odessanovel Chapter 424
Chapter 424
Out of the corner of his eye, he caught a glimpse of Yao Huijing, who calmly steadied him, and Sun Chengming, whose face was full of unease as he kept glancing at the father and son pair. He could be certain that these two hadn’t heard those voices.Huang Xie’s heart began to pound with doubt, and his steps grew increasingly unsteady.
He naturally missed the Yao Tongpan, who had just helped him up, glancing at him with a puzzled expression.
Yao Tongpan couldn’t help but mutter to himself: What’s wrong with Lord Huang today? First he almost trips, now he’s drenched in sweat. Could what happened earlier really be related to him?
Yao Tongpan swept his gaze toward the light cyan figure ahead of him. Right now, he really wanted to withdraw the hand that was supporting Prefect Huang and ask if it was still possible to cut ties with Lord Huang!
[He was promoted to Yingchuan Prefect in the early days of the fifth year of Prince Yuan’s reign, thanks to a recommendation. At the time, the master happened to be in the Hongwen Academy, so she wasn’t aware of this.
This Huang Xie is also a close friend of Zheng Ziling. He suffers from kidney deficiency and once asked Zheng Ziling to find him a doctor in the capital to prescribe medicine.]
「At his age, he’s still kidney-deficient? This old guy’s private life must be unsavory, right?」Huang Xie clearly heard Yue Fuguang’s voice turn cold, and his heart was full of bitterness he couldn’t express.
He desperately wanted to say: Lord Junior Master, is it possible that this humble official’s condition is congenital?
[Master, Little Bead found out that this Huang Xie has one wife, three concubines, and one bed-servant. He’s trying to nourish his kidneys because he wants to have a son.]
「He sure hasn’t neglected himself! At his age, he’s still obsessed with having a son. Doesn’t he already have sons?」Of course, Yue Fuguang wouldn’t openly mock Lord Huang’s desire for a son in this ancient setting. Even if there wasn’t a throne to inherit, there were still family assets and connections to pass down.
This mindset was common even in the modern era, with its advanced technology and liberal thinking, let alone in ancient times, where technology, ideology, and productivity were all underdeveloped.
They truly had property and ancestral graves to inherit, and in this context, only male heirs could carry that burden. Without a male heir, the only option was to adopt a male relative from the clan to take over one’s wealth and continue the ancestral line.
This feudal ritual dross was something even the current Yue Fuguang couldn’t change in the short term, no matter how much she wanted to.
Whether it was decrees or systems, if they sprang from a single person, they would likely vanish with that person’s departure.
Without a change in the underlying thought patterns of the masses, even if some people heeded her now, the old thinking would violently rebound the moment she left.
She was a selfish person, not noble enough to stay in this world permanently for anyone’s sake.
[Sons? Of course he has them—more than one. Unfortunately, the big account is ruined, and the medium account is wasted. So he’s in a hurry to create another small account to train.]
Huang Xie didn’t understand their talk of “big accounts,” “medium accounts,” and “small accounts,” but he guessed from the context that they were referring to his sons.
In a few moments, the group had already reached the front of the line.
The father and son kneeling on the ground looked at the leading girl, whose bearing and aura resembled the deity statue they had enshrined in their home by seven or eight parts. They realized she was the Divine Woman they had come to seek.
“Commoner Cao Xiwang from Taohua Village, Pinglang County, Yingchuan Prefecture, with my foolish son Cao Xiaojun, pay homage to the Divine Woman!”
The pair kowtowed heavily to Yue Fuguang, raising a cloud of dust. When the surrounding commoners saw Yue Fuguang’s true face, their expressions lit up with joy, and they fell to their knees to kowtow in unison.
Cao Xiwang wore coarse cloth clothes that had been washed gray, covered with patch after patch. He appeared to be in his fifties, but the system indicated his age was only forty-one.
