Upon hearing this, Tang Fan immediately started frowned. “Then, does he admit that his son’s death was unrelated to Shen Kunxiu?”
Lu Lingxi shook his head. “Not so. He said that Lin Zhen had been pressured into his death by Shen Kunxiu, and also that Lin Zhen was buried. By the logic of letting him be at peace in the ground, the coffin must never be opened for an autopsy, and if you can’t right this wrong for him, he’s going to go to the capital to beat the drum of grievances.”
At the nation’s founding, the Great Ancestor had established a rule that anyone amongst the populace that had been wronged could ‘beat the drum of grievances’ to cry about it. The Emperor would have to hear it out in person, with no official allowed to prevent it. All who violated that would be heavily punished. No later Emperor would show as much detailed interest as the Great Ancestor had, but the rule of grievance-drum-beating had passed on to today.
However, only commonfolk had ever been heard to have used it, never Court officials. Regardless of how low Lin Fengyuan’s position was, he was still a Balancing Magistrate. If he entered the capital to complain, he would undoubtedly smack him in the face and mock him for his incompetence. Of course, when things get to be a big ol’ fuss, the Emperor would actually believe that Tang Fan was incompetent. That little trifle wouldn’t end well.
“He’s threatening me?” Tang Fan laughed, no humor heard in it. “Go and have him come meet me… nevermind, you’re injured. Don’t be running all around.”
As soon as he finished speaking, Xi Ming came in from outside. He had been slashed in the thigh last night, which made him walk pretty unnaturally, his pace much slower. “Sir! Something happened!”
He had seen much of the world, so he would never be the fussy sort of person that made mountains out of molehills. If he said something had happened, then it had to have been something big.
Tang Fan’s heart sank as he heard Xi Ming say in a dark tone, “The five evaluators are all dead.”
“What?!”
It was not only Tang Fan that shouted that aloud, but also Lu Lingxi, as that was just too shocking.
“How did they die? When?” Tang Fan asked.
“Just last night, in their homes. They ought to have been murdered by someone slicing their throats as they slept in bed.”
“This clearly has something to do with Shen Kunxiu, Brother Tang!” Lu Lingxi said immediately. “He must have also played a part in the cheating! He was afraid that the Court would look into him, so he just silence them all!”
Tang Fan shook his head. “It wasn’t him.”
“Why?”
“When we left his place before, we happened to run into his servant reporting some news in a flurry, with a look of panic. I didn’t know what that news was at the time, but thinking back it on it now, this was likely it. Had he done this, no such thing would have happened. He presumably knows nothing of it.”
“Then why did he deliberately let them go, and refuse to cooperate with your investigation?”
Tang Fan smiled bitterly. “His behavior really is suspicious. This all looks to be a bit complicated now.” He then asked Xi Ming, “Has Magistrate Fan found those scholars, or have they been silenced too?”
“He sent people to call them back individually. After Lin Zhen died, Shen Kunxiu was too afraid to detain them anymore, so he let him go and they went back to their hometowns. However, a few live in Ji’an’s capital that will be summoned soon.”
Tang Fan nodded. “Let’s go pay the Magistrate a visit, then.”
“Runqing, you’re going to visit Magistrate Fan?” In the middle of their talk, Ji Min walked in from outside with an apologetic look. “I’m really sorry. I drank too much last night and got up a bit late!”
Seeing their solemn expressions, he asked, “Did something happen?”
Tang Fan told him the news of the evaluators’ deaths. Ji Min was wholly shocked. “B-But, how could that happen?! What’s actually going on here?!”
Him aside, Tang Fan was also shocked, though he didn’t express as much. “I’m going to the prefectural bureau now. Do you want to come with?”
Ji Min came back to himself, saying promptly, “Yes! Of course I will!”
Magistrate Fan’s hair was nearly turned gray now. The second an imperial ambassador arrived, things were happening in Ji’an; first had come the assassination attempt of that ambassador that had nearly lost him his subordinates, immediately after which the evaluators of the institutional exams had been murdered. Who would believe that something wasn’t afoot here?
He subconsciously thought of Shen Kunxiu’s mug, thinking to himself, That old thing must have done some embezzling, so he silenced them out of guilt upon seeing the imperial ambassador, huh?
The issue here was that despite him having nothing to do with all of this from start to finish, as Ji’an’s Magistrate, the debacle landed within his jurisdiction, and he couldn’t shirk his tie to it. If a displeased Tang Fan denounced him together with that, he would be done for.
The corpses of the five evaluators had already been brought over by government workers, and were now lying in the front courtyard of the bureau. To more precise, there were actually six corpses, because one of the evaluators had been sleeping together with his wife; when the killer killed him, there was no way they would have spared his wife, so she was murdered, too.
It had happened in the middle of the night, during the full immersion of good dreams. It hadn’t been until those six’s families had risen in the morning that they had successively found them dead, following which they had reported to Magistrate Fan.
