Chapter 348

After chatting with his father for a while, Wang Xiujin roughly guessed his father's intent. It was nothing more than him being too active and too high-profile, which made some people unhappy and turned him into a living target for others to aim at. Wang Xiujin could not help but sigh, feeling that life was far too exhausting. No matter how one lived, one would still be subject to criticism; if you did too well, people would look at you with displeasure, yet if you accomplished nothing, you would still be looked down upon. Just how was one supposed to live at ease?

Why couldn't those people who mocked others for having nothing and couldn't bear to see anyone better than themselves reflect upon their own actions instead of constantly staring at others? If they were a bit more ambitious, worked harder, and focused their minds on proper pursuits, how could they possibly harbor resentment toward others' success, and when would they even have the spare time to pry into whether others possessed anything? To have the leisure to enrich oneself, yet constantly plot against others instead—what was the point of that?

The day for the public trial of the treasonous criminals soon arrived. Wang Xiujin had originally no desire to join the excitement, knowing that the more crowded a place was, the easier it was for trouble to break out; he certainly had no wish to be splattered with blood. Yet, as it happened, he had no choice but to attend. The chief judge was the Fourth Imperial Prince, and his father was one of the four... ahem, co-judges. No matter what, he had to go and take a look, and should any blind fools cross his path, he needed to keep watch to ensure stray arrows wouldn't be equally blind.

The trial was to take place right in front of the Meridian Gate, and it seemed that once the trial concluded, executions could be carried out immediately on the spot. There was a vast open expanse in front of the Meridian Gate, which in his past life would have been an exceptional location for square dancing. In ordinary times, the corners and edges would be occupied by tea stalls, but now, leave alone tea stalls, there wasn't even enough space to stand. Wang Xiujin began to regret coming here to suffer.

Fortunately, the household servants accompanying him did not force Wang Xiujin to squeeze through the crowd, quickly clearing a path for him and escorting him to the front. Looking at the spot where they had come to a halt, the corners of Wang Xiujin's mouth twitched uncontrollably. While this location offered an exceptional view, it was undeniably a spot guaranteed to be splattered with blood. Would it still be possible for him to change locations now?

Before Wang Xiujin could voice his thoughts, a burst of commotion erupted. Following the sound, he looked into the distance and saw something moving, with various objects fluttering into the air. A burly household servant spoke in a low voice to his master, "The prison carts are approaching. The commoners on both sides of the street are throwing things at the carts. Looks like vegetable leaves and eggs."

"What a waste of good eggs; eggs aren't cheap nowadays. A few days ago, when the grain shops were collecting eggs, the price had already risen to two for a single copper coin. In the past, they could get four or five for that. If the price goes up any further, the eggs collected won't even be fit to sell outside; even if they're put up for sale, nobody will buy them," Wang Xiujin muttered, lamenting the high cost of eggs. The commoners were far too extravagant! What was wrong with throwing anything else? Why throw eggs? Such a waste!

"Young master, those eggs are definitely rotten. Who would be willing to throw away good eggs?" The servant chuckled upon hearing Wang Xiujin's words.

"Rotten?" If they were rotten, that only proved that the lives of ordinary households had improved; otherwise, how could anyone afford to let eggs rot? Wang Xiujin surveyed his surroundings. Indeed, the attire of the commoners nowadays had undergone a massive transformation compared to the past, and their mental state had likewise shifted dramatically. There were fewer idlers and loafers in the capital, and far more people bustling about with purpose. This kind of development was beneficial, allowing the populace to gradually break free from their reliance on the mercy of the heavens just to scrape by—an improvement by leaps and bounds compared to the old days.

"Young master, once the prisoners are brought down later, please step back to avoid the stench," the servant cautioned. Having smelled rotten eggs before, even a single one or two smelled unpleasant enough; with so many rotten eggs hurled at people and then baked under the sun, the resulting stench would surely be dreadful. Wang Xiujin nodded, agreeing that the odor would hardly be pleasant. As the prison carts drew closer, Wang Xiujin was indeed assaulted by an overpowering, foul stench. The smell was truly potent—couldn't those prisoners smell it themselves?

"It's not that they can't smell it, but rather that the stench on their own bodies isn't necessarily any lighter than that of rotten eggs." Li Lingshan appeared beside Wang Xiujin from out of nowhere.

Wang Xiujin was startled for a moment. Had he just spoken his inner thoughts aloud? He turned his head to look at Li Lingshan. "The execution ground? Are these your men?"

"No, I merely brought some men here to observe. It's your father's soldiers and the imperial bodyguards who are responsible for the security of the execution ground." Li Lingshan scanned the surrounding crowd, checking to see if anyone blended among them harbored malicious intentions.

Wang Xiujin also scanned the surroundings, failing to spot anything out of the ordinary. Turning his gaze back to the slowly halting prison carts, he concluded that his father was truly ruthless. Each of the prisoners had the two words "Treason" plastered across their foreheads in striking, blood-red characters, stained with who knew how many lives.

The founding of any dynasty was built upon the blood of countless souls, but looking across history, only corrupt dynasties were ever overthrown. A flourishing dynasty at the height of its power, like the Great Liang, had never been successfully overthrown. Even during the Song Dynasty, they fought the Liao Dynasty for ages without ever being destroyed. And the Great Liang of the present era was exceedingly powerful in terms of economy, military might, and agriculture alike. The sense of belonging among the commoners was exceptionally deep-rooted; if you grabbed anyone at random and asked whether they would ever be willing to see a change of dynasty, not a single person would say yes. They already worried whether the next emperor would be as wise as the reigning one, let alone accepting a monarch with an entirely different surname. These men were utterly brainless; without even a single military commander on their side, they actually believed they could overthrow a dynasty at its absolute zenith. Where on earth did they get their confidence? Wang Xiujin couldn't help but shake his head.

