Chapter 15: Ballad Of Lime
“Three sirs!”
Zhang Biao slightly raised his chin and said to the three pale-faced chief judges with a tone of near pity: “If you feel that my case is difficult to judge, that evidence is hard to find, or that it is too significant to dare to investigate deeply, it’s fine.”
He paused, and under everyone’s astonished gaze, he revealed an extremely brilliant, extremely irritating smile: “Take me directly to the Hall of Supreme Harmony, I want to see the Emperor!”
“Let me explain to the Emperor personally, and by the way, ask His Majesty, whether he thinks I should have this nonsensical head chopped off? Or should he properly investigate the people and matters I’m nonsensically talking about?”
“I believe His Majesty will give you three sirs a clear directive!”
Boom!
Zhang Biao’s words were like a huge rock dropped into a stagnant pond!
Take him to see the Emperor?
Let him talk nonsense again in front of the Emperor? Provoke the Emperor’s thunderous rage again?!
He’s gone mad! The Crown Prince has already been buried!
The faces of the three chief judges instantly turned from red to white, then from white to green, a magnificent display.
Cold sweat finally began to slide down their foreheads uncontrollably.
This was not judging a case at all.
This was clearly inviting an ancestor back!
An ancestor who was bent on dying, had explosive combat power, and could break the heavens at any moment!
The air in the interrogation room completely congealed.
The three chief judges looked at each other, seeing deep helplessness and a trace of fear in each other’s eyes.
Just then, Chen Ying suddenly seemed to remember something and said, “Censor Zhang, weren’t those charges listed by yourself? Why are you not admitting them now that you are being interrogated? Do you have some other purpose?”
As soon as this was said, everyone in the hall and below was stunned.
Wu Yong reacted instantly and quickly shouted, “Zhang Biao! Since you have admitted to the crimes of sowing discord between ruler and subjects and disrupting the court, then quickly confess! What is your intention in doing so? Who instructed you? Who are your accomplices?!”
Zhan Hui also put on a stern face, slammed the table, and added, “Intentional concealment is a serious crime of great disrespect! According to the law, you shall be severely punished without mercy! Aren’t you going to confess the mastermind behind you?”
Zhang Biao looked at them speaking righteously, as if they had finally found his handle, and suddenly smiled.
There was no fear or panic in that smile, only a mockery akin to pity.
“Instructed? Accomplices?”
He shook his head, as if looking at an unreasonable group of people: “Sir Wu, Sir Zhan, is this the only trick you have in judging cases?”
After speaking, he paused, leaned his body forward slightly, his gaze sharp as lightning, piercing the three chief judges, and his voice suddenly rose, with a sharpness that penetrated everything: “Sowing discord between ruler and subjects? Whom did I sow discord between whom? Where is the evidence?! Did the Emperor chop off Lu Ping, Qi Tai, and Zhao Qian after hearing my words? No!”
“The Emperor threw them and me into the Imperial Prison together. What does this mean? It means the Emperor has his own judgment, and was not at all swayed by me!”
“You accuse me of successfully sowing discord, do you think the Emperor is easily swayed and can be incited by us minor officials?! You are questioning the Emperor’s wisdom!”
Boom!
Wu Yong, Zhan Hui, and Chen Ying’s faces instantly turned ashen!
Zhang Biao’s words were too vicious!
He had directly pinned the accusation of successful discord-sowing onto them for questioning imperial authority!
“As for disrupting the court?”
Zhang Biao gave them no chance to breathe, his speech faster, his momentum stronger: “What is the court order? It is the rules set by the Emperor! It is the court sessions presided over by the Emperor!”
“When I spoke in court, it was with the Emperor’s permission! If what I said angered the Emperor, and the Emperor apprehended me and imprisoned me for trial according to the rules, this in itself is the court order in operation! How was it disrupted?!”
“You say I disrupted the court, do you think the Emperor’s handling was improper? Or do you think the order of the Emperor’s court sessions is so fragile that it was disrupted by my few words? You are questioning the court’s laws! Questioning the Emperor’s authority!”
