Chapter 038: Storm (I)
"If I cannot avenge my brother, I will not fear death!"
Along with the sound of the cane hitting the flesh, the words shouted by the tortured woman with all her might almost shook the eardrums of all the onlookers.
Even a man would find it hard not to be afraid of such a punishment, and Judge Tan also found it hard to believe that such a weak woman could endure more than a dozen beatings and never ask for mercy.
"grown ups……"
A jailer held a bloody cane, but a look of reluctance still showed on his face.
"How many sticks?"
Judge Tan saw the woman lying on the stool without moving.
"It's already been twelve strokes of the cane." The jailer looked at the judge cautiously.
Judge Tan showed a hint of hesitation, but after a moment's hesitation, he straightened his face and said, "The law cannot be abolished. There are still eight strokes of the cane."
"yes……"
The jailer had no choice but to raise the cane again.
The cane fell down, causing the silver dust to scatter. Xu Hexue's clothes were almost stained with a shocking red. He used force with his thin fingers to peel off the silver-white light from his body and gently wrapped it around Ni Su's body.
That's the pain of having flesh and blood peeled off.
It was the heaviest and most humiliating punishment he had ever received in his lifetime.
His clean clothes were soaked, and the mottled bloodstains made him look even more miserable than her. Ni Su's pale lips trembled, and she shook her head at him.
She couldn't shout his name out loud.
I can't talk to him in front of so many people.
Her tears flowed down her cheeks, and her nails almost dug into the cracks of the spring stool.
"President Tan, Ni Su is a woman, and sixteen strokes of the cane are enough!" When the sixteenth stroke fell on Ni Su, someone pushed through the crowd, stood outside the gate of the Drum Courtyard, and said loudly.
Judge Tan looked up when he heard the voice and saw a young man in black. He raised his hand to signal the police to stop and then said, "Who are you? How dare you disturb the court!"
"Zhou Ting, deputy lieutenant of the Night Division, greets the judge."
Zhou Ting took out the badge of the Night Guard and showed it to the guard, then looked behind him and said, "I have been ordered to escort Wu Yanei to the Drum Court to confront the grievance seeker in court."
As soon as he finished speaking, Judge Tan saw the people outside retreat to the sides to make way for a path. A group of people were carrying a sedan chair, on which sat a young man in brocade clothes who looked pale and sick.
When someone came to appeal for injustice, the accused had to be present, so Judge Tan immediately ordered his men to let Zhou Ting and others in.
Seeing that Wu Jikang was about to be carried in, Cai Chunxu ignored her husband Miao Yiyang's attempts to stop her and spat at Wu Jikang fiercely when no one was paying attention.
The saliva landed on Wu Jikang and his face changed.
"If he is the accused murderer, why is he being carried in? Does he have no legs? Let him get down and walk in by himself!"
Cai Chunxu started yelling.
The crowd immediately echoed: "That's right! Let him down!"
Rotten vegetable leaves and rotten eggs flew from nowhere. The servants who hurriedly put down the fishing rods tried to block them but failed. Wu Jikang was hit directly. He stared with his eyes wide open, unable to bear the filth on his body. His face became more and more strange, and his chest was heaving. He was about to explode, but he heard Zhou Ting beside him said in a calm voice: "Wu Yanei, please stand up and go to the drum court for trial."
Zhou Ting spoke the word "on trial" slowly, intending to remind Wu Jikang of his current situation.
Wu Jikang stood up awkwardly, and with the help of the servant beside him, he slowly walked into the gate of the Drum Courtyard.
Under the bright sunlight, he saw the woman lying on the bench at a glance. Her back was almost stained with blood and her whole body was twitching unconsciously.
Wu Jikang instinctively tightened his grip on the servant 's wrist, wondering vaguely, how come she hasn't died after being tortured like this...
"Yanei."
The servant whispered to him to go up the stairs.
But it was too late. Wu Jikang stumbled and nearly fell to his knees in front of the steps. He was helped to stand up by the servant and bowed to Judge Tan who was sitting in the hall: "Greetings, Mr. Judge."
"Sir, will you still use the cane?"
The servant asked carefully from the side.
Judge Tan was also in a dilemma and couldn't decide whether to beat him or not.
"Your Excellency, the Court of Drums applies criminal law first and then tries the case in order to prevent false accusations and disrespect to His Majesty. Using criminal law to test the resolve of those seeking justice is not intended to punish, but to test their sincerity. Do you think, Your Excellency, that this woman's heart is not sincere enough?" Zhou Ting walked into the hall and pointed at Ni Su who was being punished outside in the sunlight.
"But twenty strokes of the cane is the rule of the Drum Court."
Judge Tan frowned, "Without rules, there will be no order."
"Sir! I am willing to take the punishment for her!"
Suddenly, an urgent voice was heard outside the gate of the Drum Court.
For a moment, everyone's eyes were focused on the young man who was holding the arm of the guard at the door. It took Ni Su a long time to react before he slowly moved his eyes away.
It turned out to be He Zhongping.
He knelt down with a plop and shouted loudly: "Brother Jiming was born like pure gold and unpolished jade, but a tree that stands out in the forest will be destroyed by the wind, and a pile that stands out on the shore will be washed away by the current! I have been taken care of by Brother Jiming and have been friends with him. If I have to watch his only sister seek justice for him alone today, I, He Zhongping, would have read the books of sages in vain! Killers must pay with their lives, this has been the case since ancient times. Although Brother Jiming is dead, we poor scholars are still here! Student He Zhongping is willing to accept the punishment to seek justice for my friend Ni Qinglan!"
