AEOGA CH39

Qiuling Town.

With the secret guards’ blades pressed against their necks, several human traffickers tremblingly led Xie Chongjin and Lu Xuechao to their dwelling. Inside the house were several young males tied up with their mouths gagged, all of whom they had not yet had the chance to sell.

Every year in Jiangnan, there was a grand auction dedicated to auctioning off the shouma who had been meticulously trained from childhood across the three regions. The bidding process also served as an opportunity for the wealthy Jiangnan merchants to flaunt their riches, driving up the price of these shouma to unimaginable heights. For instance, Yun Yao, last year’s top contender, was auctioned off for a staggering two thousand pieces of gold—a record high in history—which instantly made him the most famous shouma in Yunzhou.

Those like these young men, who were kidnapped as adults and joined the trade halfway, could not be brought to the formal auction block. Instead, they were privately pushed onto government officials and wealthy merchants. Private transactions did not yield as much money as public auctions, but the sum was still far from small.

When the secret guards pushed open the traffickers’ door, several tied-up men inside shrank back, fearing the traffickers had returned to drag them out for sale, or fearing the traffickers were bringing back new victims.

Little did they expect that the newcomers had actually come to save them, while the ones bound tightly on the floor were those despicable human traffickers.

The secret guards untied the men, who became overcome with emotion and repeatedly hailed them as life-saving benefactors.

Xie Chongjin did not relax. They needed to save far more than just these few.

Xie Chongjin vaguely recalled that every year during his trips south in his past lives, local Jiangnan officials would gift him a shouma. The person gifted was different in each life, meaning they were likely ordinary, plotless consorts, and receiving them from officials was simply a mechanism for acquiring generic consorts.

Yet behind a mere gameplay channel for recruiting generic consorts lay such a twisted, deformed industry.

Those men persecuted because of it did not even possess a plotline.

I will abolish this industry the moment I return, Xie Chongjin resolved silently.

After rescuing the men and securing witnesses, Xie Chongjin had the traffickers point the way, while the secret guards drove the carriage toward the yamen to report the crime.

–

The front of the yamen was deserted and desolate. A few yamen runners on guard leaned their heads, yawning listlessly, lacking the slightest trace of energy or spirit.

Seeing such a sight, Xie Chongjin’s face darkened.

The official in charge of a local yamen was the county magistrate. Though merely a petty seventh-grade official, the matters under his jurisdiction were by no means few. Equalizing taxes and labor levies, hearing litigations, promoting education, and refining local customs were all within his duties, making him the parental official responsible for the common people of the region.

In addition to handling daily county business, the magistrate had to mediate disputes among the populace under his jurisdiction, trying cases ranging from murder and arson to trivial, everyday squabbles. A normal yamen should have seen commoners coming every day to ask the magistrate to uphold justice for them; it should never have been this deserted.

Only under two circumstances would a yamen receive no visitors.

First, if the local area enjoyed long-term peace and stability, where lost items were left untouched on the roads, doors were left unlocked at night, neighbors lived in harmony, and the people had no disputes or grievances, thus having no need to appear before a court.

However, Qiuling Town was clearly not in such a state. From what Xie Chongjin had heard from the human traffickers alone, one could imagine how chaotic public order had become in Jiangnan, with rogue bandits, robbers, arsonists, and murderers committing all kinds of evil. Yet, the people were unwilling to seek help from the official court—leaving only the second circumstance.

——The local government’s inaction had caused it to lose the people’s trust and credibility. Knowing it was useless to come, the commoners simply stopped coming.

No wonder thieves and bandits in this place were so rampant.

Seeing Xie Chongjin’s expression, Lu Xuechao knew he was in a foul mood again.

When Xie Chongjin was in a foul mood, the official inside would likely meet a grim fate.

Xie Chongjin dismounted from the carriage and strode toward the yamen with a cold, grim face.

A yamen runner lazily raised an eyelid: “Who goes there? What is your business?”

Xie Chongjin said indifferently: “Reporting a crime.”

Noticing the extraordinary aura of the visitor, the runner realized his status was likely uncommon and reluctantly gathered his spirits: “Wait a moment, I shall go inside and report to the Magistrate.”

As the runner went inside, he muttered to himself that this crime reporter was probably an outsider. Who among the locals would expect their County Magistrate Zhang to handle matters?

These visitors had certainly picked an opportune time. A while ago, the Metropolitan Governor had been appointed as an imperial envoy and dispatched to Jiangnan to relieve the disaster. The Prefect of Quling had originally intended to entertain him lavishly as in previous years and quickly see this grand deity off. Who would have thought that due to a road collapse, the imperial envoy became stranded in Quling to this day, and ended up investigating Quling’s administrative affairs along the way?

