switch it up?!

In his panic, he forgot he'd just changed his own story too. His mind raced, and he quickly said: "It's... it's this lowly one who couldn't remember clearly!"

Wang Cheng raised an eyebrow slightly: "Misremembered?"

The young shop assistant held his ground stubbornly: "Exactly! In summer the days are long—who can tell the difference between one or two quarters of an hour that precisely!"

Wang Cheng countered: "If that's so, then when you accused me, how were you able to assert with such certainty that it was 'right at the start of the Shen hour'—such a precise time? So does this 'bad memory' of yours only kick in at certain times?"

The young shop assistant was momentarily struck speechless.

Of course—that was the story the shopkeeper's wife had fed them.

He switched to cursing her under his breath: Why did she have to pick such a specific time?! Down to the exact minute, no less!

He didn't know the inside story, but Wang Cheng saw right through it.

Wang Cheng had had direct contact with You the Second's wife, so he could read the woman's state of mind:

She was very afraid, but she had no choice.

She desperately wanted to do right by the task she'd been given—so much so that she overdid it.

Liars do this all the time: because they feel guilty, they pile on details to prove their words aren't false, and they'll unconsciously keep repeating the one true thing buried in ten lies, just to feel better.

—And so, Wang Cheng had indeed stepped into the silk shop right at the start of the Shen hour.

But these shop assistants were just following orders, so they wouldn't pick up on that kind of subtle psychology.

Thrown off by Wang Cheng's maneuvering, the young assistant was completely lost:

Should he stick with what the shopkeeper's wife told him—"right at the start of the Shen hour"?

Or go along with the first guy's "second quarter of the Shen hour"?

Or just say "right at the hour of Shen"?

Which of this Wang guy's statements was true? Which was a lie?

Was the pawnshop putting up its closing sign a lie?

Business had been slow lately, so they really did close up earlier than usual.

Or was the school bell thing a lie?

No—the school really did ring its bell at that time on normal days.

The young shop assistant tried hard to remember what happened at the shop the day before yesterday.

After the shopkeeper's wife knocked Wang Cheng down, the shop was in total chaos—some were tying him up, some were reporting to the authorities, total pandemonium. Everyone had been wired and on edge, and he just couldn't remember those outside details clearly.

But it was way too late to play dumb now.

After all, he'd walked in so sure of himself, saying it was "right at the start of the Shen hour."

Could he change his story and say the shopkeeper's wife told him the time, and he actually couldn't remember?

Wouldn't that make it sound like they'd cooked up their story in advance?

And then there was the first guy, who'd already changed his story to the second quarter of the Shen hour...

Did he actually hear the school's dismissal bell himself? Is that why he said that?

Wang Cheng watched calmly as the shop assistant, trapped and sweating, felt the silent pressure of his gaze.

Wang Cheng had picked up this trick over years of working cases with Zheng Miao.

In this case, his greatest advantage was that he had a clear conscience; his biggest weakness was that he had no corroborating evidence.

The way to break the deadlock was to tear the opposition apart from the inside.

Liars, weighed down by guilt, are more likely than most to get stuck on small details and can't pull themselves out.

Not to mention the first assistant had already given him a possible answer to fall back on.

For this young assistant, he was now stuck between a rock and a hard place.

Because with the two testimonies contradicting each other, he would inevitably face the prospect of confronting the first assistant in open court.

For those giving false testimony, "confrontation" itself is a form of pressure.

Once they each stuck to their own version, the more they contradicted each other, the more likely the whole thing would collapse.

At that point, it would be a lose-lose situation.

But if he went along with the earlier one—even if that testimony was wrong—his own responsibility would be somewhat lighter.

... After all, he was thrown off by the earlier testimony.

Sure enough, after the young clerk's eyes darted around for a moment, he mumbled, "Perhaps I made a mistake..."

"Oh?" Wang Cheng showed a trace of frustration, as if the guy had guessed right, "You heard the school dismissal bell too?"

The young clerk gritted his teeth: "Yes! I heard it!"

