What Yu Lin called the Liang Code was formally known as the Great Liang Code.
The Great Liang Dynasty had stood for a hundred years and passed through three reigns. Near the end of the founding emperor’s rule, the Great Liang Code was first drafted. After several rounds of revision and refinement, it was finally promulgated throughout the realm after his successor ascended the throne.
Yet the world was vast, and crimes were endless.
People prayed for countless things, made countless wishes. How did ill-fated bonds arise? How did bitter consequences come to be?
No single legal code could ever encompass all of it.
Thus, the Great Liang Code stipulated that when judicial officials deliberated over punishment and sentencing, if they could not find a precise statute applicable to a crime, they could cite the article most closely related to the circumstances. Then, based on the actual offense, they could make appropriate adjustments to the severity of the sentence and issue a relatively independent sentencing opinion.
But it remained only an opinion. A criminal could not be punished on that basis alone. The opinion still had to be submitted to the Ministry of Justice, where it would be reviewed and adjudicated before being sent to the Emperor for final approval.
As emperors rose and fell over the generations, these approved opinions gradually accumulated. Finally, during the Fengming era, through the efforts of the heads of the Three Judicial Offices, they were compiled into a standardized collection titled Regulations on Criminal Judgments.
Since the early Fengming years, the Great Liang Code and the Regulations on Criminal Judgments had undergone several rounds of revision and expansion. Under Zhao Heming’s leadership, and through the combined efforts of Ministry of Justice officials such as Song Yinbing and Yu Lin, the prison system began implementing the principle of “showing mercy to prisoners and caring for prisoners” in accordance with the law. Judicial authorities were forbidden from abusing torture or coercing false confessions.
For ten years, Yu Lin had worked at Zhao Heming’s side. She witnessed him carefully draw the boundaries between legal principles and human compassion, searching for a balance between the dignity of people and the authority of law. Teacher and student achieved much together, and she had been deeply inspired by him.
A good mentor on the path of officialdom truly could clear away the thorns and part the clouds for those who came after.
During her ten years at the Ministry of Justice, Yu Lin, sensitive by nature, not only refined her understanding of law but also repeatedly inspected women’s prisons. She cut off the sources of profit that Wang Shaolian and others extracted from female prisoners. Later, together with Zhao Heming, she attempted to add provisions to the Regulations on Criminal Judgments defining and punishing such sexual crimes within prisons, providing future victims with legal grounds for appeal.
Yet, as she herself had said, the women who suffered these abuses would rather take their own lives than testify.
As a supplement to the Great Liang Code, every addition or amendment to the Regulations on Criminal Judgments depended on the countless complex and varied cases of the human world.
Without accusers, no case could be established.
Without a case, no precedent could be formed.
And so, every time Yu Lin tried to bring Wang Shaolian to trial, she was defeated by the silence of the female prisoners.
She had been disappointed.
But whether in public or private, she had never once blamed those women.
More than once during those ten years, she told Zhao Heming and Song Yinbing:
For those born into humble circumstances, protecting their own bodies and reputations was already difficult enough. She was a judicial official. She thought about creating laws that would endure for generations. She also sought fame and achievement through that work. She was merely an ordinary person who fancied herself a saint—not nearly as noble as others imagined.
As for the prisoners, what they wanted was much simpler.
A mouthful of clean water each day.
A warm meal.
After their execution, they wanted their reputations intact. They wanted family members willing to claim their bodies and bury them properly.
She could not hand them that drink of water.
She could not provide that bowl of food.
Nor could she erect the monument that future generations might remember.
So whatever choice they made was acceptable.
As long as she remained alive, she would continue guarding that blood-soaked forbidden chamber.
There would be many tomorrows.
Sooner or later, an opportunity would come.
And just as she had said, that opportunity had finally arrived.
She had become a death-row prisoner in this prison.
She had also become a victim of the very crime of forcing female prisoners into prostitution.
Zhao Heming understood that this opportunity had been granted by Heaven itself.
Granted at the very end of her life.
Even if seizing it meant utterly destroying her reputation in the mouths of every citizen of Liangjing, she would not hesitate.
She would use herself to establish this case.
To create this precedent.
To force both the Ministry of Justice and the Emperor into amending the Regulations on Criminal Judgments.
As a public official, Zhao Heming should not persuade her otherwise.
As a private individual, he could not.
