Chapter 851: If You’re Going to Kill One Person, Dig Two Graves (9)

“Sir, it’s all a misunderstanding! It isn’t that we drove them out—rather, we hoped those thoughtless brats would come to understand filial piety. Even if it wasn’t their intent, they carried Bai people smallpox and killed their own father—how can that sin of violating the bonds of Heaven be answered for? So, with the thought that they should realize their guilt while also observing mourning for their father, we made them wander and beg—how could we ever have driven our sworn younger brother’s children out to die?”

As the Chief Steward said it, he desperately looked toward one side—toward the Judicial Commissioner of Jinping County, the judge who oversaw the county’s trials.

The Judicial Commissioner went, AHEM, clearing his throat, and—

“Your Excellency. Doesn’t what he says have some merit? When one properly observes mourning for a father, doesn’t one build a grass hut beside the grave mound and live as a wild man, offering rites morning and evening? The clothes you wear must be mourning garments—uncomfortable as if they’re scraping your skin—and in what you eat, you must forbid cooked foods, avoid impure pungent greens, and you mustn’t even eat until you’re full. Compared to that, making a life outside the house, wandering and begging like beggars... couldn’t it even be said he showed consideration for still-young nephews?”

For reference, that “grass hut beside the grave mound” was said to be a thing where you must not lay a proper floor or raise proper pillars.

So it amounted to nothing more than a thatch roof tied together with straw.

A shelter so low your head would hit even when sitting properly—so that going in and out, you had to crawl on all fours.

A shack—no, a residence worse than a shack.

In truth, if you tried to carry out a proper three-year mourning, those “three years” were far harsher than being a beggar, and to begin with, the survival rate was lower than a beggar’s.

You had to endure the mountain’s cold and heat in a single thin set of clothes, and you had to survive alone against every kind of ferocious beast in the mountains.

Three-year mourning is that hard.

Otherwise, why would the whole world have praised Yuan Shao as a hero under Heaven, just because he completed “three-year mourning plus one plus one”—three-year mourning for his father and mother, back-to-back?

And as for Chen Shou—the man who wrote Records of the Three Kingdoms—because his body grew so sick during his mourning that he brewed and drank a single dose of medicine, he was treated like the most worthless, unfilial wretch in all the world for “valuing his own well-being over his parents’ grave,” and he was cut from office and forced to live unemployed for around ten years.

So if they’d driven them out to live like beggars, you could even argue it was far more merciful than true three-year mourning.

Qing’s brows knit hard.

No—who the hell does three-year mourning?

Three-year mourning is just a political event equivalent to winning First Place at the Filial Piety Championship Under Heaven.

If you actually did three-year mourning properly, it was basically an act close to suicide—if everyone had kept it, then by now the entire Central Plains would be extinct, and everyone would be nothing but white bones beside their parents’ graves.

“Your Excellency, isn’t filial piety the foundation of the nation, and also the most basic duty a person must keep? Even if the Jong sons did not do it on purpose, they drove their father to death, so is it not right that they pay the price for that sin? Therefore, by the national law, this man here could rather be said to have bestowed immeasurable virtue upon the Jong sons.”

Prefectural Magistrate Jihyeon felt his spine freeze.

So that’s why gold was making its way up—this bastard took the money, ate it, and sent the rest upward!

And then, as if to make sure the whole place heard it, there came that quiet voice—quiet, yet somehow carrying with a maddening clarity that would only be audible from about where he stood.

“What? Since when did this country’s national law contain a law like that? If your children are young and pitiful, make them live as beggars for three years instead of observing three-year mourning? Is my knowledge of national law still too shallow? I’ll have to ask someone who knows the national law well.”

“GRAAAH!!! Where in the world is there any national law like that! I—I! Absolutely! Do not! Think! That!”

Jihyeon frothed at the mouth.

Because if the Royal Censor asked someone who knew the national law well, that meant this entire situation would flow straight into the imperial palace.