His face was weathered and bitter—the kind of premature aging that came from exhausting all one’s energy on making a living and bending under the weight of daily labor. This was the appearance of ninety percent of the commonfolk present.
His son, who looked to be in his teens, wore the same ragged clothes. His dark-skinned face flushed to a blackish-red from excitement when he saw her, and only his eyes were startlingly bright.
Yue Fuguang had no way to change the habit these people had of kneeling and kowtowing at every turn. She simply waved her hand and said, “Stand up, all of you!”
Then, addressing Cao Xiwang and his son, she said, “Cao Xiwang, if you have a grievance, speak it aloud while standing.”
She didn’t know exactly where Taohua Village was, but Pinglang County was over a hundred miles away. In a place with underdeveloped transportation, where some people never left their home county in their entire lives, that was truly a long distance.
Yue Fuguang turned and sat down on the chair that Dai Yuxing had brought over for her, turning the Ten-Mile Pavilion into a temporary hearing court. If only she had a table in front of her and a gavel to slam, it would feel even more authentic.
When she arrived, she had already learned the general outline from Dai Yuxing, but to grasp the details, she still had to hear it from the parties themselves.
“Divine Woman, my old self… my family’s grievance is immense!” Before he could even finish his sentence, Cao Xiwang choked up and began to sob.
Cao Xiwang tasted the saltiness of his tears on his lips, then wiped his face hastily with his sleeve. Through intermittent sobs, he recounted his family’s grievance.
The matter was actually simple, and quite common in this ancient society: Cao Xiwang’s eldest son, Cao Dajun, had married a famous local beauty in the spring of last year.
Since their wedding, they had been a loving young couple, and their life was steady and happy. But it all fell apart because of one person’s appearance.
"My Lady Divine, that Sun Jizu, relying on his uncle who holds a high office in the prefectural government, has been committing all kinds of evils in our neighborhood—bullying men and abusing women, stopping at nothing.
That day, he brought a pack of wicked servants to my village to collect rent. When he saw my daughter-in-law's beauty, he insisted on taking her back as his eighteenth concubine.
When our family refused, we were beaten viciously by the Sun family’s thugs. After they snatched my daughter-in-law away, my son Dajun went to the yamen to file a complaint. But before he even reached the gate, he was set upon by some ruffians who appeared out of nowhere, beating him mercilessly without asking a single question."
At this point, Cao Xiwang’s tears fell again. "When the villagers brought my son home, he lay in bed for over three months before he could even stand.
The day after he was back on his feet, my son and I went to report the crime again.
On the first day, the county magistrate claimed to be busy and refused to see us. The second day was the same. We went every day for ten days straight and never once got to see the magistrate—not even a single other official."
Yue Fuguang nodded, then suddenly turned to the sweating Huang Xie and asked, "Prefect Huang, is it the norm in this Great Yan Dynasty for county magistrates not to show up for their duties?
Or perhaps the magistrates of Yingchuan Prefecture are special, drawing their salaries from the imperial treasury while sitting idle and accomplishing nothing?"
"N-no, no, Lord Junior Preceptor. All officials in Yingchuan Prefecture abide by imperial decrees. The magistrate of Pinglang County is an exception. He does not represent the entire Yingzhou officialdom."
"That's right, Lord Junior Preceptor. We all attend to our duties diligently every day, and our devotion to the state is plain for heaven and earth to see. That magistrate of Pinglang County, Hao Ren, is merely an anomaly!"
"Or perhaps Magistrate Hao had his reasons for acting this way?" one official cautiously glanced at Yue Fuguang’s expression, trying to defend Hao Ren.
Yue Fuguang paused her handling of the 'system' and let out a scornful laugh at this. "An anomaly? And reasons?"
She raised her eyebrows and swept her gaze lightly across all the officials present, her cold voice piercing into everyone's hearts. "What a fine example of officials shielding one another! Your Yingchuan Prefecture has truly opened my eyes, Lord Junior Preceptor."