So he said nothing more and steadily carried Yu Lin back to a clean prison cell.
The cell had obviously been specially assigned to her through Song Yinbing’s arrangements. There were blankets, bedding, and even food and water inside.
The bailiffs following behind them also brought in the basin of water and the clean prison uniform Zhang Yao had left outside the forbidden chamber.
Carefully crouching down, Zhao Heming placed Yu Lin onto the straw mat and removed his official robe from her shoulders.
“I’ll have someone remove the restraints. Change your clothes and wash up.”
“All right.”
Zhao Heming turned around.
“I’m leaving.”
“Wait.”
He looked back.
She had picked up the prison uniform and draped it over herself for modesty.
“Will you help me?” she asked.
Zhao Heming stopped.
“Have you thought it through?”
“Mhm. I decided the year I entered your tutelage.”
“Good.”
His gaze dropped to her fingers.
“Can you still write?”
“Yes.”
“I’ll prepare paper and brushes for you. Write your own accusation.”
“Which office should I submit it to?” Yu Lin asked.
“You’re a convicted official sentenced to death by lingchi (death by a thousand cuts). No single office has the authority to decide your case.”
Yu Lin lowered her eyes and sighed tiredly.
“The Three Judicial Offices again? Just to convict me of deceiving the Emperor, they dragged me from courtroom to courtroom for nearly half a year. They never got tired of looking at me. I got tired of looking at them.”
“I know.”
“Hah…”
Yu Lin laughed at herself.
“Don’t mind what I just said. I’m about to die, so I’ve gotten bold and say whatever comes to mind. The Three Judicial Offices it is. Yu Lin thanks all of you gentlemen for giving me this chance.”
She raised her hands and pressed them together before her forehead in a formal bow.
Walking out of the cell, Zhao Heming said over his shoulder,
“Rest for a while, then start writing. I’ll be waiting in the main hall of the Ministry of Justice. After dawn, I’ll send someone to collect your complaint and immediately convene discussions with the Censorate and the Court of Judicial Review. Yu Lin.”
“Hm?”
“You only have one chance. If the Three Judicial Offices accept the complaint, I’ll personally draft a memorial and submit it to the Grand Secretariat, petitioning His Majesty to postpone your execution. You will serve as a witness in the prison sexual abuse case against Wang Shaolian.”
He paused.
“But if the Three Judicial Offices reject the complaint, then…”
“I understand.”
She finished the sentence for him.
“Don’t worry. If that happens, I won’t go mad like I did yesterday and force you to shoulder my crimes on the execution platform. I’ll kneel down myself and accept death.”
Zhao Heming stopped walking again.
He still had not put his official robe back on. He wore only a moon-white inner robe.
Yu Lin sat wrapped haphazardly in a prison uniform.
At that moment, they were neither official and prisoner nor teacher and student.
Suddenly, he wanted to talk to her.
“Can we talk for a bit?”
“What do you want to talk about?”
Leaning against the wooden bars, Zhao Heming looked down at her.
“People of noble character who enter officialdom may not seek wealth, but they still seek reputation. Even if they deny it outwardly and inwardly, they can never completely extinguish human desire.”
“In my view, all the great accomplishments in the world are merely good fruit that occasionally grows from soil nourished by desire and sin.”
“When you became an official, what were you seeking?”
Yu Lin leaned against the damp wall.
“I’ve told you before. Wealth and reputation.”
“If that’s true, then why expose your identity for Madam Liu? You clearly could have…”
“Because the presiding official wanted to violate her.”
“The strip-search interrogation was permitted under the Great Liang Code—”
“But the presiding official only wanted to violate a woman.”
“Yu Lin, you’re becoming too extreme. What exactly are you so obsessed with?”
Yu Lin smiled and turned her head to the side.
“I don’t know either. I just feel that being crazy is pretty nice. Things I couldn’t do before—I can do now.”
In a torture chamber several walls away from Yu Lin’s cell, Du Lingruo and Zhang Yao were both bound and temporarily detained.
Looking at the various torture instruments hanging on the walls, Du Lingruo asked over his shoulder,
“What were you thinking?”
“Nothing.”
“You…”
With difficulty, Du Lingruo twisted around.
“Don’t tell me you really came here to sleep with that Vice Minister of Justice.”
Zhang Yao remained silent.
“If that’s true, then I, Du Lingruo, look down on you.”
Still, Zhang Yao said nothing.
