### Chapter 65: Governance (III)

Chapter 65: Government Affairs (3)

The wooden partition was removed and, covered with cloth as evidence, hauled off to the yamen.

While the wall panel was being dismantled, Wen Ren stepped inside to check out the seditious poem.

The poem was indeed, as Zhang Yushu had said, written in charcoal.

He tried wiping it off and found there was more going on.

—It had also been deepened with a carving knife.

A fresh coat of paint wouldn't have been enough to hide it.

The only way to completely destroy it was to take the whole panel down and haul it off.

Wen Ren thought this was a little strange, filed it away in his head, and kept his mouth shut.

The four guys from the outhouse, along with the Village Head and the servants, were strung together with rope and marched through Nanting's newly fixed-up main street.

Everyone loves a spectacle.

Even in the early morning, many in Nanting, holding their breakfasts and rubbing the sleep out of their eyes, gathered to watch the magistrate haul people in right out in the open.

Before they even reached the yamen, the folks living near the courthouse already knew something had gone down at someone's outhouse.

But as word spread, the story got twisted.

As Le Wuya walked ahead without looking sideways, he overheard a guy out buying soy sauce telling the stall owner, all serious: "Holy crap, you won't believe this—a bunch of guys got into a brawl, lost their minds, ran into the outhouse, scooped up crap from the pit, and started chucking it at each other! Rumor has it the Ming Scholar stepped in, beat both sides, and only then got them to stop flinging shit at each other!"

Le Wuya kept a straight face, waved his fan, and kept walking.

Wen Ren, who was also caught up in this, brought up the rear.

Unlike the last time he had been suspected of "rebellion," Wen Ren's mindset had completely changed.

On the short walk back to the courthouse, he worked the whole thing out in his head.

...This case, unlike the Ming Scholar's rebellion case, was probably going to go nowhere.

Ming Xiangzhao's case had an accuser and physical evidence—sure, it was all deadly serious, but at least there was a chance to fight it in court.

But this seditious poem written in a cesspit was a textbook case with no leads.

People came and went from that outhouse like a revolving door every day—who's going to pay close attention to who goes in and out?

Sure, not many folks in the village could read, but you still couldn't identify someone just from their handwriting.

When they had been dismantling the panel, Wen Ren had taken a careful look at the characters on the wall—they were all crooked and messy, and it could just as easily have been written with the left hand or traced by someone who couldn't read, just copying the shapes.

He'd improvised and caught those two tailing him red-handed, but all they had to do was stick to their story that they just went in to take a piss.

Even if they really were trusted men of some Village Elder, traveling all that way just to use the john—suspicious as hell, sure—but it wasn't exactly hard proof.

Even if this went to court, there was no way to settle it.

So the question arose.

Wen Ren fixed his gaze on Le Wuya: So why was Brother Gu making such a big deal out of this?

...

Everything went down exactly as Wen Ren had figured.

Once they got to court, both sides stuck to their stories and yelled about how they'd been wronged.

The Village Head dug in his heels, insisting they'd never knowingly hidden anything.

According to the Village Head, they'd reported it to Village Elder Zhang Ji and notified the authorities at the same time—if the courthouse had given the word, they'd have immediately scrubbed away that treasonous poem.

He even brought up Zhang Yushu, the one who'd reported it, saying if they'd wanted to hide it, why would they have sent the guy who found it to the courthouse to see Wen Ren?

Zhang Yushu: "..."

The Village Head had left in a hurry and hadn't told him what to say, and he hadn't wanted to report it to the authorities in the first place.

But his family lived in the area and the Village Head usually looked out for them, so whatever the Village Head said, that was that.

He hung his head and stayed quiet, which was as good as confirming it.

As for the two guys who'd shown up at the outhouse later, everything went down just like Wen Ren figured: they stuck to their guns, refusing to admit they'd come to catch someone red-handed and got caught themselves instead.

The two were cousins, bondservants bound by death contracts to Village Elder Ding Zhe's household, and they didn't ordinarily live there.

However, they had an uncle on their mom's side who lived nearby, had no kids, and had recently had a relapse of an old illness, leaving him weak and stuck in bed.

They'd asked for time off to come take care of him and had been crashing at their uncle's place—they'd just woken up with full bladders that morning, and not getting why the outhouse was locked and why they were being stopped, they'd gotten pissed off and gotten into a shoving match with the others.

But Wen Ren picked up on one thing:

When the two of them saw the seditious poem on the removed partition, they both looked surprised at the same time, like they'd spotted something off.

But that surprise was gone in a flash.

After this round of questioning, anyone with half a brain could see Ding Zhe had probably sent his people to stir up trouble.

But there was no hard proof.

They could scheme against each other behind closed doors, but in court, without solid evidence, nothing was going to get settled.

Le Wuya watched the mess down below—everyone with their own sob story, everyone with their own logic—and rested his chin on his hand, thinking for a moment: "If there were suspicious characters hanging around the outhouse, who could vouch for that?"

The Village Head was caught off guard by the question, thinking, who the hell sits around watching an outhouse all day?

