In Dasheng, officials could only file complaints against their direct immediate superior — one rank above. If the official wronging you was two or more ranks above you, no matter how grave the injustice, it could not be circumvented. This was the moat the officials of Dasheng had built around themselves.

So when this proposal was voiced, the other people in the Imperial Study erupted in opposition all at once. Those with particularly heated emotions even threw off their boots and started hurling them at the one who had made the suggestion.

Li Bingsheng watched official boots and sweat-rags flying past right before her eyes without so much as a twitch of her eyebrows.

“Lord Chen, what do you think?”

Chen Baoxiang thought the man had made an excellent point — it was precisely this system that had left her with no path forward and forced her to resort to unorthodox measures herself.

So she rose, clasped her hands, and replied: “Your servant is a rough military person — how could I understand criminal law? The Court of Judicial Review is the authority in charge of such matters. If they feel reform is necessary, they likely have their reasons?”

“Your Majesty.” Xie Lanting seized the opening to step out of the ranks. “Your servant has only been overseeing the Court of Judicial Review for a few months, yet the cases that could not be filed due to the restrictions in the current law number over seven thousand already. If this continues, it risks damaging the very foundation of the state.”

“Indeed, Your Majesty — to say nothing of distant examples, take Cheng Huaili alone: the charges he carried numbered well over a hundred, the majority of them involving human lives. If this reform had come earlier, how many innocent people might have been spared such a terrible death?” Someone from the Censorate chimed in to support the argument.

The official from the Ministry of Personnel was unmoved: “The fact that Cheng Huaili did not face justice has nothing to do with the system for filing complaints. People did beat the imperial drum to bring charges against him previously. The lack of any follow-through was not a fault of the law.”

This statement was an implicit, thinly veiled criticism of the late emperor Li Shu for being dim-witted and complicit.

Li Bingsheng smiled faintly: “The lord makes a fair point.”

The assembled officials all raised their hands in respectful salutation.

Li Bingsheng rose: “It is our view that as long as one has a grievance, any person regardless of status may bring it before a magistrate. From imperial relatives at the highest level to petty clerks at the lowest, once a complaint is filed, the magistracies of Shangjing and the Court of Judicial Review shall cooperate in conducting a thorough investigation together. No matter how high the title or how weighty the office, the case must be handled impartially and without favoritism.”

“Your Majesty is wise and sagacious——” Chen Baoxiang immediately prostrated herself in reverence.

The remaining officials were both furious and helpless, but had no choice except to kneel along with the rest.

After the assembly dispersed, many officials shot her glares of open hostility, and some even deliberately shouldered into her as they passed.

Of course, given Chen Baoxiang’s level of physical strength, simply standing there without moving would send anyone who collided with her bouncing away.

“You——” The Minister of Personnel was supported by someone beside him as he jabbed his ivory tablet in her direction. “No one is a sage, and no one is without faults. What you’ve done today, with this reckless disregard, harms others without benefiting yourself. If the day comes when you bring trouble upon yourself, this old man will show absolutely no mercy!”

Chen Baoxiang smiled amiably: “Please calm down, my lord, calm down — we are all devoted to His Majesty’s service and to Dasheng’s good. Why must we make things difficult for one another?”

“You know perfectly well officials shouldn’t make things difficult for each other!” He was so furious he was visibly shaking. “You — you just wait! The day will come when you regret it!”

Chen Baoxiang didn’t feel she would ever regret it. She neither embezzled nor pursued personal gain — who could possibly bring charges against her?

What she never in a million years anticipated was that, less than one month after the reform took effect, someone truly went to the Court of Judicial Review to file a complaint against her.

Chen Baoxiang was both indignant and amused: “Those old scoundrels — are they really that shameless?”

Zhang Zhixu’s expression was grave: “It’s not them.”

“How do you know it isn’t? That old man from the Ministry of Personnel was just squaring off against me.”

He shook his head and walked out with her: “Let’s go see for ourselves.”

Twelve newly erected drums stood at the entrance to the Court of Judicial Review, arrayed from small to large, each size representing the rank and title of the accused. The largest was a full ten feet in height and width — one strike of it and all of Shangjing would know.

At that moment, a woman dressed in mourning white was standing there, gripping a heavy drumstick, pounding with all her might on the second largest drum.