Faced with the bodies, there were almost as many wrinkles on the Magistrate’s face as there were hairs. When he saw Tang Fan rushing over, it was like his saving star had come, and he nearly threw himself at him. “Sir, you came!”
“Did you let Consul Shen know of this?” Tang Fan asked.
Magistrate Fan nodded on repeat. “I did, I did!”
The coroner was inspecting the corpse, but there was really no need for any coroner, as even Tang Fan could see that the deceased should have no external trauma, the only wounds to be the one on their throats. These really had been straightforward killing blows, plain and neat.
Xi Ming crouched down to observe, then said to Tang Fan, “Sir, those that killed them ought to be from the same group as those that tried to assassinate us.”
Hearing that, everyone suffered great alarm. “Could it be that after they failed to kill us, they freed themselves to kill these people?” Ji Min asked.
Xi Ming anticipated that his statement might generate misunderstandings, so he explained. “Wounds cut using different weapons would not be the same. Inspecting carefully based on this tells us that their wounds are the same as those inflicted on us last night. Thereby, I can infer that even if the murdered didn’t come the same group, they must have come from the same area.”
“Lawless! They’re just lawless!” Magistrate Fan was alarmed and furious.
Something like this hadn’t happened in Ji’an in decades, yet these people had dared to attack an imperial ambassador, plus kill a few weak evaluating officials. What could that be seen as?
“Where did all these evaluators originate from?” Tang Fan asked Magistrate Fan.
“In previous institutional exams, previous evaluators were all selected from headmasters of repute from academies around the exam location’s perimeter. These ones were separately from the the Academy of Luoxiao Mountains, the Academy of Luling, the Academy of Peak Excellence, and the Academy of Yongning. Two of them were from the same academy, as headmaster and vice headmaster.”
“To my knowledge, Egret Isle Academy is the most famed in this locality. Why not ask its headmaster to be an evaluator? Could it be that due to many of the test-takers coming from the Academy, Consul Shen worried that their headmaster would favor them?”
“No. This humble official knows why; Headmaster Qin of the Academy is great in age, so he had planned to retire, but the Academy can’t find an appropriate replacement for right now. He had to take a temporary appointment. For that reason, even if he had been asked to evaluate the papers, he wouldn’t have had the energy to.”
Tang Fan pondered some. “If his headmaster position was unoccupied, how would the next one be chosen?”
“For an Academy as famed as Egret Isle, the headmaster position is highly coveted, with many wanting it. Headmaster Qin had wanted to take advantage of Consul Shen’s inspection during to ask him to pick a new headmaster on his behalf. With this roadblock happening later on, Consul Shen is likely not in the mood for it.
“That is to say that it’s not only former students of Egret Isle, but the headmasters of other academies that would all be qualified to serve as Egret Isle’s headmaster?”
“Yes. Egret Isle Academy has a very high standing in Jiangxi’s scholar circle.”
Similarly to how acting officials tended to fight for power, scholars tended to fight for renown. This convention was everywhere. The position of headmaster had no authority to speak of, but it represented prestige in the scholarly circle. If one could be the headmaster of an academy that had realm-wide fame, then their future students would definitely earn a lot of scholarly honors, meaning their headmaster would have a lot of influence via students in the world — such was the lifelong goal of many academy headmasters.
Thus, once Magistrate Fan said that, Tang Fan understood. He didn’t get to ask anything else, however, because at that moment, Shen Kunxiu arrived.
With something like this happening, Shen Kunxiu couldn’t cooperate with Tang Fan anymore, but he also couldn’t not come over and see what was going on. Walking in with a dark face, he did not greet Tang Fan, and directly asked Magistrate Fan, “What’s going on?”
The Magistrate repeated what he had told Tang Fan before.
He had released the evaluators on his toes, and then they had died on his heels. It was difficult to not link the two events together.
Ji Min and Fan Yuezheng found it poor to say as much, but that didn’t mean that Tang Fan was too afraid to do so. “Consul Shen, you rashly let them all free yesterday. Did you hope for what happened today?”
Shen Kunxiu’s expression sank. “What do you mean by that?”
“You very well know what I mean. How are you going to defend yourself in your memorial to the Court?”
“You’re trying to say that I killed them?!” the other raged.
“I didn’t say that, but could you stop anyone from thinking so?” Tang Fan mildly replied. “I have no past enmities with you, so why would I accuse you unjustly for no good reason? You may as well find the reason within yourself.”
“This official is upright in conduct! I have no fear of any lowlifes prodding at my flaws behind my back!”
Tang Fan didn’t feel like gabbing with him. This guy simply could not be reasoned with. He turned the subject around, pointing at the corpses on the ground. “Magistrate Ji and I encountered an assassination attempt last night. You must have heard of that, Consul Shen. The assassins that killed these people last night happen to be bound to the same source.”