"The Fourth Imperial Prince has arrived!" After the prisoners in the carts were hauled down to the trial area and forced to their knees, an attendant waved a horsetail whisk and announced in a high-pitched voice.

Then, a tricar with iron plating slowly came into view. At the front was a guard who constantly trailed the Fourth Imperial Prince, while the prince himself sat upright and poised in the carriage bed behind, flanked by guards marching briskly on either side. No matter how Wang Xiujin looked at this spectacle, he found it immensely amusing, yet he had to forcefully suppress his laughter. If he dared to laugh out loud, no matter how close his private friendship with the Fourth Imperial Prince was, the prince would inevitably develop a rift with him, and the relationship built up over years might vanish entirely on account of a single chuckle.

The Fourth Imperial Prince radiated an imposing aura. Upon dismounting from the vehicle, he walked steadily to the highest seat and sat down. After the four co-judging officials paid their respects to the Fourth Imperial Prince, they took their respective seats. The Fourth Imperial Prince gazed down at the dozen or so kneeling officials. How could he possibly contain his fury when these individuals had dared to covet his family's imperial realm? He didn't even want to bother with a trial; executing them on the spot wouldn't fully vent his rage. However, seeing the dazzling array of colorful robes worn by the men, the oppressive gloom in his chest subsided just a fraction, though his expression remained exceptionally grim.

The gavel struck, and the public trial officially commenced. The presiding ministers had already secured the evidence of treason committed by the culprits. Of course, the evidence wasn't overwhelmingly ironclad; if these rebellious officials stubbornly refused to acknowledge their guilt, the authorities might find themselves in a rather troublesome spot. As the crowd of commoners trailing the prison carts grew increasingly dense, Wang Xiujin genuinely spotted a few individuals tagged with "Troublemaker" drifting about. His father's foresight had been spot-on. The mindset of the ancients... Wang Xiujin looked up at the sky, utterly incapable of comprehending it.

With the troublemakers making their appearance, how could those intending to stir up chaos in the wake of the disturbance lag far behind? They inched closer and closer... And then, Wang Xiujin spotted a man driven by ulterior motives getting into a heated argument with the constable he had previously sent Shopkeeper Wang to deliver to the Fourth Imperial Prince. What was going on here? Did they harbor an old grudge, or what? Wang Xiujin motioned for a household servant to go over and check. Even if they weren't going to back the constable up, they couldn't simply let him get swallowed up among a crowd of people with malicious intents.

Wang Xiujin kept his eyes fixed on the constable. Before the servant he dispatched could even reach the spot, he saw the constable execute a lightning-fast maneuver, dropping the suspicious interloper flat onto the ground. Wang Xiujin sucked in a sharp breath. That single punch naturally triggered a stir in the vicinity, but fortunately, the household servant Wang Xiujin had sent reacted swiftly, pinning the fallen man down immediately. The soldiers and guards who rushed over recognized them as the estate's household servants and, assuming the subdued man was attempting to rescue prisoners from the execution ground, swarmed forward to bind him up tightly. The servant attempted to offer a word of explanation, but the constable stopped him, flexed his arm, and landed yet another heavy blow to the nose of the bound man. "I've hated the sight of you for ages. Finally, I've got the chance to beat you up."

"What is going on?" Li Lingshan turned his head to ask Wang Xiujin.

Wang Xiujin shook his head. "How would I know what's going on? I only recognize the one who threw the punch. Remember the constable who was driven out of the yamen that I told you about a while ago? That's him."

Li Lingshan arched an eyebrow and cast his gaze back toward the man who had been both bound and beaten. "The one they've captured is a minor official from the yamen. Perhaps he serves in the same office as that constable."

Wang Xiujin rubbed his clean-shaven chin, deciding that was highly probable. While the Fourth Imperial Prince and the four ministers interrogated the traitors, the imperial bodyguards and soldiers were busy questioning the minor yamen official who had been trussed up and dragged over. The man wasn't entirely foolish; once hauled inside, he incessantly declared his official status and demanded that they arrest the man who had beaten him. He only knew that the dismissed constable had cozied up to an imperial merchant, remaining completely oblivious to whose service he was currently in. What did an imperial merchant amount to, anyway? Once their grand undertaking succeeded, he would simply ask the newly enthroned emperor to issue a decree confiscating the imperial merchant's estate, sealing his shops and workshops, and reducing him to absolute destitution—just to see him grovel and kowtow in grand prostration.

His petty calculations were meticulous, yet neither the soldiers who had bound him nor the guards bothered to listen to his boasts about being an official in the yamen. Across the entire capital, officials great and small numbered at least a thousand or eight hundred; what did a mere petty clerk count for? Even if he were executed on the spot, there was no shortage of people waiting to step into his shoes.

The trial before the Meridian Gate did not drag on with much stagnation. The prisoners who had been pelted with eggs and vegetable leaves did not violently lash out as Wang Xiujin had half-expected, but the bizarre and eerie expressions on the faces of those dozen-odd men were enough to keep everyone on edge. Wang Xiujin once again surveyed his surroundings. With all sorts of overlapping tags intermingled, trying to discern the appearance of the faces hidden beneath those abnormal tags was genuinely exhausting—especially given that nobody else could see them, leaving him alone with this unique sight. Wang Xiujin was burning with anxiety.

While the source of the prisoners' unyielding bravado remained unclear, the bound official possessed virtually no backbone left to speak of and was already on the verge of collapsing. Having spilled everything he knew, his sole remaining wish was simply for these lords of the court to forget his cowardly display today.