Exterminate nine degrees of kin—meaning even family, relatives by marriage, even eighth cousins and the children of eighth cousins could lose their heads, and no one would blink.

“Y-Your Excellency?”

“And you—how dare you pair of animals even put three-year mourning in your mouths? Then what in the world is that Jong woman? Fine—say the children atone by living as beggars, then why is the Jong woman here instead of observing three-year mourning!”

That’s right.

Three-year mourning applied not only to the children, but to the wife as well.

“Uh, th-that is... since there are no elders left in the household, this young woman has no choice but to put the family in order...”

“And you, you bastard! If you’re the Jong man’s sworn elder brother, why aren’t you observing three-month mourning either!”

“I-It’s because there are no men left in the household, so I must protect my sworn younger brother’s business...”

The Chief Steward again looked desperately toward the Judicial Commissioner.

A faint suspicion touched the Judicial Commissioner’s face.

Your Excellency usually took the “sincerity” offered as if you were there and not there at all, so why are you like this today...?

“Your Excellency, these people’s words have merit. And if their business flourishes, later they will know the authorities’ magnanimity and of course strive for the county’s prosperity—so in the end, it also helps affairs of state—”

“KYAAAAH!!! What are you saying!!”

Jihyeon cut him off, frothing.

Because the Judicial Commissioner’s words meant: if you go easy on them, a very generous “sincerity” will come flying in later.

To Jihyeon, it sounded like not sincerity at all, but a blade flying toward his own neck.

“You—are you trying to kill someone? That—make that bastard kneel at once!”

“Your Excellency? Your Excellency!?”

“NOW! IMMEDIATELY! GRAAAH!! What are you DOING!!”

The Judicial Commissioner knelt down in a line beside the Chief Steward and Lady Lee.

The Chief Steward and the Judicial Commissioner exchanged looks.

What in the world is going on?

I don’t know either. Did that man eat something wrong?

“Huff... huff...”

As Jihyeon panted—

That voice came again. That damned mutter.

“Come to think of it, isn’t even the Jong man’s death strange from the start? Even if a grown man catches an illness, he dies suddenly one day like that? Shouldn’t we hear the details from the Therapist?”

“THAT THERAPIST!!! Bring in the Therapist who judged the Jong man’s cause of death at once! I must start by examining the Jong man’s death!”

At that, all the blood drained from the Chief Steward and Lady Lee’s faces.

Whether they liked it or not, a short while later, a single Therapist was dragged into the manor, dangling from soldiers on both sides, and tossed down.

It was a lightning strike in broad daylight for the Therapist.

Countless soldiers barging in without warning.

A rough transport process fit for handling criminals.

The plaza packed, crawling, overflowing with the county’s troops.

And in the middle of it, the Chief Steward and Lady Lee kneeling.

To anyone’s eyes, this was a situation where disaster had broken out.

So the Therapist slammed their forehead to the ground immediately.

“I have committed a crime worthy of death, a crime worthy of death! This wretch could not endure the threats and... and in the end! Th-that man threatened this small one and forced me, and this weak small one yielded and obeyed!”

“W-What!? No! That’s not true! It wasn’t me! That man is a con artist—pure nonsense!”

The Chief Steward screamed, horrified.

In fact, the Therapist hadn’t even said a name yet, so it was practically a violent confession.

“Shut that bastard’s mouth!”

“W-Wait—mmph! Mmm!”

At that, the yamen troops surged in and shoved a gag into the Chief Steward’s mouth.

“Good. You were threatened? What threats did you receive?”

“MMMPH, MMPH!!”

“He—he told me to change the cause of death. Originally the deceased died by strangulation, but he told me to say it was a sudden death due to strange plague...”

The whole room went quiet.

Even the Judicial Commissioner kneeling beside them stared at the Chief Steward like, what in the world are you saying—so what would everyone else’s shock be like?

Mm. Somehow. I had a feeling it would be this.

Should I have just left the kids behind...?

Qing checked the Jong brothers’ faces.