“Impossible!” Shen Kunxiu said without thinking.
Seeing everyone else looking at him, he coldly supplemented, “This official simply feels that to be unimaginable, and not possible at all!”
Tang Fan paid him no attention, turning to ask Magistrate Fan, “Did you find all fifteen scholars?”
“Three of them are Ji’an City locals and have already been brought. The rest dispersed to other county, and I sent people to find them!”
Tang Fan nodded. “I have things to ask them, and it needs to be done quickly, before they get silenced.”
The instant he heard this, Shen Kunxiu was desperately angry, thinking, Is this not you disparaging me indirectly?! “Tang Fan, I dare you to say that again!”
“Things well-said don’t need a repeat.” Tang Fan didn’t even glance at him, asking Magistrate Fan, “Will you lead the way?”
The Magistrate wiped off his sweat. “Yes, yes. This way, please!”
Truthfully, he couldn’t comprehend Shen Kunxiu’s behavior; he was just an official using his high rank to suppress people to death. No retaliation could happen before. Now that he was seeing Shen Kunxiu be made to stamp his feet out of anger because of Tang Fan, Magistrate Fan couldn’t help but feel gratified.
On another side, the three brought up by Magistrate Fan were sitting in a side hall, nervous and uneasy. Only half of their butts were touching their seats. After a good minute of waiting, they at last saw Magistrate Fan and a young man walk in, quickly standing to greet them.
Zeng Jin, Yang Wen, and Wu Jun had all participated in Ji’an’s institutional exam this years, having ranked fifth, ninth, and eleventh, respectively. ‘Great Achievement’ had appeared on all of their papers, so as soon as someone had exposed them, they had been arrested and shut up in small, dark rooms. Shen Kunxiu had then interrogated them several times individually, but these three — similar to the rest of the arrested exam-takers — had all denied cheating for the life of him, also claiming that ‘Great Achievement’ appearing in all of their papers had just been a coincidence.
Shen Kunxiu was well-learned, but that didn’t mean that he was able to investigate cases. He had completely bungled a simple case of exam cheating: him letting the involved evaluators free aside, he had not even gotten the exam-takers to confess. Hindered by possible criticism, he had also been too afraid to use torture on scholars, so these three speaking as one had left him with no recourse. Thus, he had needed Tang Fan to come over and help him tidy up this mess.
However, Tang Fan hadn’t expected that Shen Kunxiu would not only not be appreciative, but also make things harder for him constantly. It really made one speechless.
While Tang Fan walked in, Zeng Jin and the rest sized up the young man at Magistrate Fan’s side. Without a single doubt — judging from the other’s bearing as well as how the Magistrate subconsciously fell half a step behind him — the man was an imperial ambassador.
Those that participated in imperial exams nowadays were not necessarily young, with people in their seventies with heads full of gray taking them all everywhere. The youngest of their three was twenty, the oldest nearly thirty, all right in their primes. Looking at this man again, he was also in his twenties, seeming a little younger than even them, yet he was already a third-rank official. Another step upwards, and he would be the highest official in the ministry — comparing oneself to another really could anger one to death!
In officialdom, seniority was valued, and those that had attained it were priority. Even though Tang Fan was around their age, as long as he had the status, they needed to get up and bow to him respectfully.
Not wanting to talk in circles with them, Tang Fan nodded to exempt them from the courtesies. “What’s going on with ‘Great Achievement’?”
They hadn’t expected him to be so frank. After a moment of silence, one said, “Answering you, Sir, it was just a coincidence. We have no idea what’s happening.”
Tang Fan smiled. “Your name is Zeng Jin?”
“Yes.”
“I heard that Consul Shen re-examined all of you. The competence of your second papers are quite different?”
“This humble one doesn’t know where to begin speaking about that discrepancy. However, I really did put in a lot of effort to earn my County Honorate title, with no underhanded tricks. I can only say that the evaluators had acute insight to admit me.”
“The evaluators are dead.”
“Huh?”
All three’s faces were blank expanses of confusion. Evidently, they didn’t understand what he had said, so he repeated, “All of the five evaluating officials that altered your exam papers for you are dead. If you don’t believe that, you can go to the county bureau’s front courtyard and look for yourself. Their corpses are held there. Tell them, Magistrate Fan.”
The deaths of the six had been discovered not long ago. When these three had come in, they hade come in through the smaller gate at the back, so they knew nothing for right now.
Aware that Tang Fan was deliberately cowing them, Magistrate Fan knew intuitively to explain the general state of the corpses, particularly exaggerating their manner and cause of death to be abnormally frightening.
When the three heard that not only had the five evaluators died at more or less the same time, murdered tragically with a slash to the throat, their faces quickly turned as pale as paper, bodies shaking like sieves. They could say absolutely nothing.
Tang Fan appeared to not notice their states, saying to Xi Ming, “Bring them to see the bodies.”
