On the wedding day, my wife was abnormal

The account book in Wang Chunsheng's hand slammed against the blue bricks with a loud bang, shocking Liu Cuilian so much that she trembled all over.

Liu Cuilian looked at the account books and letters on the ground. Her father's handwriting and her own words to the young master of the silk shop were clearly visible. She knew that everything was irreversible and finally broke down in tears.

She stared at the soles of her father's cloth shoes, her nails almost digging into her palms, but she didn't feel any pain.

The sunlight slanted in through the carved window lattice, casting a blood-red spot on the words "One Hundred Taels of Silk and Betrothal Silver" on the account book, which looked very much like the bloody mark left on her arm by the whip when her father whipped her last night.

"No... wuwuwu... it's not like that... wuwuwu..." Her throat felt like it was stuffed with water-soaked cotton wool, and she could only make inarticulate sobs.

The fatigue from not sleeping for three days and three nights came over me. Wang Chunsheng, Lord Xia, and my father's fat figure were all floating in the mist.

It was not until I heard my father's curses that I realized my nails had cut into my palms and drawn blood.

"You unfilial daughter!" The butcher Liu roared so loudly that the dust on the beams fell off.

The butcher, who usually smiled while stroking his round belly, now looked like an enraged wild boar. His fat trembled with every movement, and the oil stains on his cuffs were particularly glaring in the sunlight.

He broke free from the yamen runner's hand and rushed to Liu Cuilian in two steps. He raised his palm as big as a palm-leaf fan, and the wind brought by it blew her cheek so hard that it hurt.

"Pa!" The sound of the slap was particularly harsh in the silent court.

Liu Cuilian's head suddenly tilted to one side, and blood immediately seeped out from the corner of her mouth and dripped onto the bellyband on her chest.

That was a gift from Dapeng during the Mid-Autumn Festival last year. It was embroidered with crooked twin lotus flowers, and now it was stained with blood, making it shocking.

She suddenly remembered that half a month ago, late at night, her father had used just that kind of force to pin her down beside the stove. "The young master of the silk shop said, if you can just accuse Dapeng of rape, I'll give you 20 mu of fertile land and 50 taels of silver, enough for your brother to attend the county school for ten years!"

"You unfilial daughter! You've ruined our entire family, don't you know that?" Butcher Liu's spit sprayed in her face, mixed with the strong smell of alcohol and garlic. "You've squandered all your brother's private school money and your mother's medicine money!"

He raised his foot and kicked his daughter hard in the waist. The dirt on the sole of his cloth shoe rubbed against the hem of her faded skirt. "Now it's okay. Our whole family will die with you!"

There were exclamations one after another from the onlookers.

"Great! So it's really a conspiracy between father and daughter!"

"No wonder Cui Lian has been avoiding Da Peng lately. She must have bad intentions!"

"Look at the blood on that bellyband!"

"If I had known she was such a troublemaker, she would have lied to me last year and told me Dapeng had stolen her embroidery frame!"

After hearing this, the people became even more excited.

"Master Xia, you can't protect this kind of person anymore!"

"If this continues, the whole county will be filled with rapists!"

"That's right! We ordinary people can't afford to go through this kind of lawsuit!"

"Wasn't it the same with the Sun Wen case a while ago? It was all rape!"

Xia Zhu dug his nails deep into his palms, and looking at Liu Cuilian's figure curled up on the ground, he suddenly felt unfamiliar.

The woman who had been crying and pleading in front of her a month ago was now like a puddle of mud, allowing her father to kick and beat her, with only her eyelashes casting trembling shadows under her eyes, like a moth afraid of the light.

"Enough!" Wang Chunsheng slammed the gavel on the table, startling the sparrows on the beams. "How can you act wildly in this court?"

He winked at the yamen runners, and two soldiers immediately restrained Liu the butcher who was about to attack.

The fat man was still cursing, his flesh shaking as he struggled, like a pigsty with the lid lifted: "You little bitch! If you dare tell anyone about this, I'll break your legs!"