The black veil hanging from his hat swayed gently.
Wanting to help someone.
That was a first.
Feeling that perhaps he could postpone dying for a little while.
That was also a first.
He couldn’t explain why.
If he had to, it was probably because of what she had said:
“A living man wearing funeral clothes, Zhang Yao. You’re pretty pitiful.”
Zhang Yao would never admit that he was pitiful.
He was the Commander of the Northern Pacification Bureau, raised amidst the political terror of the dynasty’s early years.
After the former Crown Prince’s rebellion, the late Emperor died. His second son ascended the throne and adopted the reign title Fengming.
A purge of the court followed immediately.
The killing lasted for years.
The smell of blood still lingered.
As one of Liangjing’s executioners, how could he possibly be pitiful?
At most, he wasn’t happy.
Occasionally he had nightmares.
But unfortunately, even the vengeful ghosts in those dreams couldn’t defeat him.
People always talked about karmic retribution.
But it had never come.
He wasn’t dead.
He could still wield the Northern Pacification Bureau.
He could still hold the lives of officials in his hands.
After all these years, he had long stopped believing in retribution.
Even nightmares had become boring.
As for worldly matters like marriage and having children, they offered even less excitement.
But tonight, inside that forbidden chamber, a criminal who couldn’t die met a judge who didn’t want to die.
She looked at him once, and he felt as though the verdict had already been passed and his execution date set.
It was…
A little exciting.
Zhang Yao wasn’t sure whether that was the right way to describe it.
After all, he had never been a man of many words.
Nor was he particularly skilled with literature.
He didn’t know how to tell stories.
If he encountered a living person dressed in funeral clothes on the road, he would turn around and take a second look.
But if someone asked him afterward, “What was that person like?”
He could only fall silent.
Cold-hearted and detached, he would have no answer.
But tonight, a death-row prisoner had taught him something.
Next time, he would know what to say—
A living person wearing funeral clothes.
That person…
was pretty pitiful.
Lowering his head where Du Lingruo couldn’t see, Zhang Yao smiled soundlessly.
Du Lingruo had no idea what Zhang Yao was thinking.
After calling out “Brother Yao” several times without receiving a response, he gradually lost heart.
“What do we do now?”
He looked helplessly at the tiny ventilation window in the torture chamber.
“Song Yinbing is her closest friend. Zhao Heming is her teacher. You—her client. Me—a flesh broker. And her…”
He sighed heavily.
“No matter how I look at it, we’re both dead.”
Zhang Yao raised a hand, removed his veiled hat, and said evenly,
“If I don’t want to die, then I won’t.”
Du Lingruo turned around and looked at the torture rack before sighing again.
“That’s true enough. But I still think we’ve been set up tonight.”
“Who is Song Yinbing? The prison warden of the Ministry of Justice. And who is Zhao Heming? The Minister of Justice.”
“In the middle of the night, with no prison inspection and no emergency trial, what were they doing here?”
Zhang Yao didn’t answer.
Du Lingruo answered his own question.
“I think that Vice Minister Yu was fishing for evidence. She was setting a trap for Wang Shaolian.”
At that, he grabbed his own chin.
“Impressive. Even after being tortured by the Three Judicial Offices to that extent, she still managed to prepare a killing blow for Wang.”
Then he added:
“I’m not very familiar with judicial procedures. If they’re going to investigate our case, then her lingchi execution tomorrow should be postponed, right?”
“Which means she won’t just kill Wang Shaolian—she might save herself too!”
The more he talked, the more excited he became, almost forgetting that he himself was one of the fish caught in the net.
“See? I told you she was good. That’s how a Ministry of Justice official should operate. If I get the chance tomorrow, I’ll explain things to her. With her character and integrity, I think she’ll save us.”
“Right? Huh? Brother Zhang, say something.”
As he spoke, Du Lingruo nodded enthusiastically to himself.
When Zhang Yao still didn’t respond, he turned around again.
Only to find Zhang Yao holding his hat and already standing.
Du Lingruo stared at how freely he was moving, then looked down at the ropes binding his own body.
“Wait… when did you untie yourself?”
Leaning against the wall, Zhang Yao gently rubbed his wrist.
“My wrist doesn’t feel very good.”
The moment he finished speaking, a ray of light slipped through the ventilation window.
The cold, merciless night had finally passed.
Dawn had arrived.