Chapter 199 - Strong Affection (1/2)

“Bring out the plaintiff and the defendant!” A refined-looking old man, who looked like the magistrate’s secretary, shouted.

Plaintiff? Defendant? Did she really not go to the wrong place, and went to the courtroom instead? It must have been the work of her senior transmigrator. Yu Xiaocao stared at the goatee under the magistrate’s secretary’s jaw and started spacing out. The old man glanced at the little girl, who was dazedly sat in front of the court hall, and thought that she had been frightened.

Shortly afterwards, Rongxuan Academy’s Headmaster Yuan and Head Lecturer Liang strolled in leisurely. Seeing the two people, County Magistrate Wu stood up before the desk and politely greeted them with his hands clasped together. Headmaster Yuan and Head Lecturer Liang also politely exchanged greetings with him.

Upon hearing the familiar voice, Yu Xiaocao turned her head to look at Headmaster Yuan and winked at him. Headmaster Yuan was stunned at first, and then he slightly nodded at her with a smile. His placating gaze seemed to say, ‘It’s alright. Don’t be afraid!’ But, when he looked at that lass Xiaocao again, she was curiously looking around and didn’t seem to be scared.

After that, a pretentious-looking young man, who was dressed in a scholar’s robe and had a scholarly cap on his head, was dragged in by two bailiffs.

“Might——” The bailiffs on both sides hit the wooden rods in their hands on the ground and said at the same time in a resonant voice. Madam Zhang and Yu Bo, who had never seen such a scene before, were so scared that their faces had turned pale and they shuddered as they crouched on the ground.

“Daughter, don’t be scared! Godfather is here!” A loud holler, like that of a large bell, sounded from the crowd outside of the county yamen. Shifting her gaze from the bailiffs to the direction of the voice, Yu Xiaocao saw her godfather pushing through the crowd and coming over in a gallant and spirited manner.

County Magistrate Wu was dumbfounded as he watched the imperial envoy walk in imposingly and picked up the witness (Yu Xiaocao), as if he was holding a little chick. After that, he took the secretary’s seat and sat down uninhibitedly.

“Cough, cough! Lord Imperial Envoy, this subordinate official is in the middle of a court trial right now. Can you please…” County Magistrate Wu implicitly reminded him: ‘Lord Imperial Envoy, I’m handling a case right now. Can you please not cause trouble for me!’

Fang Zizhen touched the side of his cheeks, which had grown some stubble since he hadn’t shaved for three days. He said in a justified and confident manner, “You can continue with your trial. This official won’t interfere and will only listen on the side!”

The fifty-something secretary of the magistrate, who was beside him, had a distressed face and grumbled in his heart, ‘My dear Lord Imperial Envoy, you stole my seat, so how am I supposed to take notes on the trial?’

County Magistrate Wu looked at Xiaocao, whose hand was being held by Fang Zizhen and standing beside him, and thought in his heart, ‘You have already taken the witness, yet you’re still saying that you won’t interfere?’ Everyone said that the imperial envoy pampered his new goddaughter to the bones. Sure enough, the rumors were right ah!

When faced with Fang Zizhen’s nearly shameless behavior, County Magistrate Wu couldn’t really criticize and reason with him. In front of the imperial envoy, who was originally a military general, he was a scholar who had encountered a soldier—he was unable to reason with him ah! With no other choice, County Magistrate Wu ordered a bailiff to bring a wooden armchair for the imperial envoy and put it close to his desk. As for Yu Xiaocao, she was just a witness, so he decided that it was fine for her to stand instead of kneeling.

As a result, in addition to Headmaster Yuan and Head Lecturer Liang, who both had scholarly honors, Yu Xiaocao was also permitted to stand in court.

During the course of the trial, there wasn’t any exciting and interesting battle of wits like Xiaocao had imagined. The swindler only had a little bit of guts, and at the beginning, he had wanted to argue against the accusations. However, after the bailiffs glared at him and knocked the wooden rod on the ground, he honestly stated the truth.

It wasn’t the swindler’s first time committing fraud. He took advantage of the ‘eager for success’ mindset of the people who had failed the examination. He vaguely revealed to the students, whose families had decent financial situations and wasn’t of any special social status, that he had a method to enter Rongxuan Academy and that there was only one vacancy. However, they had to pay a little fee.

Yu Bo was one of the people he had targeted. Why would Yu Bo, who had come from a fishing village, be one of his targets? The answer was very simple. Before the examination, Madam Zhang had transformed her son’s entire appearance from head to toe, for fear that he would be looked down upon by others. She had also given him two hundred taels as travel expenses. In order to appear well-off in front of his classmates, Yu Bo had treated them to several meals at famous restaurants and lived in a good inn… The swindler naturally viewed him, who acted like a nouveau riche, as a foolish spendthrift. It would be weird if he didn’t scam him!

After hearing the swindler’s ‘explanation’, Madam Zhang and Yu Bo lowered their heads in regret. One felt that she loved her son so much that she had brought disaster to him, while the other one felt that he had acted overly pretentious and caused unnecessary trouble. The two most important people in Rongxuan Academy shook their heads incessantly as they looked at the pair of stupid mother and son: With this kind of moral character, he still wanted to enter Rongxuan Academy? Dream on!

Xiaocao was practically unneeded during the whole process of the trial. She only had to answer a few simple questions, and then just stand there to watch the show. The performance of the ‘legend of ancient court trial’ was over in less than two hours. The bad guy was beaten with a wooden plank and charged for his crime, while Madam Zhang and her son had both learned a lesson.

However, they encountered a small problem when trying to get their money back. Madam Zhang insisted that he scammed three hundred taels from them, but the swindler swore to the heavens that he only received two hundred taels. So, the two argued ceaselessly in court. With his keen eyes, County Magistrate Wu noticed that there was something wrong with Yu Bo’s expression. After a brief interrogation, Yu Bo obediently admitted that he had secretly kept the one hundred taels for himself.