Chapter 852: If You’re Going to Kill One Person, Dig Two Graves (10)

Qing scratched her cheek.

Whether the Jong brothers’ father, Merchant Jong, really was the vilest sort of human trash or not, there was something that needed to be nailed down first.

“What? Lady Lee said earlier that she had Merchant Jong’s child in her belly, didn’t she? If they’re saying they want to cut off the Jong bloodline, why is she carrying that blood in her own belly?”

It was still just a mutter.

A mutter that affected no one.

And Jihyeon snapped.

“You wench! Didn’t you confess with your own mouth that you were carrying the Jong man’s child? Come—now that I look at it, wasn’t this all a scheme to pass the merchant house to your own child?”

The crowd started murmuring again.

Ohhh. Ah, right? So it wasn’t just some common concubine rebellion? But what about the skeletons? Well, merchants slicing people up and cleaning it away is... kind of what they do, isn’t it?

But one fact was now certain: Jihyeon, whose face had been hard to see even once since he’d taken office, was in truth an incredible magistrate and an incredible chief constable.

They’d thought he was a lord who didn’t care about county affairs, but he was that brilliant.

Jihyeon’s popularity was skyrocketing straight up.

“Th-That... thuh...”

Lady Lee stammered.

She’d only said it to survive because a professional butcher-of-men came charging in with a knife—she hadn’t expected it to come back around like this.

Even if she said it had been a lie, her belly would swell soon enough, and even if it was the truth, it wasn’t like she could erase the child.

My child—no, I can’t—

Lady Lee wrapped both arms around her belly as if to shield it.

“Sir. That child’s father is—”

“B-Brother-in-law!”

“There’s no choice. We’re going to be tangled in the yoke of collective punishment either way, so it’s better than being a criminal’s son. Sir, the child in my wife’s womb is mine. I... I slept with her.”

“W-What!?”

The Chief Steward made another shocking confession.

Even Jihyeon looked like he might leap on instinct, and in an instant the hall filled with countless waves of uproar—like a whole school of fish exploding upward in a churning frenzy.

But sitting there and watching, Qing noticed that even in that chaos, the Jong Merchant House servants didn’t look particularly shocked.

Well. If these brats could guess it vaguely, how could the servants not know?

In truth, it was a case sloppy beyond belief.

So sloppy that the truth came out the moment you dragged in a single Therapist.

It wouldn’t be because the Chief Steward and Lady Lee were stupid.

It had to have been what people called an impulsive incident—if you had to handle it urgently, of course it would be sloppy.

And yet the reason things had come this far was likely because the merchant house members had either tacitly condoned it, or actively agreed with it.

Three Men Make a Tiger—if three people decide to match their stories, they can create a tiger that doesn’t exist.

If dozens of people in the Jong Merchant House tried to deceive them, how could even the sons possibly not be deceived?

But Jihyeon was losing his mind.

With the Royal Censor seated right there—and of all places, in his own jurisdiction—and for something this vicious to happen!

“H-How can this be...? Y-You two animals, isn’t this a scheme you cooked up together to swallow the merchant house whole? How could something this dreadful...! I—I will have you executed at once—”

“I’d prefer we solve it another way.”

Jihyeon shut his mouth mid-sentence.

Because whose words were those?

How could a speck like Jihyeon ignore the Royal Censor?

Qing stepped out to Jihyeon’s side.

“I truly admire you. Your Excellency is so brilliant—bringing this dark secret of a ghastly case into the open as clearly as a bright face. You’re truly a famed magistrate like Bao Zheng of old, aren’t you?”

Bao Zheng was the Central Plains’ famous judge—also a famed chancellor, an idol among officials, and the greatest detective—known in Qing’s homeland as Bao Qingtian.

So a great relief settled over Jihyeon’s face.

It seemed the Royal Censor was, thankfully, viewing him favorably.

“However, if this young woman may offer one suggestion—though it is important that crime be punished by national law, isn’t the law, in the first place, meant to comfort the weak and the wronged common people?”

Jihyeon had never heard such a thing in his life.

Since when had national law been for the weak and wronged common people—there wasn’t even a hint of it in his mind.

But now he understood.

What did it matter what he hadn’t known in the past? He knew now, and that was enough.

From this moment on, for him, “national law” would exist to protect the weak and wronged common people—exactly as the Royal Censor said. He decided it so.

“Indeed. Though you are of the martial world, your words are truly right. Then what counsel do you mean to offer now? I will carve it into my heart as the will of the common people.”

