The Drum of Appeal Courtyard, a servant-girl in plain clothes beating the drum…
The next day dawned clear. The standing water on Liangjing’s streets had not yet dried. Peddlers carrying buckets and kettles stepped through the bright puddles, their cries breaking the silence of the morning sky.
A few late-season wild geese suddenly dove from above, plunging resolutely toward the paulownia grove outside the city. The treetops swayed slightly, and then the morning sun burst through the forest.
Daylight gradually brightened.
The lingering rain dripped from countless rooftops and eaves, leaving the entire city solitary and desolate.
The morning bell atop Chang’an Gate rang out with the sunrise. Chen Jianyun, the eunuch superintendent of the Nine Gates, oversaw the gate guards as they opened Chang’an Gate.
The massive gates rumbled open. A dry, cold wind swept down the official road, crossed the southern moat, and rushed into Liangjing City.
Before the bell’s echoes had faded, a single strike of the Drum of Appeal sounded from the north side of the road outside Chang’an Right Gate.
Its sound pierced through the bell toll and instantly spread both inside and outside Chang’an Gate.
Chen Jianyun and the gate guards turned around together.
A second drumbeat followed.
The sound was heavy and distant, as though someone weak had raised the mallet and, standing before the enormous drum, had poured every ounce of strength into the strike.
Beneath the clear sky, north of the road outside Chang’an Right Gate, in the Drum of Appeal Courtyard—
A servant-girl in plain clothing was beating the drum.
Very quickly, countless spectators gathered around.
Like ants swarming toward food, they clogged the entrance of Chang’an Gate in the dim morning light.
The Drum of Appeal had sounded.
Standing before the dismounting stele outside Shenwu Gate, Zhao Heming heard the third drumbeat.
Mao Heng had already stepped one foot through Shenwu Gate, but the three consecutive drumbeats rooted him in place.
He immediately turned back and strode several steps toward Zhao Heming.
“What was that sound?”
Standing behind them, Wu Longyi replied calmly,
“The Drum of Appeal has been struck.”
Mao Heng followed Wu Longyi’s gaze.
His voice trembled slightly.
“Eight years…”
“Zhao Heming, the Drum of Appeal you and your female student established hasn’t sounded in eight years.”
The officials before Shenwu Gate all stopped to listen.
When the Great Liang Code had first been drafted in the early years of the Fengming reign, the Drum of Appeal had been erected.
In Zhao Heming’s memory, that had been the period when Yu Lin lived most freely.
She had been young, bright, and firmly convinced that the law could open a righteous path for the world.
Like someone incapable of exhaustion, she buried herself day after day in the cases brought forth through the Drum of Appeal.
That continued until the Crown Prince’s treason case erupted.
The former Crown Prince was executed.
The officials of the Left and Right Spring Palace Offices loosened their hair and went barefoot to strike the Drum of Appeal on his behalf.
With voices choked by grief, they pleaded for the Crown Prince’s innocence.
Their cries began before the drum and echoed throughout the inside and outside of Chang’an Gate.
That had been true remonstration unto death.
Every drummer had already prepared a coffin at home.
Some had even poisoned their wives and daughters beforehand, unwilling to let their families suffer humiliation for their crimes.
Fengming Emperor had shown them no mercy.
Treating the matter as treason, he spent ten consecutive days executing every official who had beaten the drum.
Human blood fed the torture instruments of the Imperial Prison.
The very first Flying Fish Cloak Zhang Yao ever received was ruined in that sea of blood.
After that, the Drum of Appeal never sounded again.
“Who is beating it…”
Before Shenwu Gate, official robes snapped in the long wind.
Mao Heng gazed into the distance and asked wistfully.
Nearly every judicial official present was moved by the drumbeats.
No matter how many years they had spent in officialdom, no matter how much wisdom they had learned about self-preservation, they all felt something special toward that drum of petition.
Especially now.
After remaining silent for so many years, it had sounded once more.
Like a spring that had long run dry suddenly gushing forth again.
It reminded them of Yu Lin.
They wanted to see the person beating the drum.
Not far away, Chen Jianyun hurried over.
An official immediately stepped forward and asked,
“Secretary Chen, have you come from Chang’an Gate? Who is beating the drum?”
Without slowing his pace, Chen Jianyun replied,
“A slave who doesn’t value her life.”
“A slave?”
The official was stunned.