“S-Sir, we don’t need to see them. We didn’t kill them…” Zeng Jin said.
Tang Fan smiled coldly. “Of course you didn’t. Even if you had that notion, there’s probably no way you could slip into someone else’s home and kill them without notice. What’s wrong with making you see the bodies? If you’re going to pursue a career someday, you’ll see an unknown amount of huge spectacles. Don’t tell me that even if you see starving refugees all over the place, you won’t deal with them out of fear?”
Talks reaching this extent, they were forced to go, following Xi Ming out like a funeral procession.
Once they left, Shen Kunxiu came right in. “I heard that you judge cases like a god would, Censor Tang. I specially came here to observe. I assume you won’t refuse?” he asked with a dark face.
Even if I did, would you get out? Tang Fan thought, though there was still a faint smile on his face. “Please take a seat, Consul Shen.”
No more words were to be had in this sour atmosphere. The two were seated quite close together, yet they had nothing to say, all the way until a little bit later, when Xi Ming brought the three scholars back inside.
The three’s faces were paler than when they had left, and they were even staggering a bit underfoot; presumably, they had been shocked by what they had witnessed, and had yet to come back to themselves. This was not strange. If those were ordinary dead folk, it would be fine, but the deceased were all related to the case. Any careful thought about that would inevitably cause one to break out into a full-body cold sweat. With even the evaluators dead, were their own lives in peril?
“Did you all get a good look?” Tang Fan asked them.
“W-we did…”
They were worn-down and timid, like three delicate and powerless little flowers. Who knew how many wrongs they had suffered?
“I received the essays you all made when you were studying at Egret Isle Academy.” Tang Fan accepted a stack of papers from Han Jin, then placed them on the table. “What your levels are does not require my further explanation, and you all must know them well at heart. However, your essays in the institutional exams were very prosey. If you said that no one ghostwrote them, I wouldn’t believe it.”
He had determined their characters with one remark.
“The evaluators are dead. The killers are not yet captured. They may still be in Ji’an City, and may commit the act again. Regardless of why they murdered the five evaluators, to be brief, they are inextricable from this case. If you all continue to stubbornly remain silent, there will be no need to wait for the Court to strip you of your honors — perhaps you’ll be just like them in a few days!”
The three were so scared, they had no idea what to do. Shen Kunxiu’s face darkened. “Censor Tang, do you judge cases by intimidating students?”
Tang Fan ignored him, only looking at Zeng Jin’s group. “If you’re willing to be forthcoming and open, I can send a letter to the Court to beg for leniency for you. At that time, you might have another chance to participate in the next institutional exams. If you fail, you lose your honors, and if you pass, you can keep them.”
“Who’s saying that their honors can be kept?!” Shen Kunxiu said angrily. “People like them put no thought into forging ahead on their own legs, resorting to crooked methods! If they’re allowed to keep those, it would be a disgrace to Jiangxi’s scholarly circle!”
Only now did Tang Fan charitably give him a smidge of attention, saying coldly. “You are implicated in this case, Consul Shen. For your own innocence’s sake, it would best if you tried to control things less, else I’ll think that you’re purposefully attempting to obstruct my investigation, and harbor some schemes.”
Before the other could react, he also said, “Xi ing, Consul Shen is so tired, he’s become a little delirious. Bring him away to rest. Don’t let anyone disturb him easily.”
“Understood.” Xi Ming answered, striding for Shen Kunxiu.
The latter was alarmed and enraged. “What are you trying—!”
Before he could finish, he collapsed limply.
Zeng Jin and the others’ mouths were agape, and they watched in surprise as Xi Ming’s hand retracted from Shen Kunxiu’s neck, after which he picked him entirely up and exited stage left.
Still, no one had sympathy for him. Even Magistrate Fan held some schadenfreude, feeling that Shen Kunxiu really had no sense of right and wrong; it wasn’t odd that even Mister Ambassador would be provoked by him.
“All of you heard that Consul Shen is insistent in stripping your honors. I’ve already given you another option. You can come find me once you’ve thought it over; the one who confesses first is the one I can consider pleading for to retain his honors, with no need to take another exam.” Then, Tang Fan changed the subject. “However, your thinking time is only half a day. When that expires, it’ll be too late, and your further justifications won’t count. In any case, you lot aside, there’s still over ten other scholars that Magistrate Fan has already sent people to summon. They’ll be coming soon. Presumably, they’ll understand what to pick even more than you do.”
The second they heard this, the three hesitated, then scrambled to be the first to say, “Sir, I’ll talk first! I will!”
They were flushed red from the fighting in an instant. Tang Fan was in no rush, allowing them to bicker as he sat there and drank the cup of tea Magistrate Fan had brought him down to its bottom. Fan Yuezheng was observing his body language, constantly taking note of his superior’s actions, and upon seeing this, he quickly had a new pot of tea brought. along with a few plates of snacks, so that Tang Fan wouldn’t be hungry after drinking so much tea.