“An official who examines the will of the common people is truly the model of a true official, and an official who cherishes the people’s hearts like this can be called Heaven’s great blessing upon the dynasty. Everyone—am I not right?”

Jihyeon had abruptly become a famed magistrate, and the crowd’s eyes grew strangely bright—when you put it that way, it did seem like that?

So our Lord Jihyeon really was a famed magistrate!

“The merchant house’s owner has already left this world and can no longer bear responsibility for the merchant house’s crimes, and ordinarily in such a case, responsibility is demanded of the son.”

The Central Plains ran on collective punishment.

After all, in the Central Plains, the highest value—officially—was filial piety.

(Officially, anyway. In reality, for the Central Plains people, the highest value was gold.)

So it was filial piety for children to repay their parents’ sins, and of course the child should be made to answer for the parent’s crimes.

“But the sons had no involvement whatsoever in the merchant house’s affairs, so demanding responsibility of them is not only truly harsh—aren’t the sons also the greatest victims of those crimes?”

“Hoh... then?”

Qing thought it over, and... yeah. This seemed right.

Judging by the circumstances, it did seem Merchant Jong really had been a vicious serial killer, and if so, the Chief Steward had no guilt in Merchant Jong’s death.

When an evil man dies because of his own evil, any death is a natural death.

I mean—what qualifications do you even need to kill a bad person?

Anyone can pick up trash.

Just because someone’s room is filthy like a trash heap, and they stink because they don’t wash, doesn’t mean they aren’t allowed to pick up trash.

So as for Merchant Jong’s murder... she had no desire to assign guilt.

But driving the kids out was different.

They drove out innocent children who knew nothing—kids with nothing to do with their father’s evil—and tried to make them die on the street.

That was attempted murder in practice—an act carried out with an obvious intent to kill.

They said it was to cut off the blood of a killing wraith?

If Lady Lee hadn’t been pregnant, it might have sounded a little more plausible, but in this situation it was nothing but a pasted-on excuse.

Because they benefited by driving the brats out.

Even if there had been such a motive, the moment personal profit got involved, it could never be pure.

You didn’t even need to see it. It was obvious—grinning ear to ear, flowers of laughter blooming, thinking, two birds with one stone, while their cuckoo bastard child swallowed the merchant house.

So.

This was what seemed right.

“Therefore, how about you have the son pass judgment on them?”

“Hm. Ordinarily it should be handled according to national law, but hearing you, isn’t your statement truly right? Therefore—AHEM—Merchant Jong’s son, listen! As the head of this august office, I will respect your decision!”

At that, Jong Munun—who had been standing there blankly with no focus—snapped his head up.

Then he looked up at Qing, sending her a flustered gaze like a lost child.

Qing slowly shook her head.

She wasn’t pushing the decision away.

It just wasn’t for her to decide in his place.

If the brats had asked her to kill those cheating trash lovers, it would be one thing.

Or if she’d been unrelated to them—just a bystander who’d wandered over and learned what happened.

Then she could have raised her voice and argued for killing the wicked.

But these brats—

Even if the smaller one was too young to have any thoughts, the less-small one who seemed to have grown up early...

How could she take away the victim’s right to avenge the unjust suffering that had been done to them without sin?

“I... I...”

“M-Munun? Still—still, am I not your mother? I’m begging you—please, please forgive me, huh?”

Lady Lee immediately grabbed Jong Munun’s trouser leg and began begging in a weeping voice.

Jong Munun stared down at the back of her head with a cold gaze, then looked at the Chief Steward.

“Chief Steward—no, Uncle. Is that true? Was my father truly... a killing wraith? And my grandfather too?”

“...It’s a kind of madness. A horrific madness where you can’t feel satisfied unless you see human blood.”

Madness.

Mental illness.

But what is that—if you had to describe it... a sickness that leads to slaughter?

It felt weirdly cool and familiar.

“To begin with, I was born a slave. Your grandfather bought me to clean up the results of what that madness produced. Ordinarily I would have been killed long ago to silence me, but I understood him as well, and I desperately devoted myself to commerce. I made great contributions to expanding the merchant house, and my usefulness was recognized, so I remained as a trusted confidant. In the end, I took on even your father’s cleanup, and played the role of sworn elder brother.”

The reason the Chief Steward became the Chief Steward.

The reason he had to become it.

And the truth about Father.

Jong Munun’s lips trembled.

They parted—then parted again—but no words came out.

It felt like his insides were stuffed full, and his airway was being cinched shut.

Then, at that moment, a gentle hand touched his shoulder.

A cool body temperature carried through cloth.

Even without turning his head, it was obvious who it was.

A comfortably cool touch.