“You! You are quibbling! Slandering!”
Wu Yong trembled with anger, pointing at Zhang Biao, his finger shaking, but he could not utter a single forceful rebuttal.
Zhan Hui and Chen Ying also had ashen faces, cold sweat trickling down their foreheads.
Zhang Biao’s counterattack was heart-piercing, striking at their soft spot of defending imperial power and law.
“Quibbling?”
Zhang Biao sneered, his eyes sweeping over the three chief judges who were cornered and enraged, with a condescending pity: “I think you are out of arguments and are becoming angry with shame, aren’t you?”
He suddenly stepped forward again, ignoring the intimidation of the yamen runners on either side, his gaze like a torch, his voice resonant and powerful, with an unyielding aura:
“You keep saying I sowed discord between ruler and subjects and disrupted the court, all because you want to quickly convict me, chop off my head, and report to the Emperor, making yourselves look effective in the trial by the Three Judicial Offices! But have you ever thought?”
Zhang Biao’s voice suddenly rose to its highest pitch, like thunderclaps exploding in the silent hall:
“Why did I, Zhang Biao, say those words in the Imperial Court, confess those crimes?! It was to seek death! But why would I seek death?!”
As he spoke, he suddenly flicked his sleeve as if to cast off the corrupt shackles, and recited to himself: “A thousand hammers and ten thousand chisels carve me from the mountain, the fiery furnace burns me as if it were nothing. I fear not the crushing of my bones and the disintegration of my flesh, as long as I can leave purity in the world!”
Whoosh!
The whole hall erupted!
After the four lines of poetry were recited, the entire Ministry of Justice hall fell into silence!
So quiet you could hear a pin drop!
The righteousness, resolve, and extreme pursuit of purity contained within the poem, like invisible giant hammers, ruthlessly shattered the hypocrisy of the trumped-up charges in the hall!
Zhang Biao’s gaze swept over the three chief judges whose minds were shaken by the poem, a mocking smile playing on his lips, and he said word by word: “Now, do you understand?”
“The crime, I can list it myself! Death, I can seek it myself!”
“My bones can be crushed, my body can turn to ash!”
“But my purity, Zhang Biao’s purity – you, don’t even think of defiling it!”
“You want to convict me based on the charges I admitted myself, fine!”
Zhang Biao spread his arms, a smile on his face that was both tragic and full of provocation: “Then convict me! Stain your official robes with my blood!”
“Use my charges to achieve the merits of your Three Judicial Offices!”
“See how the iron pen of history will write today’s trial by the Three Judicial Offices! See how future generations will judge how you, who have nailed an Imperial Censor seeking purity, to the charges you fabricated!”
“Come on! Sentence me! Sentence me for sowing discord between ruler and subjects! Sentence me for disrupting the court! Let me shatter my bones! Let me burn in the fire!”
Zhang Biao’s voice was like a great bell, carrying a resolve of mutual destruction: “But I want to see how you can silence the public opinion of this world! How you can erase this trace of purity I leave in the human world!”
“…”
“…”
“…”
Wu Yong, Zhan Hui, and Chen Ying, as if all their strength had been drained, sat stiffly on their rosewood chairs, their faces ashen.
They looked at the young Imperial Censor standing tall and proud below, his eyes clear and sharp like burning flames, and felt a chill from the soles of their feet to the top of their heads.
Zhang Biao had cornered them with a poem about lime.
Convict him?
Based on the charges he himself ‘admitted’? Then the Three Judicial Offices would become a laughingstock for eternity, ironclad proof of framing an upright official!
Not convict him? How to explain to the furious Emperor? How to end this?
Just as this suffocating stalemate ensued, the curtain on the side door of the hall was abruptly pulled aside!
The tall, stern figure of the Imperial Guard Commander, Jiang Huan, entered with the chill of the Imperial Prison. His sharp gaze swept across the chaotic interrogation scene, finally landing on Zhang Biao, his voice icy, yet like thunder.
“Zhang Biao! The Emperor’s oral decree: you are summoned to an immediate audience!”