Noticing that the fire was almost put out, Tang Fan then said, “Is your talk done? Talk when it is, just leave if you don’t want to talk. This official’s time is very precious — I don’t have any to spare to listen to you all squabble.”
“We’ll talk!” Zeng Jin quickly said, afraid of his companions snatching the opportunity. “Before the exams, we heard word on the wind that said that as long as the words ‘Great Achievement’ were added to our papers, we would get on the roll!”
“Where did that information come from? Why did only around fifteen of you get it, while the other exam-takers had no idea?”
“It was bought! Our information was bought!” Yang Wen rushed to answer.
Tang Fan unnoticeably glanced to the side. Lu Lingxi, on his end, had since found a paper and started taking notes at who-knew-what point.
“Who bought it? Where? Who was the one selling the information?”
Wu Jun hadn’t gotten the opportunity to answer just then, feeling resentful. The second he heard Tang Fan ask three successive questions, he said, “We didn’t see who was selling it. Back then, we went into a private room in Clearwind—“
“Clearwind?”
“It’s a restaurant in Ji’an. Very famous!” Magistrate Fan supplied.
Tang Fan hummed. “Go on.”
“He was sitting behind a screen and stating himself to be a Daoist of Great Peace. After I paid a hundred taels of silver, he told me the information.”
Tang Fan looked at the other two scholars. “This is also true for you?”
Zeng Jin and Yang Wen both nodded. “It is. What he said isn’t wrong at all.”
A hundred taels was no small amount. Even in a large academy like Egret Isle, scant few could afford that. Furthermore, they had purchased a piece of information of unknown veracity. After paying so much for it, these students would definitely not tell anyone else, so only about a dozen of them had cheated. Had the other party’s price been a bit cheaper, perhaps more than sixteen people would have been arrested right about now.
“Magistrate Fan, I’ll trouble you with taking Han Jin along to Clearwind to verify whether what they’ve said is true. If someone really did sell information on the institutional exams there, it’s not impossible that the shopkeeper had noticed.”
Magistrate Fan quickly agreed, then left with Han Jin.
“How did you all come to know that someone was in Clearwind selling inside information?” Tang Fan asked the group.
“Answering you, Sir, it was Zeng Jin that told me!” Wu Jun said.
“Sir, I also heard Zeng Jin say so! I heard many of our schoolmates did!” Yang Wen said. “He must have not controlled his mouth and blabbed about it everyone, and someone who couldn’t afford the info got jealous of us, then told Consul Shen about it!”
Zeng Jin went red. “Who’s blabbing?! I only told a few of you! Who would talk about something like this everywhere they went?! I only learned it from what someone else said!”
“Who did you hear it from?” Tang Fan asked.
“Lin Zhen! I heard from Lin Zhen!”
“Who did he hear it from?”
Zeng Jin shook his head. “I don’t know. When he told me at the time, I only half-believed him. His assignments are typically good, so there was no need for him to cheat at all, but his dad pressured him a lot. Out of fear that he wouldn’t pass, he ended up taking the risk.”
Tang Fan thought for a bit. Thinking that he had nothing else to ask, he waved them off. “You all can withdraw. It would be best to not leave the city. This official may have to summon you at any time; if you aren’t found, you’ll be responsible for the consequences.”
The three exchanged looks. Drumming up his courage, Zeng Jin cautiously asked, “Sir, we spoke of all we know, and you just said you could not strip us of our honors…”
Tang Fan was angrily amused. “When did I say anything like that? I said it could be considered! Enough, you can all go your separate ways. Me not arresting you right now is already a special favor to you. Future event will depend on your perfomances!”
Seeing that the three were reluctant to leave, his expression sank. “What? Do you want me to be like Consul Shen and lock you up in dark little rooms?”
Once they heard that, they could only obediently leave.
Results soon came from Magistrate Fan and Han Jin, but they could also be called non-results.
Clearwind’s shopkeeper had said that someone legitimately had rented one of the private rooms on the eve period of the exams for several consecutive days. He and the restaurant staff had also see different people go into that room in quick succession, but had never paid attention to their specific appearances. Since Clearwind was a famous local restaurant, many officials came to eat there every day, coming and coming, and unhappy to be asked questions. The shopkeeper and them had dared not commit a faux-pas.
At this point, Tang Fan had a lot of clues, yet pretty much no gains of real substance. Him and Shen Kunxiu turning hostile had spread quickly, however, becoming known to all. Purportedly, Shen Kunxiu was thundering mad after waking up from being knocked unconscious, letting it be know that he was going to send a memorial to the Court about Tang Fan’s poor conduct and whatnot.