Liu Cuilian took the opportunity to shrink into the corner, her back pressed against the cold blue bricks.

She stared at the token on Wang Chunsheng's waist and suddenly remembered what her father had said last night: "As long as you hold on to it until you die, Lord Xia will definitely make the decision for you."

But now, the way Lord Xia looked at her was as if he was looking at a rotten steamed bun, and even the gentleness of the past was gone.

"Everyone, please be quiet!" Wang Chunsheng's voice was like a sharp blade, splitting the boiling discussion.

What happened next was a natural progression. Wang Chunsheng made a verdict according to the law: Liu the butcher instigated his daughter to make false accusations and accept bribes, which was a heinous crime. He was thrown into death row and executed in the autumn.

Liu Cuilian was falsely accused of assault, thrown into death row, and executed in the autumn.

Dapeng was acquitted, and Liu the butcher used all the betrothal gifts he received from the silk shop to compensate Dapeng for his losses.

Xia Zhu stood in front of the hall, listening to Wang Chunsheng's verdict, looking at the contemptuous eyes of the people below and Liu Cuilian's desperate cries, and felt a burning pain on his face.

The justice she had always believed in turned out to be just a farce distorted by paranoia.

This farce almost ruined an innocent person and also destroyed her own reputation. The belief that she had held for many years in deciding for women collapsed in the face of irrefutable evidence.

When the truth was revealed, the onlookers expressed their feelings and discussed the matter. Some sympathized with Dapeng's experience, some cursed the greed of Liu the butcher and his daughter, and some questioned Xia Zhu's ability to solve the case.

Wang Chunsheng looked at Xia Zhu's distraught look and said nothing more.

He knew that for Xia Zhu, the true punishment might not come from the law, but from inner torture and the collapse of faith. And after this farce, the sky in Penglai County seemed to be clearing up.

He waved his hand, signaling the bailiff to take the prisoner away. This long trial finally came to an end.

......

As dusk drifted into the back hall of the county government office, Xia Zhu was looking through the files of the Sun Yat-sen case under candlelight.

The light from the oil lamp on the desk reflected on the dark circles under her eyes, like a wound that would never fade away.

The sound of Wang Chunsheng's footsteps came from the corridor. The sound of his boots rolling over the blue bricks startled her so much that the cinnabar pen in her hand drew a crooked mark on the four words "female weakness".

"If it's as expected, all the rape cases in Penglai County happened after the Dapeng case, right? Lord Xia really is unconditionally protective of women."

Wang Chunsheng's voice was as cool as the night dew. He stood at the threshold, the shadow of his armor cast on the files on the ground, like a heavy door.

Xia Zhu didn't look up, but ran his fingertips over the medical report on Sun Wen's case.

The ink of the comments she wrote herself was not yet dry, and it felt like a thin needle pricking her eyes, reminding her of how she slammed the table and angrily scolded the woman in court that day when Sun Yat-sen's mother cried and said, "My son has never even touched a girl's hand," and told her to stop quibbling.

"Lord Wang's late-night visit is just to mock our county?" Her voice was colder than the night, but when she looked up and saw the Huang Daxun case file in Wang Chunsheng's hands, her throat suddenly tightened.

That was the first case of "husband raping wife" she judged, and there were still tea stains on the edge of the file where she had slammed the table.

Wang Chunsheng didn't respond, but gently placed the case file in front of her. A dried jasmine petal fell between the yellowed pages.

"Now the people have great doubts about your governance. What do you think you would do if I go back and tell His Majesty or the Crown Prince?"

"If you want to sue, just sue. There's no need to be hypocritical here in this county."

"Hehehe, I know you want to improve the treatment of women, but you can't always put women first in everything. The prince hates people who betray fairness and justice because of their values, so I suggest you review these rape cases and give the people justice."

Xia Zhu still didn't even raise her head: "This county knows how to handle things."

"If you keep pretending like this, your ambitions will end here. Don't you just want to prove that women are no less capable than men? If you lose your position as county magistrate, it will mean that His Majesty's plan to promote women to official positions will be completely aborted. Do you deserve His Majesty's cultivation of you?"

