Zhang Yinluo was the freshly installed head constable of Mingzhou City, just returned from her studies at her master's school. The trouble was, that school was called Lingjiu Palace — a place the men of the Central Land had once yearned for and now ground their teeth at.
A thousand years hence, this accursed place would probably be crowned with such humanistic titles as "birthplace of the women's rights movement" and "cradle of the ideal of equality between the sexes," and become a famous tourist attraction.
In the present, however, its women were the class enemy of countless men across the land, the single greatest obstacle barring them from a brighter future.
To be fair, in a feudal dynasty like the empire — short on humanistic spirit, its human-rights record worrying, its overall standard of decency low — a force that could to some degree oversee and rein in the misdeeds of stinking men did have real value to its existence.
Take Qin Yu: the city magistrate's yamen did keep a women's prison, but by the social mores of several centuries earlier, a female criminal of decent looks falling into the hands of the authorities would, if not gang-raped by sex-starved civil servants, be quietly bought back by the wronged wealthy households she'd robbed, to be kept as a flesh-[beep——] doll, abused and tormented at will, stripped of all dignity, and die without a sound...
But in a country where martial arts flourished, where individual strength could even shift the balance of a city or a province, such wretched things had been curbed and eased to a certain extent.
Take the Han Empire, where Mingzhou City lay — as the venerable foremost power of the Central Land, it was, ironically, the realm where women held the highest social standing.
This was because the Great Han was founded upon martial arts, and martial arts were a heaven-sent treasure by which ordinary mortals strengthened their bodies and even changed their fates.
If men could train in them, then naturally women could too.
Men were yang, vigorous in blood and breath, walking the path of overpowering strength; women were yin, nimble and subtle, and they too had their road of overcoming the hard with the soft.
The highest attainments of both were truly hard to rank one above the other.
And so among women, too, arose figures of the Grand Grandmaster rank, revered by all under heaven.
The first of those women who would not yield to men reached the rank of Grandmaster, founded their own schools, and not only sheltered suffering women but devoted themselves to changing the weak position of women in their day.
Their efforts gradually reshaped a cruel reality, and their grace and achievements became the most dazzling of stars, drawing all the women of the world to long after them, to yearn for the power to change their own fates... Centuries of effort had vastly improved women's social standing in the empire.
There were women scholars, women merchants, women officials — even women officials at court.
And in that Tianyuan War, dragging on for more than a decade, drawing nearly the whole Central Land into its flames, and only formally declared over two years ago, there were even women who had been ennobled for military merit, their names resounding, their honors glorious.
To this day, the strength of women still could not overturn a world dominated by men, but at the very least it could accomplish some things... Take Qin Yu: charged with theft and handed over to the proper authorities for trial, she would draw the eyes of the women officials in Mingzhou's various yamen and bureaus, of the errants and wealthy merchants among the common folk, of the noble ladies and young misses of great households, of the lofty women's sects above them all — as well as the talented scholars who adored courting famous courtesans and the young heroes who adored courting lady knights.
All those pairs of eyes would surely keep watch over this female suspect, so that beyond the trial and punishment she deserved, she would suffer no treatment born of base desire.
"...And yet it makes not the slightest difference. In a couple of days her associates will find a way to spring her, and all you'll have done is feed her arrogance."
"What did you say?" Sun Lang's grumbling just now had been so low that Zhang Yinluo hadn't caught it.
This head constable, a graduate of that very headquarters of feminism, Lingjiu Palace, lived up to her elite pedigree: steeped in feminist teaching and supremely practiced in her trade.
Though she'd already confirmed his status as an errant, she opened her mouth and slapped a charge on him all the same.
"Sir, though she's suspected of theft, she remains under the protection of the law. If, in apprehending her, you've used improper means or means that degrade a woman, you too will be answerable to the authorities. And what's more, the censure of the whole world will not let you off lightly!"
...And this was yet another drawback of the women's rights movement.
The world's measure was fixed; when yin waxed, yang waned. For women to demand higher social standing was bound to provoke men's resentment and resistance.
Some women, amid cruel reality and constant setbacks, would naturally turn radical over time, and that radicalism would spread to ever more people.
Lingjiu Palace, of course, leaned toward the radical camp... which was why even their speech came barbed.
To be fair, demanding that women's lives and dignity be safeguarded — so that a maidservant would not be casually fucked by her master and tossed down a well, so that a female convict would not be casually gang-raped and tossed down a well — these were demands in the cause of good, entirely without fault; public opinion at large supported them.
But demand the abolition of brothels, demand the abolition of the concubine system, demand... all right, I admit the latter is women's most basic aspiration where love is concerned, and a thousand years on it will be the norm.
But to raise such a thing now, in this wicked feudal society, is plainly an attempt to make the wheel of history take flight — and it'll draw a backlash from the wicked old feudal forces, mark my words.
So certain radical demands met with firm and thorough resistance, which left the frustrated women all the more radical, and this became a vicious cycle, evolving into that famous thesis: "Not one man is a good thing." Carry on long enough, and some women would gradually turn into the freaks of the radical-feminist fringe... And the Zhang Yinluo before him was plainly already a sprouting bud of such a freak.