Luckily, the smaller one didn’t even understand what it meant—he only sat there blankly with a bored look.

But the less-small one already had a deep hatred gathering on his face, and his fists were clenched so hard they trembled.

Qing laid her hand over those fists.

“You okay?”

“I... I, ugh. I want to hear what my uncle—no, what that man has to say. If he truly killed Father... and if so, why he did it. Whether it was only filthy greed. And whether all the kindness he showed us brothers all this time was nothing but hypocrisy...”

At that, Qing turned her gaze toward Jihyeon—

But the quick-witted Jihyeon moved first.

“I will give the criminal a chance to speak his crime. How did you commit such lawless acts? Why did you conceal the Jong man’s cause of death, and if so, who is the culprit?”

Qing gave a bitter smile.

Even if you ask now, it’s obvious what answer will come back.

I didn’t do it. It’s a frame-up. I’m innocent. It’s unfair. And so on.

A man who slept with his sworn younger brother’s wife and tried to swallow that household whole—why would he admit that was his true intent?

But the Chief Steward’s answer—

“...I did it.”

“Brother-in-law!”

Lady Lee cried out like a scream.

The Chief Steward let out a long, deep sigh.

“Sir. This small one only did what had to be done. That merchant Jong—he pretended to be a good man, but in truth he was a beast wearing human hide, the vilest sort who deserved to die.”

Mm. This... I did not see coming at all.

“What are you talking about?”

“I mean it literally, sir. Merchant Jong was that kind of vicious thing—his brutality wasn’t human. A beast’s spawn. Didn’t he beat my wife to death before, and now he was trying to beat his remaining wife to death as well?”

“Brother-in-law!”

“This small one killed my sworn younger brother and saved his wife. That is all. And beyond that, I also tried to remove the beast’s seed that had inherited his blood. Merchant Jong’s father was also that kind of vile thing, so I judged it to be a beast’s nature passed down through blood.”

“...What?”

Jihyeon panicked.

Not just Jihyeon—everyone panicked.

Even Qing panicked.

Sometimes there is a voice that doesn’t feel like a lie at all.

A voice like now.

A tone steeped in deep resignation—empty, hollow, as if he had abandoned everything.

Of course, if he were an outstanding con artist, he could fabricate even this.

But to Qing—con artist among con artists, the greatest con artist under Heaven—this didn’t sound like a lie.

In the meantime, the boy who had burst out, Jong Munun, shrieked and lunged.

Before anyone could stop him, he grabbed the kneeling Chief Steward by the collar and spewed his rage.

“Lies—lies! It’s a lie! You—you slept with my second mother, so you’re saying that kind of lie!”

But the Chief Steward only smiled crookedly.

“A beast, by nature, doesn’t it also regard its own children as precious in a twisted way? Nephew, you wouldn’t know. But isn’t it strange? In this merchant house there are dozens of servants—was there even a single one who showed you brothers warmth? Or have you truly never once thought that was strange?”

“That’s because you ordered them to—”

“Do you really think so?”

Jong Munun suddenly looked around.

Between the onlookers and the yamen troops were familiar faces—those eyes, whether they held pity or indifference, or even contempt.

But among them, not a single gaze denied it.

The Chief Steward looked calmly at Jihyeon.

“Sir. If you dig under the manor’s ornamental trees, you will find dozens of unclaimed white skeletons. This small one stood watch, forced silence, and disposed of bodies—so I too am a criminal who participated. However.”

Suddenly, desperation entered the Chief Steward’s eyes.

“Lady Lee here has no guilt. She is only a pitiful woman who nearly died at her husband’s hands. I only beg that you show mercy.”

“Brother-in-law...”

Tears leaked from Lady Lee’s eyes.

But then, behind them, the Judicial Commissioner started sweating like a waterfall—stealing glances everywhere—and the mood got completely ruined.

And then Jihyeon looked back.

Then again.

An utterly blatant look that said, What the hell do I do with this?