“What’s she appealing for?”
“Tch.”
Chen Jianyun spat.
“She’s claiming that the woman who burned Tianji Temple has been wronged.”
“These women have become utterly lawless.”
He cursed as he walked through Shenwu Gate.
“Let’s go take a look.”
Mao Heng tossed the words toward Zhao Heming and immediately headed for Chang’an Gate.
Several younger judicial officials followed behind him.
Zhao Heming remained where he stood.
Wu Longyi patted his shoulder.
“You’re not going to look?”
Zhao Heming said nothing.
Yet in his ears echoed the words Yu Lin had spoken to him in the rain the previous night.
“From the moment I took off my official robes, I shared a burrow with ants. I no longer walk the same road as my teacher.”
During the Fengming era, there had been only one judicial official willing to risk her life to save women.
Yu Lin.
And now, in all of Liangjing, the only servant-girl who would know how to use the Drum of Appeal to stop the execution of a condemned prisoner could only be Yu Lin.
“No need.”
“I know who’s beating the drum.”
“Who?”
Zhao Heming lowered his head and revealed a bitter smile.
“My student.”
Wu Longyi immediately understood.
He smiled as well.
There was a trace of sympathy in his voice, but also a measure of admiration.
“Oh. That girl.”
Zhao Heming shook his head.
“Chief Censor, to be honest, there are times when even I am afraid of her.”
Seven parts of that statement were genuine.
The remaining three parts went unspoken.
Besides fear, perhaps there was also resentment.
Just like the crowd gathered before the Drum of Appeal.
Their indignation was running high, and their disgust was already plain to see.
“It’s her again! That woman again!”
“She’s already been reduced to a servant-girl, yet she still refuses to behave!”
“The Drum of Appeal concerns matters of state, military affairs, monstrous corruption, or extraordinary miscarriages of justice. If the accusation proves false, the drummer bears grave punishment. I’d like to see exactly what terrible injustice she thinks she has discovered.”
The words entered Yu Lin’s ears clearly.
Holding the drum mallet, she did not answer a single one of them.
After ten strikes, she had exhausted all her strength.
Her arms had gone limp.
Her fingers could barely grip the mallet anymore.
Beyond the crowd, Mao Heng forced his way through.
A constable from the Court of Judicial Review stepped forward and snatched the mallet from Yu Lin’s hands.
Yu Lin turned around.
Mao Heng was startled.
“It’s you?”
Though her mallet had been taken away, Yu Lin showed no panic.
Mao Heng could not help cursing under his breath.
“You’re insane.”
Then he demanded sharply,
“Why are you beating the drum?”
The moment the words left his mouth, the woman before him dropped to her knees.
A wooden box was raised high above her head.
“What is that…”
“I, the servant-girl Yu Lin, appeal on behalf of Liu family’s daughter, the accused in the Tianji Temple arson case.”
Yu Lin raised her head.
“I accuse the current Minister of Justice, Zhao Heming, of ordering Liu Yinglian to set fire to Tianji Temple, causing the temple’s destruction and the deaths of countless monks.”
The moment Mao Heng heard the name “Zhao Heming,” he nearly froze.
Only after a long pause did he step forward and stop directly before Yu Lin.
“Do you even know what you’re saying?”
Beneath the wooden box, Yu Lin lifted her head.
“I have evidence.”
“I don’t care what evidence you have!”
Mao Heng’s emotions surged.
Having known Zhao Heming for years, he understood how much Zhao Heming had invested in Yu Lin.
Now, seeing her accuse her former teacher while a servant accused a minister, he could scarcely suppress his anger.
“Zhao Heming was once your teacher!”
“When you were imprisoned, he personally looked after you!”
“When you exposed Wang Shaolian, he did everything he could to help you!”
“Even after you deceived both your sovereign and your teacher, bringing shame upon him, he never once blamed you!”
“And this Drum of Appeal you’re beating today was established by the two of you together!”
“To beat this drum and accuse him now is a violation of heaven’s order and human morality!”
Yu Lin met Mao Heng’s gaze.
“I don’t want to hurt him.”
“And I can’t hurt him.”
“Then why…”
“Today, I beat this drum only to save a life.”
“Save a life?”
Mao Heng’s voice rose sharply.
“Yu Lin, Yu Lin…”
“I watched you enter officialdom and grow into the person you became.”