To make matters worse, these lady knights, who had gradually grown a cynical, world-weary streak, had happened to catch the empire's opening of its borders and its deepening exchange with the four barbarian peoples.
As the foreigners' assorted thoughts and beliefs flowed in, then beyond the whole democracy-and-freedom package, feminist thought naturally came along with them... Good grief — to the empire's lost, primitive feminist lady knights, these notions blazing with the brilliant light of humanism were nothing short of a ray of light splitting open the heavens.
Armed with feminist thought, the lady knights were like dry tinder meeting raging flame, an uncontrollable blaze: open their mouths and the first thing they did was slap a "disrespecting women" charge on you.
Sun Lang, however, did not care about any of this. The truth was, the man he had become wanted nothing to do with any woman more than he had to.
Were it not for the fact that this head constable had been blessed with a pair of full, proud, towering breasts — enough to make him pause and study them a couple of times — and that the arrival of her lot conveniently let him hand off his task, he would not have lingered here a single second longer.
Hmph... how surprising. She's actually got them bound up? Factoring in her shoulder width, her gait, the position of her center of gravity... tsk, impressive — those are even more of a beast than the foreign mares'...
Constable Zhang had no idea that her greatest, most shameful secret as a maiden had already been seen through at a glance by this errant.
Just then a female constable who had been checking on Qin Yu's condition shot Sun Lang an exceedingly subtle look, then walked to Zhang Yinluo's side and murmured a few words in her ear.
The head constable's gaze turned icy as it fell on Sun Lang. "...What did you do to her?"
Sun Lang gazed off into the distance. "I merely deprived her of the ability to resist."
Zhang Yinluo was not about to be satisfied with such a dull deflection. She went straight to the point, her voice sharp. "You drugged her?"
I knew it... Sun Lang sighed and spread his hands. "What drug?"
The girl's expression colored faintly red, and even her tone wavered. "The — the shameless kind of drug that turns a woman... turns her all strange!"
"I did not." Sun Lang's expression was candid, his gaze righteous and unshakable. Since her bust had already been seen through, he had no wish to tangle further; his voice slowly cooled. "By the agreement between the Errant Guild and the authorities, and by our own code of conduct, I am under no obligation to explain to you in detail the methods I employ in carrying out a mission. You have no right to interrogate me. If you take issue with this matter, it should be the Six Gates yamen that steps forward to negotiate directly with our guild. My lady, what you ought to do now is confirm the suspect's identity, declare my mission complete, and issue me a transfer certificate. I'd like to go collect my pay."
Zhang Yinluo was thoroughly displeased by this official-speak. She had all but decided that the detective before her had used some shameless trick in carrying out his task... The girl flared up.
"Even if she is a suspect, she is protected by the law! If you've sexually harassed her, or done something even worse, I have the right to hold you accountable. You—"
"Then you ought to go question her and examine her body carefully." Sun Lang rolled his eyes. "Do I need to teach you how? Check for bruises and soft-tissue contusions on her body. Check the [beep——] for violent friction injuries. Check inside the [beep——] for any unidentified secretions. And if necessary, check her breathing — sniff her breath for the scent of heather blossom..."
"You, you, you..." The girl's face flushed crimson. "You shameless wretch!"
"From your furious scolding, I've grasped one thing..." Sun Lang said somberly. "You actually understood every word of it..."
"...Aaaaah!" Zhang Yinluo made as if to draw her blade, but her subordinates, who had long known her temper, swarmed up to restrain her, dragging and hauling the girl off to one side.
Someone gave a meaningful look, and a constable of evidently higher rank stepped forward to discuss the details with Sun Lang and hand over the tokens.
It all went smoothly. After taking the tokens, Sun Lang heard the big-bearded constable across from him say in a low voice, "Brother, can you tell me how you did it? I've worked this trade more than ten years, and I can spot the truth easily enough. She wasn't affected by any drug, nor controlled by any soul-shifting technique, and she doesn't look as though she's been... had by a man... How on earth did you do it?"
Sun Lang hefted the token in his hand and let out a soft sigh. "That... is a long story... Never mind. Farewell."
He looked listless, as if recalling some past too painful to revisit. With a nod to the constable before him, he turned and walked away.
That lonely figure stood silent in the wind.
Leaving only the big-bearded fellow rooted in place, a look of awestruck reverence on his face that said I really, really want to take him as my master, watching him go.
My name is Sun Lang. I switched professions not long ago and became a knight-errant, the do-it-for-fun kind. As you've seen, over these past two years, for certain very complicated reasons, I've become very bad at dealing with women.
Also, I hate H. Hate it with a passion.
...This is the truth. Please, you have to believe me.
Also... I don't think I untied that woman's turtle-shell bondage. And it's no boast, but the number of people in this world who can undo a turtle-shell bondage I've tied is absolutely no more than five.
...Somehow that doesn't seem like anything worth bragging about.
Never mind. Let them saw her loose themselves.