This had also been Xie Chongjin’s instruction. Dispatching an imperial envoy south served two purposes: first, disaster relief; second, evaluating the Jiangnan officials. The Ministry of Officials had previously been a hotbed of corruption and filth—who knew what kind of trash the officials they appointed and promoted were? Any problems discovered had to be promptly replaced.

The Prefect of Quling was scared half to death. If the things he had done were made public, dereliction of duty would be considered light. Selling offices and titles, colluding with merchants, oppressing the local populace, and embezzling public funds for personal gain—which of these was not a beheading offense? In previous years, when superiors sent people down, they were all birds of a feather; after receiving some benefits, the so-called disaster relief investigations were merely going through the motions. But this year was different. The one who came was an unyielding, incorruptible, and upright old man. The Prefect was terrified that he might notice something and later submit a memorial to His Majesty, causing his official cap and head to fall off together.

With the imperial envoy present, officials throughout Quling did not dare act as idle and negligent as before; they had to at least put on a show. Seeing that even the fifth-grade Prefect had begun bustling about—mainly busy destroying evidence of his crimes—the seventh-grade County Magistrate knew he wasn’t qualified to curry favor with the imperial envoy, so he could only stay in the yamen to hold down the fort.

Ordinarily at this hour, the County Magistrate would not even have gotten out of bed, let alone managed official business; and even if he did, it would only lead to miscarriages of justice.

Since taking office, this County Magistrate had achieved very little merit, and the “justice” he had presided over was as follows——

A chenghuan bought a beautiful new set of clothes and walked happily on the road. A pleasure-seeker was overcome with lust and forced himself upon him. Afterward, the chenghuan reported the crime to the court, but Magistrate Zhang ruled that the chenghuan must marry the pleasure-seeker as a concubine, reasoning that his wearing beautiful clothes was an intentional attempt to seduce the man, and losing his virginity before marriage rendered him unfit to be a main wife, so becoming a concubine was already exalting him.

A man drowned to death, and another man jumped into the water to save him but failed. Later, passersby stumbled upon the scene and reported it to the court. Magistrate Zhang convicted the rescuer of murder, reasoning: “If you didn’t push him into the water, why would you feel guilty enough to save him?”

A chenghuan was subjected to daily domestic violence by his husband after marriage. Unable to endure it, he reported the crime to request a divorce. Magistrate Zhang rejected it on the grounds that “a couple quarrels at the head of the bed and reconciles at the foot,” and the next day, the husband beat him to death for reporting him.

…Absurd incidents such as these were too numerous to mention.

As these instances multiplied, no one dared seek out this County Magistrate to redress their grievances anymore.

The yamen runners truly felt that anyone who dared ask their County Magistrate to uphold justice was a warrior.

Justice resided in the hearts of the people, but their County Magistrate… had his heart blinded by greed!

–

Hearing that someone had come to report a crime, Magistrate Zhang immediately gathered his spirits and put on his official black cap.

Right now, the imperial envoy was still in Quling, so he had to put on a good performance.

Dressed in his seventh-grade green official robes, Magistrate Zhang sat beneath a plaque engraved with the four characters “Bright Mirror Hanging High,” and cleared his throat.

“Summon them inside.”

Without waiting for the runner to pass the word, Xie Chongjin had already stepped inside. Although wearing a mask, the tight set of his lips still revealed his displeasure, and the innate majesty unique to an emperor carried a natural pressure.

He looked less like someone coming to report a crime and more like someone seeking revenge.

Magistrate Zhang trembled. Even though he was clearly the one sitting above, for some reason he felt an urge to drop to his knees.

Lu Xuechao and Xie Chongjin directly sat down on the seats to the side. The bound human traffickers and the rescued young men, however, dutifully fell to their knees; as commoners, failing to kneel before a county magistrate would result in a flogging with wooden planks.

Magistrate Zhang slammed his gavel down: “Presumptuous! Who stands before the court, and why do you fail to kneel before this official? And why are you acting so secretive, not daring to show your faces?”

Xie Chongjin was still in a fit of anger and did not bother responding to him.

Lu Xuechao spoke up: “The two of us possess imperial examination credentials.”

Magistrate Zhang was bewildered: “So what? What does that have to do with you two acting so impolite in court?”

Lu Xuechao’s eyes beneath the veiled hat darkened.

By the rules of Changli, those holding credentials of a xiucai scholar or higher did not need to kneel when meeting an official. Anyone with examination credentials would know this rule.

Furthermore, to become an official, unless one was personally appointed by the Emperor like Liu Yansheng and Shen Hezhou, one had to pass the examinations to attain at least the rank of juren.

How did this magistrate, who did not even know such a basic matter, manage to become a seventh-grade official?