The case of the imperial exams, from its outbreak to the present, had become known to all of Ji’an Prefecture, spreading throughout every street. First had come the mass cheating, then the scholar that had hung himself, then the imperial ambassador’s assassination attempt, and then the evaluators’ bizarre deaths. The commonfolk didn’t know the inside information, but they most loved to hear about such strange and tortuous stories. Purportedly, the gambling dens had even opened up a pool, betting on whether the judgement-god Censor Tang would be able to discover the truth this time around. After Tang Fan heard of this, he had no idea how to react, and ended up having Lu Lingxi bring ten taels to a gambling den and earn himself profits.
Several days later, the rest of the exam-takers that had gone off to other counties had been retrieved individually by Magistrate Fan. Their confessions were more or less the same to Zeng Jin’s group, not much of a discrepancy to be had except for the starting sources of the information being different. Some said they had heard it from A place, some had heard it from B place, and it all went around until it ultimately involved one important figure: Lin Zhen.
Yet he was long dead. There was no way to ask after it anymore.
The deaths of the five evaluators was even stranger, the killers from the same group that had tried to assassinate Tang Fan. The formerly-ordinary case of cheating on imperial exams had become a bit odd due to these additional few couple of deaths. Amongst the commonfolk, it was even rumored that Consul Shen Kunxiu’s eight characters with incompatible with Ji’an, so once he came here, Ji’an was never at peace — something quite absurd and best left unheard.
Tang Fan hadn’t believed that Lin Zhen was a key figure, hency why he hadn’t put much of a stake into Lin Fengyuan’s refusal to open his coffin. Now that many clues had expressed that Lin Zhen really did have a significant role in this case, the opening of his coffin for an autopsy was critical.
Before that, though, he would definitely have to join up with Lin Fengyuan. If he could obtain the other’s understanding and approval, Tang Fan would be spared from getting denounced as investigating cruelly and in no accordance with human emotion. As was known, following the death of the five evaluators, Shen Kunxiu had written a memorial scolding Tang Fan every which way, also claiming that he wouldn’t be able to decide this case at all, made the people start complaining wherever he went, and now had not only failed to find out the truth, but had caused the evaluators to die strange deaths.
That was a plain reversal of right and wrong. However, there was an abundance of people nowadays that wished for Tang Fan to fall into misfortune. They cared nothing for whether what was on the memorial was true or not. Even if it wasn’t, the Emperor couldn’t come to check it out in person.
Political struggles frequently required not actual evidence, but reasonable excuses, just like Yu Qian’s murder charge back in the day: ‘Although there is no clear evidence, there is a motive.’ Tang Fan didn’t want to fight it out with Shen Kunxiu, but with this reaching this extent, he needed to send a memorial to defend himself, which really wasted a lot of time.
In light of the disharmony between Tang Fan and Shen Kunxiu, the Court decided to dispatch another imperial ambassador to assist Tang Fan in the investigation — which, in reality, was them doing two separate investigations, which would end with the results being processed for mixed consideration. This demonstrated that the Cabinet had no confidence in Tang Fan, but he had no power to refuse.
At this point, around six days had passed since he had come to Ji’an. This period was neither short nor long, enough for him to discover many things. On this day, because he had been interrogating confessions out of those scholars, he was a bit tired, and fell asleep early. His original plan to find Lin Fengyuan for questioning was pushed back for tomorrow.
During his sleep haze, he suddenly felt a hand on his middle. He subconsciously frowned some. Thinking that it was Lu Lingxi coming to rouse him by doing some mischief, he didn’t even open his eyes to say, “Yiqing, quit messing around!”
“Who’s Yiqing?” a voice said beside his ear.
That wasn’t Lu Lingxi!
Tang Fan jumped, any notion of tiredness immediately flying into the nine heavens above, and nearly shouted.
The very next moment, his mouth was firmly covered by a hand. “Don’t yell. It’s me.”
His eyes opened wide. He looked at the man who was half-leaned against the headboard, dressed all in black, and had come from who-knew-where.
Wait a second. When he had slept until midnight last night, he seemed to have sensed someone next to him then, too…?
Seemingly noticing what he was thinking, Sui Zhou thoughtfully supplied, “It was me last night, too. Seeing you sleep so soundly, I didn’t wake you.”
“…”
“Again, though. Who’s Yiqing?”
“…”
Upon hearing this, Tang Fan immediately started frowned. “Then, does he admit that his son’s death was unrelated to Shen Kunxiu?”
Lu Lingxi shook his head. “Not so. He said that Lin Zhen had been pressured into his death by Shen Kunxiu, and also that Lin Zhen was buried. By the logic of letting him be at peace in the ground, the coffin must never be opened for an autopsy, and if you can’t right this wrong for him, he’s going to go to the capital to beat the drum of grievances.”
At the nation’s founding, the Great Ancestor had established a rule that anyone amongst the populace that had been wronged could ‘beat the drum of grievances’ to cry about it. The Emperor would have to hear it out in person, with no official allowed to prevent it. All who violated that would be heavily punished. No later Emperor would show as much detailed interest as the Great Ancestor had, but the rule of grievance-drum-beating had passed on to today.
