Joy of Life

The capital was warmer than the northern regions. The signs of spring could be seen awakening the flowers on tree branches. Every night, lights from tens of thousands of households illuminated the bridges and rivers. It was a bustling scene; the perfect time to enjoy the spring.

When the day came, the capital was a bit quiet. Civilians and officials alike felt sleepy and didn’t want to move much, so there weren’t too many people on the streets.

Past noon, a scholar with a gloomy expression came into the capital from the eastern gate. With him was a married woman. From their expressions and actions, they didn’t appear to be mother and son. Instead of settling at an inn, they went straight to an inconspicuous house to the western side of the capital. Only a few people knew the real owner of that house was an Imperial Censor.

One cannot prevent being made sleepy by the spring weather, but one could be awoken from it. One day in the third month, thunder descended suddenly. The spring rain began to fall, drenching all the buildings and all the alleyways.

Once the Forth Bureau returned with the offending officials and salt merchants, the cheating case finally concluded. One proctor was exiled 1,500 kilometers away, while the other seventeen offenders received capital punishment. That was the Emperor’s order. With irrefutable evidence, no one dared to object.

Director Guo was to be executed. Since the founding of Qing, he was the highest-ranking official to receive the death penalty. The news shook both the court and the rest of the capital. Even the empress dowager asked His Majesty for mercy. But after some gentle talking, Director Guo’s execution was changed from beheading to hanging so that his body would remain in one piece. The empress dowager fell silent and didn’t speak further.

Sixteen other officials were to be executed along with Director Guo.

Raindrops fell slowly onto the salt market, the busiest place in the capital during the day. The rain could not disperse the crowd of people who had gathered to watch the executions.

Those sixteen officials, in their white clothes, were kneeling on a prepared wooden platform. Their white uniforms were already splattered with blood, hinting at all the torture they had gone through while in prison. With their defeated faces and unkempt hair, they were a pitiful sight compared to the former glory they once exuded. A few with tougher spirits opened their dejected eyes and tried to find their loved ones among the crowd. But as they opened their mouths to shout, they couldn’t make a sound. No one knew what the Overwatch Council did to them.

Mu Tie was assigned to oversee the execution. As he sat on the observation platform, he expressionlessly watched everything happening in front of him. But the rest of the observing civil officials were obviously disturbed. These sixteen officials had been their colleagues. Together they had all indulged themselves in pleasure boats and over liquor. Today they were about to witness deaths of these sixteen men.

There was a restaurant by the entrance to the salt market. Rain fell onto the roof and gathered into a small stream as it flowed down the rooftiles. Towards the edge, the stream fell, making it look like a tiny waterfall. There were many buildings in the vicinity, so such “waterfalls” numbered in the dozens. They dove straight down into the stone pavement like white dragons with a splash.

A senior official rose to announce something, but the sound of those tiny waterfalls made it hard to hear him; the crowd only saw his lips move. However, towards the end, the official’s expression stiffened as he declared loudly: “Begin!”

The people heard that word clearly and became excited. Each one of them tried to squeeze their way to the front in order to get closer to this rarely observed spectacle.

The executioner rubbed his hands with spit and wiped the rain from his face. With his great blade on his back, he went forward to his first victim. After confirming the location of the vertebrates with his left hand, he let out a powerful roar as his blade came down in a flash.

The sound of the impact became muffled as the sharp blade entered flesh; it was like someone chopping pork.

With a swooshing sound, blood came spurting out of the headless neck, spraying far, far away. The head of that official fell onto the platform and rolled, as if still afraid of the blade which just separated it from its body. It kept rolling until it fell off the platform.

Seeing a disembodied head, bloodied and with its eyes still open, the crowd took a large step back out of fright.

The head left a trail of blood, which was then washed away by the rain.

Only now did cheers come from the crowd. But not many cheered, and they weren’t doing it at the same time, making it very disorganized. On the platform, Mu Tie showed a displeased expression.

With another swing of the blade, another head fell, another stream of blood gushed, another wave of exclamation shot out from the crowd, and another life was extinguished. There were three executioners in total and soon all sixteen officials had been beheaded, leaving behind their bodies and pools of blood.

With the fall of each head, the crowd became bolder and bolder, and their cheers grew louder. With the final head, the cheers were enough to shake the heavens! The rain clouds began to part, as if startled by the noise.