“You’re in your current state because you tried to save people!”
“You…”
At that point, he found himself unable to continue.
His fingers clenched into fists inside his sleeves.
Looking at the kneeling Yu Lin, he let out a long sigh.
Chang’an Gate was filled with noise and commotion.
But inside the torture chambers of the Imperial Prison, everything was quiet.
Occasionally, a hoarse groan drifted from behind the walls.
Outside, only the sound of fallen leaves scraping against stone could be heard.
Zhang Yao sat inside the torture chamber.
One foot rested atop a heavy cangue before him.
His elbow leaned against his knee, his palm supporting his chin as he sat with his eyes closed.
He had not slept all night.
Even with his strong constitution, he was beginning to feel tired.
Li Hanzhou entered from the outer offices.
Two Northern Pacification Bureaus followed behind him, each carrying a grease-paper package.
“Commander, meat pies from Longzheng Alley.”
Zhang Yao did not open his eyes.
The guard behind hurriedly raised another package.
“And stuffed rice as well…”
Before he could finish speaking, the sound of dragging chains echoed through the room.
The burns on Liu Yinglian’s hands made shackles impossible to wear.
The guards had simply fastened an iron chain around her neck and led her back from the Military Patrol Office.
She knelt before Zhang Yao.
Yet she looked different from the girl she had been at the Tianji Temple fire.
There was no crying.
No struggling.
She knelt silently and obediently in the torture chamber, quietly awaiting a fate she already knew.
Few women had ever been imprisoned in the Imperial Prison.
Rumor claimed that women, when facing death, usually cried to heaven and earth and descended into madness.
In reality, Zhang Yao had seen countless men do exactly that.
Men who had once occupied lofty positions could not let go of their fertile lands and mountains of gold.
They could not accept ending their lives wrapped in a prisoner’s robe and buried in a cheap wooden coffin.
They would write farewell poems filled with icy elegance.
Yet before death, they would spew vulgar curses, overturning a lifetime of cultivated refinement.
People whose hearts and mouths contradicted each other disgusted Zhang Yao.
He did not even like watching them lose their minds before death.
He preferred instead to quietly send off their wives and daughters in the dark corners of the Imperial Prison.
Those women were much like Liu Yinglian kneeling before him now.
After their tears had run dry, they became despairingly quiet.
As blades and axes approached, they calmly bared their necks.
If the executioner asked whether they had any final wish, there was usually no answer.
They arrived with nothing.
They departed with nothing.
Because of that, women often reached acceptance far more easily than men.
Even though Liu Yinglian was still a girl under twenty, Zhang Yao could see that clarity in her eyes.
“Want a meat pie?”
Still seated, Zhang Yao lowered his head and asked.
Liu Yinglian shook her head.
Taking the package, Zhang Yao walked over and bent down to offer it to her.
“There are no starving ghosts under my command.”
Liu Yinglian glanced down at her hands.
Zhang Yao turned and motioned for Li Hanzhou to step forward.
“Feed her.”
Li Hanzhou accepted the package, though his expression became hesitant.
“If you have something to say, say it.”
“Yes.”
Li Hanzhou glanced toward the outside offices and lowered his voice.
“Secretary Yang from the Directorate of Ceremonial is waiting outside.”
“Before the Hour of Chen, you need to report to him personally.”
“It’s almost the Hour of Chen already…”
Before he could finish, a guard from the front office suddenly knocked on the torture chamber door.
Li Hanzhou turned around.
“What is it—”
Zhang Yao interrupted him.
“Come in and report.”
The guard answered and entered.
“Commander, people from the Court of Judicial Review and the Censorate have arrived.”
“They demand to see Liu Yinglian immediately.”
Li Hanzhou frowned.
“A case taken over by the Northern Pacification Bureau—what right do the Court of Judicial Review and the Censorate have to interfere?”
The guard hurriedly replied,
“Sir, we said the same thing.”
“But… Chief Censor Wu personally came to the office.”
“He’s waiting in the main hall right now.”
Li Hanzhou glanced at Liu Yinglian, visibly startled.
Then he quickly asked,
“What exactly happened?”
The guard answered,
“A major case has broken out.”
“Explain clearly…”
Before he could continue, Zhang Yao suddenly spoke.
“It involves the head of the Ministry of Justice?”
The guard nodded.
“Not only that.”
“It also involves… the Directorate of Ceremonial…”