However, only commonfolk had ever been heard to have used it, never Court officials. Regardless of how low Lin Fengyuan’s position was, he was still a Balancing Magistrate. If he entered the capital to complain, he would undoubtedly smack him in the face and mock him for his incompetence. Of course, when things get to be a big ol’ fuss, the Emperor would actually believe that Tang Fan was incompetent. That little trifle wouldn’t end well.
“He’s threatening me?” Tang Fan laughed, no humor heard in it. “Go and have him come meet me… nevermind, you’re injured. Don’t be running all around.”
As soon as he finished speaking, Xi Ming came in from outside. He had been slashed in the thigh last night, which made him walk pretty unnaturally, his pace much slower. “Sir! Something happened!”
He had seen much of the world, so he would never be the fussy sort of person that made mountains out of molehills. If he said something had happened, then it had to have been something big.
Tang Fan’s heart sank as he heard Xi Ming say in a dark tone, “The five evaluators are all dead.”
“What?!”
It was not only Tang Fan that shouted that aloud, but also Lu Lingxi, as that was just too shocking.
“How did they die? When?” Tang Fan asked.
“Just last night, in their homes. They ought to have been murdered by someone slicing their throats as they slept in bed.”
“This clearly has something to do with Shen Kunxiu, Brother Tang!” Lu Lingxi said immediately. “He must have also played a part in the cheating! He was afraid that the Court would look into him, so he just silence them all!”
Tang Fan shook his head. “It wasn’t him.”
“Why?”
“When we left his place before, we happened to run into his servant reporting some news in a flurry, with a look of panic. I didn’t know what that news was at the time, but thinking back it on it now, this was likely it. Had he done this, no such thing would have happened. He presumably knows nothing of it.”
“Then why did he deliberately let them go, and refuse to cooperate with your investigation?”
Tang Fan smiled bitterly. “His behavior really is suspicious. This all looks to be a bit complicated now.” He then asked Xi Ming, “Has Magistrate Fan found those scholars, or have they been silenced too?”
“He sent people to call them back individually. After Lin Zhen died, Shen Kunxiu was too afraid to detain them anymore, so he let him go and they went back to their hometowns. However, a few live in Ji’an’s capital that will be summoned soon.”
Tang Fan nodded. “Let’s go pay the Magistrate a visit, then.”
“Runqing, you’re going to visit Magistrate Fan?” In the middle of their talk, Ji Min walked in from outside with an apologetic look. “I’m really sorry. I drank too much last night and got up a bit late!”
Seeing their solemn expressions, he asked, “Did something happen?”
Tang Fan told him the news of the evaluators’ deaths. Ji Min was wholly shocked. “B-But, how could that happen?! What’s actually going on here?!”
Him aside, Tang Fan was also shocked, though he didn’t express as much. “I’m going to the prefectural bureau now. Do you want to come with?”
Ji Min came back to himself, saying promptly, “Yes! Of course I will!”
Magistrate Fan’s hair was nearly turned gray now. The second an imperial ambassador arrived, things were happening in Ji’an; first had come the assassination attempt of that ambassador that had nearly lost him his subordinates, immediately after which the evaluators of the institutional exams had been murdered. Who would believe that something wasn’t afoot here?
He subconsciously thought of Shen Kunxiu’s mug, thinking to himself, That old thing must have done some embezzling, so he silenced them out of guilt upon seeing the imperial ambassador, huh?
The issue here was that despite him having nothing to do with all of this from start to finish, as Ji’an’s Magistrate, the debacle landed within his jurisdiction, and he couldn’t shirk his tie to it. If a displeased Tang Fan denounced him together with that, he would be done for.
The corpses of the five evaluators had already been brought over by government workers, and were now lying in the front courtyard of the bureau. To more precise, there were actually six corpses, because one of the evaluators had been sleeping together with his wife; when the killer killed him, there was no way they would have spared his wife, so she was murdered, too.
It had happened in the middle of the night, during the full immersion of good dreams. It hadn’t been until those six’s families had risen in the morning that they had successively found them dead, following which they had reported to Magistrate Fan.
Faced with the bodies, there were almost as many wrinkles on the Magistrate’s face as there were hairs. When he saw Tang Fan rushing over, it was like his saving star had come, and he nearly threw himself at him. “Sir, you came!”
“Did you let Consul Shen know of this?” Tang Fan asked.
Magistrate Fan nodded on repeat. “I did, I did!”
The coroner was inspecting the corpse, but there was really no need for any coroner, as even Tang Fan could see that the deceased should have no external trauma, the only wounds to be the one on their throats. These really had been straightforward killing blows, plain and neat.
Xi Ming crouched down to observe, then said to Tang Fan, “Sir, those that killed them ought to be from the same group as those that tried to assassinate us.”