Wang Cheng changed tack: "Besides the time, there's another matter. According to the complaint, I used Magistrate Zhou's name to threaten the shopkeeper, and after the deed, I was to split the profits with him—me taking two, him taking eight. Is that true?"

The young clerk, having wised up, flat-out denied it: "I know nothing about this!"

"Is that so?" Wang Cheng kept pressing, "A key detail like that, and the shopkeeper only told the first guy, not you? Then why did she send both of you to testify? So are you only testifying to half the truth?"

The young clerk: "..."

"Defrauding the yamen and inflating the value of the goods involved, if it exceeds five hundred coins, and if they don't change their testimony within three days of giving it, they'll be subject to the penalty for false testimony." Wang Cheng said slowly, "You're testifying for your boss, but you're fuzzy on the time and the key details, which means you barely know anything about this case..."

Wang Cheng's voice softened: "...You're accusing me of impersonating an official and swindling money, which is a serious crime. Think hard about whether you can handle the penalty for false accusation before you answer."

Zhou Wenchang: "..."

What a masterful bit of coaxing.

The young clerk, scared out of his wits by the mention of "false accusation," had completely lost the nerve he'd had when he was cursing Wang Cheng earlier: "Sir, sir, please do right by me! Since when does a suspect get to interrogate a witness? As for the two-eight split, I truly know nothing! I'm just an errand boy, I only know he came into the shop at the second quarter of the shen hour, anything beyond that, I'm totally in the dark, I wouldn't dare spout nonsense! Please, sir, look into it carefully! Please!"

Zhou Wenchang looked down at the man coldly, thinking, this one's definitely a bit sharper than the last one.

The first one was taken in by Wang Cheng's pitiful act, swaggering along, led by the nose, and falling straight into the trap.

This one could tell Wang Cheng was no pushover and fought like crazy, but still got caught in the trap.

The young clerk cried and shouted for a long while, crying and sniffling, but got no response at all from the magistrate. Guilt-ridden, he stayed flat on the ground, not daring to move.

Zhou Wenchang ordered the first clerk to be brought back into the hall.

When the first man left the hall and saw that Wang Cheng seemed to have transformed into a different person, his heart was already in his throat.

Now, upon re-entering the hall and seeing the young clerk kneeling on the ground like a quail, he panicked even more, quickly copying him and dropping to his knees, his heart about to pound out of his chest.

They heard Zhou Wenchang's voice from above: "You say this man walked into the silk shop at the second quarter of the shen hour, right?"

The first clerk responded first: "Yes."

The young clerk, a little relieved, chimed in: "Yes! The second quarter of shen hour!"

"Because you heard the bell?"

"Yes!"

"Absurd!" Zhou Wenchang scolded, "The county school's been taken over by the government for the past two days to sell the relief grain sent from the prefecture! The students aren't even there, so how could there be a dismissal bell?!"

The secretary slapped his thigh, the light bulb going off.

That's it!

So that was the source of that nagging feeling that something was off!

Deputy Magistrate Jian nodded slightly.

He'd spotted this hole in their story earlier.

The moment the magistrate got back to Dansui, he'd given him a full report that all two hundred dan of relief grain had been sold.

But these shopkeepers and clerks weren't scholars, so they had no idea what was going on at the county school. Wang Cheng's little bluff had flushed them out.

With this thought, he looked at Wang Cheng with a new flicker of respect.

The first clerk was completely floored.

The young clerk flailed like a drowning man: "Then... it must've been when the pawnshop was putting up its closing sign! They happened around the same time!"

"Sorry, I made that one up too." Wang Cheng said gently, "When the yamen runners were hauling me out of the silk shop, I saw the pawnshop next door putting up its closing sign and just tossed it out there. That was already the start of the you hour. If you don't believe me, you can call in the pawnshop owner and his clerks to confirm. Young man, you're not going to tell me you got confused again and can't tell the start of the you hour from the start of the shen hour, are you?"

At that, the second clerk was completely stunned, his jaw on the floor.