But after thinking it over, he actually did remember two people: "These past few days, there've been two beggars hanging around that spot every day, even sleeping nearby..."

Le Wuya slapped the gavel: "Summon them!"

A quarter of an hour later, the two beggars were brought into the court.

Le Wuya leaned forward over the desk: "I hear you two have been in front of that outhouse every day—have you seen anyone acting suspiciously? Say, someone who, before entering the outhouse, looked around left and right, checked inside and out, with shifty eyes, like someone up to no good afraid of getting caught. ...In plain terms, someone who looked like a thief."

Wen Ren let out an imperceptible sigh.

...Asking it that way, they probably wouldn't get anything out of it either.

The two beggars exchanged a glance and swallowed hard: "Th-this... what would there be to steal in an outhouse, Your Honor?"

Le Wuya slammed the gavel suddenly, startling them so much that they prostrated themselves on the ground, not daring to lift their heads.

“Scared?” Le Wuya chuckled. “And yet you dare to beat around the bush with me here? Just say it—did you see anything or not?”

The two men trembled. “N-no… we didn’t… see… anything…”

Wen Ren Yue’s brow furrowed slightly.

There was something suspicious about their reaction.

He could see it—and so could Le Wuya.

The courtroom fell into a tense silence.

“Raise your heads and look at me.” Le Wuya’s voice held a smile, but his eyes were like frost. “‘Saw’ or ‘didn’t see’—are those two words really that hard to get out?”

The two beggars raised their heads, meeting Le Wuya’s gaze for a moment—then their knees buckled, fear written across their faces. They kowtowed desperately, wailing, “Your Honor, we truly saw no one! Spare us! Please spare us! We’re no good!”

Wen Ren Yue thought: …That seems a bit excessive.

Could these two have done it?

If not, why were they so panicked?

Le Wuya called for paper and a brush, ordering them to copy the characters *Cang*, *Huang*, and *Chang* repeatedly—using each hand alternately.

Neither could read; both were terrified, writing with trembling hands, their strokes crawling like ants.

But after watching for a while, Wen Ren Yue realized the handwriting probably wasn’t theirs.

Not only were the strokes and style completely different—but their writing habits were also distinct.

Wen Ren Yue knew Brother Gu was a master of handwriting forgery.

According to him, everyone’s writing habits bore subtle differences—even illiterates had their own quirks when putting pen to paper.

For the illiterate, writing was like drawing: they couldn’t distinguish stroke order, so they simply scribbled however they understood it.

The three characters Brother Gu had selected were all fairly complex in structure.

For example, with *Cang*, one beggar wrote from bottom to top, while the other first traced the *Ren* component, then drew the grass radical above it.

Even amid panic—copying the characters over and over—they never changed their habits. The writing was ugly, yet consistently ugly—even on fresh paper, the same messy characters reappeared.

If a literate person deliberately wrote messily, it would be difficult to maintain consistent alterations to stroke habits.

Le Wuya had applied this method to everyone involved in the case—and none of the handwriting matched.

The case dragged on and on, ultimately ending as an unsolved mystery.

Luckily, with Wen Ren Yue stepping in, everyone who tried to stir up trouble or cover things up got locked up. Ding Zhe’s two men lost their nerve to make a fuss, landed in hot water themselves, and had no choice but to go along with sweeping the whole thing under the rug.

In the end, the case was wrapped up as a simple brawl.

Due to a misunderstanding, both sides had drawn weapons and fought—damaging the outhouse door and one wooden wall panel.

The Village Head’s servants had beaten people with clubs without bothering to sort out right from wrong—and received three days in jail; the Village Head, for failing to maintain tighter control, had to pay for the damage to the outhouse.

The two men Zhang Ji had sent—as well as the two originally planning to cause trouble—were also deemed participants in the brawl and locked up for now, with each side’s Village Elder required to pay bail to secure their release.

Wen Ren Yue—who’d taken on an entire group alone and won—was ordered to pay five hundred coins toward the injured parties’ medical bills, plus Le Wuya’s quip on the spot: “With fighting skills like that, why don’t you go take the military exam and become a top scholar?”

As for the two beggars—one had wet himself in fear. Le Wuya ordered them to clean the courtroom before they could leave.

Everyone in court let out a sigh of relief and praised the magistrate for being fair and just.

But secretly, several pairs of eyes locked onto Ding Zhe’s two men—making them feel as though needles pricked their backs—until they were hauled off. Only then did they breathe easy, even feeling faintly grateful to Le Wuya:

Had the magistrate simply released them instead of locking them up, they feared Zhang Ji’s men would grab and stuff them into sacks the moment they stepped out the door.

After everyone signed and affixed thumbprints, the case was officially closed.

Soon, only Le Wuya and Wen Ren Yue remained in the courtroom.

Le Wuya blew softly on the case file—still damp with ink—scanned it top to bottom, folded it up, and looked up to find Wen Ren Yue staring at him thoughtfully.

He stepped down from the bench and circled him once: “Hey, what’s on your mind?”

“I was thinking about what you said earlier—that whoever hurts others has to bleed for it,” Wen Ren Yue said. “But there’s nothing more we can do about this one.”