Boom — Boom —

Zhao Huaizhu, who had arrived a step ahead of them, was pale as iron. The moment she saw them coming, she rushed to meet them: “My lord — it is Lu Qingrong.”

What?

Hearing that name again, Chen Baoxiang felt momentarily disoriented.

She stepped past Zhao Huaizhu and looked toward the figure ahead.

The woman holding the drumstick let her white hemp mourning cap-veil fall away, revealing a pale face. The arrogance that had once marked Lu Qingrong’s features was gone. Her thin shoulders looked especially frail in the autumn wind.

Perhaps sensing Chen Baoxiang’s gaze, she looked back from a distance. Her eyes were red-rimmed.

“This commoner wishes to bring charges against Chen Baoxiang, Second-Rank Military Marquis and Commander-General of the Capital Defense — patricide for profit, an offense that heaven and earth cannot abide! I request that His Majesty sentence her to death by a thousand cuts in accordance with the law!”

Chen Baoxiang was jolted. Images suddenly whirled through her mind to many years past.

……

Next door to Grandmother Ye’s house there had lived a little girl.

She had clean clothes to wear, parents by her side, and on her birthday, longevity noodles to eat.

Chen Baoxiang had envied her very much.

But the little girl seemed to dislike her intensely, always starting fights on purpose.

Chen Baoxiang hadn’t wanted to fight with her, but the girl was too vicious and pinched her arms until they bled.

So she had no choice but to fight back, and she thrashed the little girl until she was crying for her mother.

The little girl was stubborn, though — if she lost one day, she would still come back the next. Every time arriving with swaggering bravado, every time leaving in floods of tears.

Chen Baoxiang, after enough of these fights, had even softened, pressing her finger against the girl’s forehead to ask: “Can the two of us be friends?”

But the little girl shoved her away in disgust, sneering: “You’re that poor old woman’s girl. Too poor to eat a single bowl of meat all year — who wants to be friends with you!”

She shoved her and ran, but in her rush, her foot slipped on the ground. Her forehead struck a stone at the edge of the field, carving a gash that immediately bled profusely.

……

That wound had now become a faint scar.

Lu Qingrong, that barely visible scar on her forehead, stood before her with tears in her eyes and spoke word by word: “The contract for the purchase of your mother’s body from all those years ago is in my possession now. It bears your mother’s name and birth information, and your father’s handprint.”

“Chen Baoxiang — you are Cheng Huaili’s own biological daughter, and also the murderer who killed him with your own hands!”

As these words rang out, a clamor of voices erupted on all sides.

Chen Baoxiang frowned as she looked at her, unable to understand how she had gotten back to Shangjing, or how she had come to know any of these things.

She clearly had no memory of Chen Baoxiang whatsoever before.

Zhang Zhixu strode forward to stand in front of Chen Baoxiang, frowning: “The evidence you speak of has not yet been verified. How can you make such public declarations in front of everyone?”

Lu Qingrong’s expression suddenly filled with piteous sorrow. She stood there timidly, like a solitary blade of grass with nothing to lean on in the wind.

But in the very next instant, someone else stepped in front of her as well, standing abreast with Zhang Zhixu and facing him directly: “Nor has she read through these materials carefully.”

Zhang Zhixu was taken aback.

Before his eyes, Xie Lanting stood ramrod straight across from him, his expression sternly serious: “His Majesty has graciously decreed that anyone may lodge a complaint regardless of rank. Since she has a grievance, she is entitled to beat this drum. I respectfully ask Lord Zhang not to suppress her with authority and power.”

Chen Baoxiang quickly came back to herself.

She stepped past Zhang Zhixu and landed a kick squarely on Xie Lanting’s leg: “My business is my business — how many years have you and Fengqing been friends? Say what you need to say properly — can it kill you? What do you mean, ‘suppress her with authority and power’? Did he bring troops here? Did he produce his official seal?”

Xie Lanting sucked in a sharp breath of pain and laughed despite himself: “My lord Marquis Chen, we are in the middle of serious business — how can you simply attack someone like that?”

“I didn’t attack — that was my foot!”

“You……”

“All right.” Zhang Zhixu pulled her back and looked no further at Xie Lanting, saying only: “The imperial decree has just been promulgated, and now there is a performance taking the stage — clearly this was arranged in advance. Since Lord Xie intends to let the charges proceed, then let them proceed.”