A few bailiffs of the capital’s court tried to find the head of the first executed official, but failed in doing so.

Moments later, a black dog darted out from the crowd. In its mouth, between its sharp teeth was the official’s head. As it looked around, its eyes gave out a chilling light.

One of the bailiffs struck the dog’s hindquarter with the scabbard of his saber. Barking out in pain, the dog dropped the head and ran off into the rain.

Days later, something else happened. The Director of the Ministry of Justice was found guilty of taking bribes. The Overwatch Council discovered a certain amount of gold, silver and illegal items in the residence of his third aunt. After reporting to the royal court, Han Zhiwei was demoted to a local judge in Yizhou. With this demotion, Director Han fell from first rank to seventh.

Situated far in the south, Yizhou was a sweltering place. Director Han Zhiwei would probably never return to the capital again.

Censor Guo Zheng of the Imperial Censorate didn’t seem to be too effected on the surface, but the court still found a reason to send him to Jiangnan. Although it was a beautiful place, Jiangnan was filled with agents from the Overwatch Council. It was only a matter of time before they made their move.

The civil officials did not come together and descend into unrest, however. Partly, this was due to the Prime Minister, and also because the Overwatch Council had solid evidence. Besides all of this, the punishments weren’t too severe. This event was a heavy blow to the Council.

All of the officials knew that the Council had done it out of revenge. It was revenge in response to the time Commissioner Fan Xian visited the Ministry of Justice.

Revenge and counter-revenge; control and counter-control; all until a silent equilibrium was achieved. This had been a recurring theme among Qing’s political circles for decades. That was why while the revenge of the Council and Prime Minister had tolerantly stopped at a certain limit, no one expected the counterattack from Xinyang and the empress would come so quickly.

The scholar from before was none other than He Zongwei, who did not take part in the civil service examination due to the death of his elderly father. He had always been close to the Guo family. He was back home when the shocking news reached him. In addition to the Director being sentenced to death and having all of his assets seized, He Zongwei’s dear friend Guo Baokun was nowhere to be found. What enraged He Zongwei even more was the fact that the Crown Prince of the Eastern Palace did nothing to intervene!

The woman who came with He Zongwei had an even stranger background. She was the widow of Wu Bo’an. Wu B’oan was an advisor planted in the Prime Minister’s manor by the Eldest Prince. Last year, he urged the second son of the Lin family to conspire with Northern Qi and have Fan Xian killed on Niulan Street, only to suffer a terrible death among the grape vines.

Wu Bo’an had indirectly caused the death of Lin Ruofu’s only normal son. So naturally, Lin Ruofu, as the Prime Minister, hated Wu Bo’an. Despite Wu Bo’an’s death, the Wu household still had a lot of property in Shandong. The officials there were pupils of the Prime Minister. Under the Prime Minister’s wishes, those officials tormented the Wu family. In only half a year, they took away much of their money. And Wu Bo’an’s own son was imprisoned for no reason and tortured to death.

This widow, although illiterate, still knew the Prime Minister was too powerful for the Wu household to resist. But her son’s unjust death drove her to come to the capital to accuse the Prime Minister before His Majesty.

As she was resting outside the city, this poor Lady Wu “coincidentally” met He Zongwei.

He Zongwei was clever. After hearing Lady Wu’s story, he knew those responsible for what had happened to her could not be allowed to escape punishment. He counseled her, saying he would find a way to enact justice.

After entering the capital, He Zongwei used his teacher’s name and helped Lady Wu settle momentarily at the manor of an old censor. Recently, mysterious people often stopped by and gently questioned Lady Wu regarding the details of her tragedy.

He Zongwei watched it all with indifference, only smiling when Lady Wu asked him questions out of fright. He assured her that officials in the royal court were taking action; the Prime Minister would fall in no time.

The garden of the old censor was somewhat in ruins. He Zongwei stood behind the garden rocks with just a hint of pride on his face. As he destroyed his secret letter from Xinyang, he thought about what the political circles would be like if the Prime Minister were to be taken down. Inadvertently, he thought about the Prime Minister’s relatives by marriage—Minister Fan and the somewhat aloof young madam of the Fan household. He felt a bit of heat in his heart.