Le Wuya joked, “Are you treating my words like they’re carved in stone?”

He added quietly, “This case is done in the courtroom—but it’s not over out there.”

Wen Ren Yue knew exactly what he meant.

The ones who’d come to catch them in the act were Ding Zhe’s servants—and it went without saying who was pulling the strings.

The law couldn’t touch Ding Zhe—but Zhang Ji wasn’t going to let him off the hook.

He asked, “If Zhang Yushu hadn’t come to warn me—and Ding Zhe’s men had actually made a big deal about that rebellious poem in the outhouse—would this have been harder to handle?”

Le Wuya gave a casual shrug. “Nope.”

Wen Ren Yue mulled it over—and realized he was right.

“…Right. Without hard proof, the worst charge you could level against him would be failure to report—and that’d be the end of it.”

Le Wuya smiled. “Anything else seem off to you?”

Wen Ren Yue thought it over—and remembered one thing: “The characters had been carved deeper with a knife.”

Le Wuya’s grin widened further.

Wen Ren Yue thought it through again: “Logically, if Ding Zhe’s men had known about it, they wouldn’t have rushed inside so quickly… Because the marks had been carved deeper, the characters would still show through even if painted over. Zhang Ji’s men, realizing they couldn’t hide it, would’ve had to tear down the board and haul it out to destroy it. They wouldn’t even need to enter—just block them at the door, accuse them of stealing the board, and kick up a fuss. So why follow them in? And besides…”

Besides—the shock on those two men’s faces when they saw the board didn’t look fake.

The characters might truly have been carved deeper by someone else—leaving the Village Head and Zhang Ji’s men no way to cover it up quietly—forcing them to bring the board out into the open and make a spectacle of it.

And those two beggars—why were they so jumpy about something that had nothing to do with them?

Was it just fear of the magistrate—or…

Speaking of beggars—Brother Gu had recently made good progress organizing the wandering beggars—and it seemed he’d connected with a local Beggar Head in Nanting.

His name was Sheng…

At that thought, Wen Ren Yue’s head snapped up to look at Le Wuya.

Le Wuya tilted his head slightly—gazing back with a playful grin.

In the silence of their mutual gaze, He Qingsong came running up, reporting loudly: "Village Elder Wuwei wishes to see the Magistrate."

Le Wuya, watching Wen Renyue, revealed a handsome smile: "Bring him in."

He added: "Village Elders Li Santai, Jiang Wenwei, and Kang Jie have been waiting outside for quite some time, all seeking an audience with the Magistrate."

Wen Renyue's brow furrowed.

Le Wuya smiled with his hands behind his back: "Figured it out, have you?"

Wen Renyue took a deep breath: "This matter is—"

Le Wuya nodded slightly:

Now that's real progress.

The boy's teachable.

Le Wuya strode to the front of the hall and announced in a clear voice: "Bring 'em all in!"

With that, he snapped open his fan and strode off.

Wen Renyue stood frozen, still in the same posture from their conversation, muttering to himself: "...So it was you."

Yeah, it was him.

That's why Brother Gu made such a show of it, shouting it from the rooftops.

That's why he made a big fuss but let it slide.

The seditious verse in the latrine pit, though the investigation turned up nothing, was enough to send the village elders into a panic:

Running the latrine pits was indeed profitable, but with everyone now at each other's throats, who knows what dirty tricks might come next?

This time it's a seditious verse—what's next?

Firecrackers in the pit? Deliberate sabotage? Or even shoving someone into the cesspool?

If the walls got covered in seditious verses, what then? Tear the latrines down?

Once the latrine pits became a hot potato, and the yamen wouldn't let them transfer the public land, what would these guys do?

—They'd hand the latrines back to the yamen and toss the hot potato away.

Of course, in their rush to get rid of it, they'd never ask the yamen to pay for repairs.

Brother Gu had taught him that in any case, the one who profits the most is the prime suspect.

Wen Renyue turned his head and watched Le Wuya walk away.

Le Wuya walked with a dashing, elegant swagger, his seventh-rank official robe fluttering like a flashy, waving banner.

He pressed a hand to his thumping chest.

Brother Gu had always been righteous at heart, hardworking and devoted to the people.

But this scene before him—it had to be something he'd schemed and planned for a long time.

He stared at his back, as if seeing him for the first time.

...

Le Wuya strode off without looking back.

As he'd said, hurting others costs blood.

Back when he was drawing up the plans for the latrine pits, Le Wuya had known the latrine business, though just a tempting little perk, would sooner or later blow up into a big mess.

Le Wuya had been waiting for this mess for a long time.

The village elders were prominent gentry, squeezing plenty of profit out of the common folk.

Making them bleed a little—building this latrine pit for the people for free, then willingly handing it back to the yamen once it was running smoothly—Le Wuya found it entirely reasonable.

And as for himself, having schemed behind the scenes for so long, quietly waiting for them to make their move—he too would have to bleed a little.

Le Wuya turned his face slightly, glancing out of the corner of his eye at the motionless Wen Renyue, and pressed a hand to his chest, where his heart beat a little faster.

...This friendship—that was the stake he would have to wager.