HLnovel Chapter 523 A Clear Mirror Hanging High
Chapter 523 A Clear Mirror Hanging High
Upon hearing these words, Prefect Ling was overwhelmed with emotions, recalling how he had met Zong Que.
He came from a poor family, and his whole family did everything they could to support his education. His mother was good at embroidery, and in order to save money for his education, she almost went blind. At a young age, her vision was already blurred and she could not see clearly. His older brothers worked as laborers in town all year round. Even his elderly grandparents and uncles took good care of him.
All this stemmed from a story told by an old man who was begging for water when he was young. The old man said that he would become an official and bring prosperity to the region. His family, being superstitious, took it seriously and tightened their belts to send him to study with an old scholar in the village. As a child, he thought studying was fun, but as he grew older, he realized the hardship his family endured to support his education. He could only study even harder to live up to their expectations.
But it wasn't until he passed the imperial examination at the age of twenty that he finally realized the difference. He wasn't the kind of genius who was born to be good at studying. His intelligence wasn't particularly outstanding among the many scholars. He was outstanding in the small county town, but when he went to the prefectural city, where all the scholars gathered together, he was just an ordinary one.
Among these ordinary scholars, there were many who came from better families, were smarter, and had better comprehension than him. That was the first time he realized his narrow-mindedness.
He was unwilling to give up and wanted to go further, but that meant he would have to put in a thousand times more effort and continue to burden his family. Even now, recalling how difficult that process was, it was still vivid in his mind. He didn't even dare to get married too early. Even so, he failed the exam twice. By the time he took the exam for the third time, he was already twenty-seven years old. His family had supported his studies for twenty years.
Twenty years! If he had any backbone left, he wouldn't be a burden to them any longer.
So that year was the last time he decided to take the exam. If he failed again, he would give up the imperial examination and use what he had learned over the years to become a teacher or find a job to give back to his family. He was determined not to be a burden to them anymore.
And it just so happened that in that same year, right before his exams, his family got into a lawsuit.
His younger sister knew he was going to take an exam, so she took the money she had secretly saved for a long time back to the village to give to him. However, on the way, she encountered several rich young men who had gone out of town and had drunk too much. They grabbed his younger sister and harassed her. In a panic, his younger sister pushed one of the young men down, causing him to hit his head and break it. In a fit of rage, the young man then raped her.
It was afternoon. Passersby saw it, but no one dared to utter a sound. It was a fellow villager who saw it and rushed back to report it. He and his elder brother rushed over and clashed with the young men, injuring the one who had humiliated the little sister. Before they could even report it to the authorities while comforting the little sister, they were arrested and taken to the government office. It turned out that the young man who had humiliated the little sister that day was actually the son of the county magistrate.
The magistrate's son and the other young men claimed that their younger sister saw them drunk and tried to seduce them. After he refused, she attempted to extort money from them and even beat him severely. The young men present could all testify to this.
Such a distortion of the truth is simply unheard of!
He was still a scholar at the time, how could he tolerate this? He filed a detailed complaint against them for distorting the truth and abusing a respectable woman, and all passersby could testify to it!
However, no one came forward to testify. The magistrate told him directly that if he obediently confessed and shifted all the blame onto his elder brother and younger sister, he would be spared this time and allowed to take the imperial examination. If he did not confess, he would be flogged sixty times according to the law and imprisoned until he confessed. In any case, if he missed the imperial examination, it wouldn't be a matter of waiting three years.
That was the first time in his life he had witnessed what treacherous, officialdom, human nature, and power were—so dark that there was no way out.
Upon hearing this, the older brother and younger sister confessed their guilt without any struggle.
He saw the despair in his younger sister's eyes, the kind of eyes that seemed ready to die at any moment.
Reason told him that he should confess his guilt and go on the imperial examination in order to seek revenge in the future. But as a human being, he could not confess his guilt, even if he died.