Xia Zhu's pen fell "clang" on the inkstone, and the ink splashed on his cuffs, like a withered black plum blossom.

She remembered that rainy night when Murong Yan called her from thousands of miles away to the palace and told her that it was time for women to wake up, that the world could not always belong to men, and that she had to take a big step towards this historic decision.

How much Xia Zhu wants to do something for the women in this world.

Wang Chunsheng sneered and pulled a gilded waist badge from his sleeve. "According to the Daqian Criminal Code, those who make unfair judgments must be transferred to the Ministry of Justice for trial. Lord Xia, do you know how many people have been beating drums at night to protest these seven wrongful convictions? Dapeng's father knelt at the gate of the government for three days to overturn his son's conviction, but he still hasn't been arrested."

The candlelight flickered, and Xia Zhu looked at the Xiezhi pattern on the waist badge, recalling the scene of himself patrolling the streets wearing the same waist badge last month.

At that time, the people called her the Justice Lady.

Now, overnight, the gates of the government offices were covered with slanderous letters accusing the female officials of harming the country.

"When do we leave?" Her voice was as soft as the sound of a night watchman.

"What's the hurry?" Wang Chunsheng suddenly softened his voice and pushed the sheep-horn lamp closer to the desk to illuminate the dark circles under her eyes.

"I'll leave at daybreak. But I know His Majesty will keep you here." He paused. "You should know that His Majesty, despite all opposition, has appointed a female official. He won't be swayed by a single case."

She looked up at Wang Chunsheng, the candlelight casting a shadow on his face. "What do you want to say?"

"Your Majesty protects you because you haven't changed your original intention." Wang Chunsheng dragged the carved chair over and sat down, his armor scraping against the wood with an audible sound. "But you should understand that governing a county is like cooking a small fish. The people don't want a high-ranking official, but an official who can see through the mud on the soles of shoes and count the silver in the counter. Take the case of Liu Cuilian, for example. Have you ever wondered how a young embroiderer like her could write such official documents?"

Xia Zhu was stunned.

Two months ago, she always thought that the people wanted officials who supported women, but she forgot that fathers were more afraid that their sons would be wronged, and mothers were more afraid that their daughters would be exploited.

Wang Chunsheng pulled an oil-paper bag from his sleeve and unfolded it to reveal half a blood-stained collar. "This is the clothing of the alleged perpetrator in the Sun Yat-sen case. Look at the silk thread. This is Penglai's unique ice silk. Only the young master of the silk shop in the entire county can afford to use it for his robes. You see, the evidence doesn't lie."

"Modern governance prioritizes evidence. Injury examinations require the coroner's signature and seal, and each wound must be measured three times. Property inspections must be sealed and recorded, with even the warp and weft of a scrap of cloth clearly documented. Inquiries require the signatures of three neighbors, and even circumstantial evidence from across the street is required. Never trust tears, especially women's tears."

As Wang Chunsheng spoke, he seemed to be still feeling frightened.

"Secondly, don't categorize men and women as noble or inferior." Wang Chunsheng tapped the confession in the Liu Cuilian case. "Today, an old woman beat a drum, saying her son was falsely accused of abduction because he picked up a hairpin for a neighbor girl. Look at the confession. The neighbor girl accepted five taels of silver from the silk shop and dared to call a horse a zebra. The people want fairness, not favoritism. When you favor women, have you ever considered that the men kneeling in the court also have mothers waiting at the village entrance for their return?"

Xia Zhu stared at the bloody fingerprints on the confession, and suddenly remembered the jade pendant that the embroiderer had stuffed into her hands before jumping into the river, and the engagement handkerchief that Dapeng had clutched tightly when he was taken away.

She thought she was building a wall to protect the woman, but she didn't know that the wall also blocked the light of truth.

"Finally, governing a county requires listening to gossip..."

"That's enough." Xia Zhu suddenly interrupted him, "What do you want to say?"

"I want to say that His Majesty will use you again. If you serve as an official somewhere again, remember what I said. lest you disappoint His Majesty again."