Changli did not permit the purchase of official titles. Selling offices generally occurred when court finances were strained, allowing scholars and commoners to donate money and goods to the state in exchange for titles and official posts. The drawback was that it caused official corruption, widespread bribery, and rampant embezzlement. Xie Chongjin and Lu Xuechao would never rob Peter to pay Paul; even when the imperial treasury was at its emptiest, they had never considered allowing the purchase of offices.

The last person who sold offices and titles in Yujing was already cold in his grave.

Seeing Magistrate Zhang expose his own ignorance, his advisor immediately whispered a reminder: “My Lord, those holding imperial examination credentials do not need to kneel when meeting an official, however…”

However, it merely meant not kneeling; they still had to stand while speaking. Directly sitting down like this… was indeed far too arrogant.

Magistrate Zhang did not finish listening, clearing his throat to cover up his embarrassment: “Ah, so that’s how it is. This official temporarily forgot.”

He then cursed softly: “Why didn’t you say so earlier?”

Making him lose face in public.

Magistrate Zhang’s official post had naturally not been earned through examinations, but bought with money. He had originally been a wealthy merchant. For the sake of his performance evaluation, the Prefect had made wealthy merchants hand over money and grain to make the tax revenues reported to the court look good. Wealthy merchants were not fools and were unwilling to do so freely, so the Prefect implicitly permitted buying official posts with money. Being able to leap from the lowest class of merchants to the highest class of scholar-bureaucrats was something many merchants were willing to do.

Let alone studying hard for ten years, he had not read a book for a single day.

Magistrate Zhang said: “What matter do you wish to accuse them of?”

Without Xie Chongjin and Lu Xuechao having to speak, several victimized young men were already recounting their abduction through tears and sobs, begging the official to uphold justice for them.

Hearing this, Magistrate Zhang understood immediately. He himself raised a few shouma at home, so how could he not know that some were kidnapped and trafficked?

Such matters had always been ignored by officials unless reported by commoners; actually investigating them would only harm his own interests.

However, since the case had been brought before him, he still had to put on a show and ask.

“They accuse you of kidnapping. What explanation do you have?” Magistrate Zhang asked the several human traffickers.

Having fallen into Xie Chongjin’s hands, those human traffickers had previously acted reformed to avoid being secretly disposed of. Now that they were in the official court, feeling they had gained backing, they began resisting again and refused to admit fault.

“My Lord, please do not listen to their utter nonsense! These few are household slaves who voluntarily sold themselves, and their deeds of indenture are all in our hands. On the contrary, it is these two people who broke into our home and carried off these lowly slaves—they are the ones usurping our private property! Look, My Lord, these are their deeds of indenture.”

The traffickers knew this excuse was flimsy; those young men clearly did not look voluntary, but so what? The deeds of indenture were in their hands, and this paramount physical evidence was more effective than any witness testimony.

The commoners of Changli were divided into good status (liangji) and low status (jianji). Only those of good status were considered human beings with rights. Household slaves, prostitutes, and other low statuses were all of low status, serving as private property that could be bought and sold at will, stamped with red seals by the government to distinguish them from unstamped good status.

Those of low status had either voluntarily become slaves, been sold by their families, or committed crimes… Once investigated and verified by the government, they would be stamped with a red seal, receiving a deed of indenture. Yujing had almost no kidnapping cases because Xie Chongjin had strictly investigated them back then, and the government inspected the stamping of low status extremely strictly. Once a person was suspected to have been trafficked, an immediate investigation was launched to return the victim home.

However, an inactive government obviously would not investigate so carefully; they stamped seals indiscriminately without checking the origins or backgrounds of slaves at all, casually branding a person for life.

Though such was the truth, the government would never admit to its own inaction. Magistrate Zhang glanced at several deeds of indenture and narrowed his eyes: “They are indeed deeds of indenture… In that case, the kidnappers are not them, but you two. And as for you runaway slaves, to turn around and bite your masters—guards, drag them down and flog them severely…”

Several men wore expressions of utter disbelief: “My Lord, examine the truth clearly!”

Lu Xuechao said calmly: “Do you know the meaning behind the four characters ‘Bright Mirror Hanging High’ above your head?”

Naturally, Magistrate Zhang did not know: “Don’t bring up irrelevant nonsense with this official—”

“Using copper as a mirror allows one to straighten their attire; using history as a mirror allows one to understand rise and fall; using people as a mirror allows one to discern gains and losses,” Lu Xuechao said. “An official should be clean and incorruptible, with a heart clear as a bright mirror. Your heart is unworthy of the official robes you wear.”

“Qingshu, why bother wasting so much breath on him?” Xie Chongjin could already tell this County Magistrate was an utter blockhead, having completely lost his patience. He had originally wanted to see the big picture through small details, but now felt his mind must have been kicked by a donkey to waste half a day here with a seventh-grade magistrate.

“Tell the Prefect of Quling to roll over here and meet Us.”