During the time when Ni Su beat the drum to report his crimes and was sent to the Drum Court to be punished, the news had spread throughout the streets and lanes of Yunjing City. Not only did He Zhongping come after hearing the news, but those scholars who came from also abandoned their studies in the academy and hurried over.
"If you want to be an official, you should serve the people and justice! This is what the teachers in the academy taught us! But who should give justice to the poor scholars now? You must know that today's Ni Qinglan may not be us in the future!" A scholar said, and he lifted his clothes and knelt beside He Zhongping, "The student is willing to be punished to redress the injustice for Ni Qinglan!"
"What are you waiting for? Are you not as brave as a frail woman?" Another scholar looked around and then knelt down.
More and more scholars knelt down.
"This student is willing to be punished and seek justice for Ni Qinglan!"
"Students are willing to seek justice for Ni Qinglan!"
"Students are willing to seek justice for Ni Qinglan!"
Judge Tan was really having a headache. He wiped the sweat from his forehead and heard the people who were watching the excitement shouting in unison, "Sir, don't beat her anymore." He had no choice but to stop torturing her. He waved his hand and told them not to hold down Ni Su.
He Zhongping and others were put into the drum courtyard, and the guards brought in several stools, and the scholars scrambled to lie on them.
Judge Tan was feeling depressed, not knowing how the matter had come to this point. Being in the Censorate, he knew very well that if the case was not judged well, those people in the Hanlin Academy would be proud.
But the current situation...
Judge Tan raised his head and took a look at the scholars being tortured outside. He only felt his head hurt even more.
"Wu Jikang, this woman accused you of killing her brother, and you admitted to the crime in the middle of the night in prison. Is this true?" Judge Tan calmed down and began to interrogate Wu Jikang.
Wu Jikang regretted so much that he easily admitted his guilt in the night watch. He hated the miserable cries outside even more. "But I didn't want to kill him. I just locked him up. Then he starved to death. He starved to death by himself. It has nothing to do with me..."
"If you didn't imprison him and torture him, how could he suffer from the soul-leaving syndrome?" Ni Su supported himself on the stool with both hands and tried to stand up, but there was no strength in his wrists.
"How should I know?"
Wu Jikang's mind was even more confused. "I said, I didn't want to kill him. No matter what, my crime does not deserve death, not death..."
"If you don't die, I, Ni Su, will never give up in this life!"
Ni Su could not forget the evil smile he gave her at the door of the police station that day. She wished she had a knife in her hand. If this world could not give her brother justice, she would stab him to death one knife at a time.
She wanted him to stop laughing and stop looking down on her brother's life with that smug look.
Wu Jikang was so annoyed that he kept scratching his neck. He hated the look in her eyes and wished it would be better if there were no such thing as those nosy scholars.
"I really didn't mean to kill anyone. Why don't you tell me how I can make it up to you?" Wu Jikang walked out in two or three steps, came in front of her, lowered his posture, bent his waist, and looked at a loss. However, the look he gave her was cold and vicious. "Do you want money? Or something else?"
His voice was very low.
Ni Su wished she could tear his face off on the spot. She was trembling even more. Suddenly, Wu Jikang staggered back a few steps. Then, his expression became extremely strange.
The silvery-white light wrapped around his neck like a silk thread , and Ni Su looked in the direction of the light source.
Under the sunlight, Xu Hexue's hands were pale and bloody, with smooth tendons and bones. He put two fingers together, and the light seeped into Wu Jikang's clothes like a thin thread, tearing the whip wounds hidden under Wu Jikang's robe inch by inch.
Wu Jikang was terrified. He couldn't see what was wrapped around his body, but he could feel those thin thread-like things tearing open the blood scabs on his body and cutting his flesh. He couldn't help but roll on the ground and scream in pain.
"Ni Su, don't worry, I won't use magic to kill people."
Xu Hexue's cold eyes stared at Wu Jikang, who was rolling on the ground in the dust. He did not look back at the girl on the bench, but said to her calmly: "It's just that he made you suffer these sixteen strokes of the cane, and you should pay it back."
Ni Su wanted to speak, wanted to tell him not to be like this, not to let his figure become lighter, otherwise it would snow again today.
But she can't.
She was afraid that everyone here would discover his presence.
Afraid he can't handle himself.
Ni Su watched helplessly as he exerted force with his fingers, and the silver threads pierced into Wu Jikang's flesh and blood, as if he was controlling a puppet. He made Wu Jikang bang his head against the ground like a madman, his forehead covered in blood. The servants of the Wu residence and the jailers of the drum court rushed forward to hold him down, but they almost couldn't hold him down.
Wu Jikang shouted at the top of his lungs: "There's a ghost! There's a ghost!"
Xu Hexue had almost gotten used to the pain in his body. He bent his fingers slightly, and watched Wu Jikang's ugly appearance with cold eyes.
"Don't be sad, and don't be discouraged. There are people who want the justice you want just as much as you do."
Xu Hexue's figure had become as faint as mist. He looked at the young people who were being tortured on the spring benches and said to them:
"Officialdom is cold, but some people's blood is still hot."