It is utterly ridiculous for criminals to force victims to confess. If officials like this run rampant in the Great Zhao Dynasty, what is the point of its imperial examinations?
He refused to plead guilty.
Enraged, the magistrate ordered them to be dragged out and flogged in court.
Parents, siblings, and even elderly grandparents knelt outside desperately, kowtowing, their tears and blood staining the ground, yet no one could uphold justice.
In the sweltering heat of June, he felt cold from the soles of his feet to the top of his head.
As the younger sister was being dragged out, she took the opportunity to push away the bailiffs and ram her head against a doorpost.
Just when they all thought blood was about to spill from the scene, a figure flashed out and pulled the little sister back.
He will never forget that twelve or thirteen-year-old boy with ethereal beauty who pulled his suicidal younger sister back from the brink of suicide and said to her, whose eyes were vacant and lifeless, "I'll take your case."
Ignoring the magistrate's angry orders, Zong Que ordered his men to pull him off his seat and took his place. He then made them recount the details of the case and sent people to investigate the truth. In just one hour, he had a clear understanding of the whole case.
At this point, the county magistrate finally realized the seriousness of the matter and kept kneeling on the ground, kowtowing and begging Zong Que to give him a chance, promising to handle the matter impartially.
Zong Que ignored him and directly announced the verdict: rape of a married woman, sentence to hanging.
The magistrate was dumbfounded, and so was the magistrate's son, who had been forcibly brought over.
After the verdict was delivered, Zong Que stepped down from the courtroom and pointed to the plaque hanging directly above the courtroom, saying to the magistrate, "Read these four characters."
“Bright…bright, a clear mirror, hanging high.” The magistrate was trembling so much that he could barely speak.
"A clear mirror hangs high, meant to see everything clearly and be impartial and selfless. Magistrate Guo, which of these qualities have you achieved?" Zong Que asked him.
Magistrate Guo trembled violently, repeatedly saying, "I am guilty, I am guilty."
“You are indeed guilty of bending the law for personal gain and should be exiled.” Zong Que ordered his subordinates, “Investigate. If there are other crimes, punish them all. If there are no other faults, exile to Tingzhou.”
"Your Highness, spare me! Your Highness, spare me!"
He still remembers the shrill screams of Magistrate Guo at that time.
The case was concluded in court. Upon learning that he was a scholar who was about to take the autumn imperial examination, Zong Que only asked him one question: "If you become an official in the future, can you live up to these four words?"
"Yes!" That must have been the loudest sound he ever uttered in his life.
What shocked him the most was that after Zong Que gave him the money for the scientific research, he did not leave immediately. Instead, he went to his younger sister and sincerely asked her what she wanted if he wanted her to live.
The younger sister had already resolved to die. Even if the case was closed, she would probably still have a lingering resentment. But none of them expected that the first person to care about this matter would be the young man who had just saved their whole family.
The little sister burst into tears instantly.
It was only much later that she said she wanted to move to another place and asked her family to pretend she was dead. She couldn't face it, didn't know how to meet the people she knew, and didn't dare to gamble on whether her husband and children could understand. She was afraid that if that were the case, she would rather die first.
“Then come with me, I’ll take you away from here.” Zong Que extended his hand to her.
The little girl trembled for a long time, not daring to touch that hand, but that hand didn't move away for a very long time, until she grabbed it in fear.
It was then that he realized that this was the legendary Crown Prince.
His younger sister followed Zong Que into the palace and became the head palace maid of the late Empress, who was still alive at the time. The late Empress named her Zi'an. Before the late Empress passed away, she sent her out of the palace to the Lady of Hua.
He met his younger sister once when he passed the imperial examination, but he didn't recognize her at all.
As memories flooded back, he suddenly understood the significance of their eventual freedom.
This world is extremely harsh on women, but one day, drops of water will gather into a vast ocean, breaking through prejudice and the cage that has imprisoned them for thousands of years.