Zhou Wenchang said coldly, "Your testimonies are all over the place and full of holes—they're no longer credible! Besides, in the statement You the Second's wife submitted, there's no mention of any one-nine split, yet someone's gone and claimed it for her..."

He turned his eyes to the first clerk.

By the time the guy figured out what was going on, it was too late.

His face went white, and he was shaking all over.

Zhou Wenchang asked, "So did this actually happen and just not get written down, or did you two not get your stories straight, leaving holes like this?!"

Wang Cheng smiled and drove the last nail in the coffin: "Magistrate, you're wise enough to sort out right from wrong. When you question the shopkeeper, you might let her know these two have confessed to me planning a 'three-seven' split with you... I'm sure the shopkeeper will be happy to confirm it too."

Keep it quiet and it works; blab and it falls apart.

Any time more than two people are in on a scheme, something's bound to leak.

Watching these two get shredded by Wang Cheng all by himself, just with his mouth, Zhou Wenchang knew there was no point in dragging the trial on.

He pronounced the verdict: "The shopkeeper of Youji Silk Shop is to be held in custody pending further trial. Court adjourned!"

After the crowd filed out, clearly wanting more, Zhou Wenchang quickly descended from the hall and bowed deeply to Wang Cheng, his posture extremely respectful: "Watching those two bluster and contradict themselves, I could tell you'd been wrongly accused. I slipped up and let you suffer an injustice."

Wang Cheng stood up and returned the bow calmly: "You're too kind, Magistrate."

"May I ask who you really are? With that kind of presence and poise, you're clearly no ordinary man."

"Magistrate Zhou, you flatter me; I don't deserve it. I'm just a lowly clerk."

Zhou Wenchang, figuring he was still being modest and hiding who he was, handed back all his things and said pleasantly, "Sir, no need to keep it a secret. This county's in a rough patch, and since you're from the capital, you must be an inspector from the Censorate sent to oversee the relief efforts."

"Master Zhou, I really am not." Wang Cheng couldn't help but laugh at Zhou Wenchang's guess, "I'm just a plainclothes constable, no rank, no title, a nobody in the official hierarchy."

Before he'd come, Le Wuya had given him his instructions.

So he nonchalantly dropped a bombshell: "Our boss is sitting in your county jail right now."

...

When he went back into the county jail, Zhou Wenchang was practically jogging, working up a sweat.

The Chief Jailer saw the magistrate come back and started to greet him, but Zhou Wenchang cut him off: "Get the keys and open the door, now!"

The Chief Jailer, caught off guard by the rush, hesitated for a second, and Deputy Magistrate Jian barked at him, "Move it! Move it!"

The jailer, startled out of his wits, scrambled over to Le Wuya's cell, his hands shaking as he worked the lock.

Qin Xingyue turned his head, watching this procession of officials march in with a big show of force. He shot to his feet, shoved the straw off his head, and spread his arms as if to shield someone: "Stop! What do you think you're doing?!"

These officials in their court robes, ignoring the prison's grime, all turned to face the figure behind Qin Xingyue and hiked up their robes to kneel in unison.

Zhou Wenchang knelt fastest and most devoutly, his forehead nearly touching the ground: "Your subordinate, Dansui County Magistrate Zhou Wenchang, humbly welcomes His Excellency the Censor! Your subordinate was blind and failed to recognize you, and has treated Your Honor with neglect—a crime worthy of death!"

He kowtowed once: "Humbly inquiring after the Emperor's well-being!"

A handsome face peeked out from behind Qin Xingyue, and said languidly: "His Majesty is well."

The legal advisor stood by, inwardly unconvinced.

Even if this were a fourth-rank Censor, having a cut on his neck, demanding ten taels of silver in compensation, and brawling with the clerk at Niu's Inn—it was all rather beneath his station.

In the advisor's view, this was nothing short of extortion.

But the moment he laid eyes on Le Wuya's face, all his silent grumbling vanished in an instant. As he stood speechless, only one thought filled his mind:

A face like that... if it were truly marred, even ten thousand taels of gold could never redeem the loss.