Hearing that, everyone suffered great alarm. “Could it be that after they failed to kill us, they freed themselves to kill these people?” Ji Min asked.
Xi Ming anticipated that his statement might generate misunderstandings, so he explained. “Wounds cut using different weapons would not be the same. Inspecting carefully based on this tells us that their wounds are the same as those inflicted on us last night. Thereby, I can infer that even if the murdered didn’t come the same group, they must have come from the same area.”
“Lawless! They’re just lawless!” Magistrate Fan was alarmed and furious.
Something like this hadn’t happened in Ji’an in decades, yet these people had dared to attack an imperial ambassador, plus kill a few weak evaluating officials. What could that be seen as?
“Where did all these evaluators originate from?” Tang Fan asked Magistrate Fan.
“In previous institutional exams, previous evaluators were all selected from headmasters of repute from academies around the exam location’s perimeter. These ones were separately from the the Academy of Luoxiao Mountains, the Academy of Luling, the Academy of Peak Excellence, and the Academy of Yongning. Two of them were from the same academy, as headmaster and vice headmaster.”
“To my knowledge, Egret Isle Academy is the most famed in this locality. Why not ask its headmaster to be an evaluator? Could it be that due to many of the test-takers coming from the Academy, Consul Shen worried that their headmaster would favor them?”
“No. This humble official knows why; Headmaster Qin of the Academy is great in age, so he had planned to retire, but the Academy can’t find an appropriate replacement for right now. He had to take a temporary appointment. For that reason, even if he had been asked to evaluate the papers, he wouldn’t have had the energy to.”
Tang Fan pondered some. “If his headmaster position was unoccupied, how would the next one be chosen?”
“For an Academy as famed as Egret Isle, the headmaster position is highly coveted, with many wanting it. Headmaster Qin had wanted to take advantage of Consul Shen’s inspection during to ask him to pick a new headmaster on his behalf. With this roadblock happening later on, Consul Shen is likely not in the mood for it.
“That is to say that it’s not only former students of Egret Isle, but the headmasters of other academies that would all be qualified to serve as Egret Isle’s headmaster?”
“Yes. Egret Isle Academy has a very high standing in Jiangxi’s scholar circle.”
Similarly to how acting officials tended to fight for power, scholars tended to fight for renown. This convention was everywhere. The position of headmaster had no authority to speak of, but it represented prestige in the scholarly circle. If one could be the headmaster of an academy that had realm-wide fame, then their future students would definitely earn a lot of scholarly honors, meaning their headmaster would have a lot of influence via students in the world — such was the lifelong goal of many academy headmasters.
Thus, once Magistrate Fan said that, Tang Fan understood. He didn’t get to ask anything else, however, because at that moment, Shen Kunxiu arrived.
With something like this happening, Shen Kunxiu couldn’t cooperate with Tang Fan anymore, but he also couldn’t not come over and see what was going on. Walking in with a dark face, he did not greet Tang Fan, and directly asked Magistrate Fan, “What’s going on?”
The Magistrate repeated what he had told Tang Fan before.
He had released the evaluators on his toes, and then they had died on his heels. It was difficult to not link the two events together.
Ji Min and Fan Yuezheng found it poor to say as much, but that didn’t mean that Tang Fan was too afraid to do so. “Consul Shen, you rashly let them all free yesterday. Did you hope for what happened today?”
Shen Kunxiu’s expression sank. “What do you mean by that?”
“You very well know what I mean. How are you going to defend yourself in your memorial to the Court?”
“You’re trying to say that I killed them?!” the other raged.
“I didn’t say that, but could you stop anyone from thinking so?” Tang Fan mildly replied. “I have no past enmities with you, so why would I accuse you unjustly for no good reason? You may as well find the reason within yourself.”
“This official is upright in conduct! I have no fear of any lowlifes prodding at my flaws behind my back!”
Tang Fan didn’t feel like gabbing with him. This guy simply could not be reasoned with. He turned the subject around, pointing at the corpses on the ground. “Magistrate Ji and I encountered an assassination attempt last night. You must have heard of that, Consul Shen. The assassins that killed these people last night happen to be bound to the same source.”
“Impossible!” Shen Kunxiu said without thinking.
Seeing everyone else looking at him, he coldly supplemented, “This official simply feels that to be unimaginable, and not possible at all!”
Tang Fan paid him no attention, turning to ask Magistrate Fan, “Did you find all fifteen scholars?”
“Three of them are Ji’an City locals and have already been brought. The rest dispersed to other county, and I sent people to find them!”
Tang Fan nodded. “I have things to ask them, and it needs to be done quickly, before they get silenced.”
The instant he heard this, Shen Kunxiu was desperately angry, thinking, Is this not you disparaging me indirectly?! “Tang Fan, I dare you to say that again!”
“Things well-said don’t need a repeat.” Tang Fan didn’t even glance at him, asking Magistrate Fan, “Will you lead the way?”
The Magistrate wiped off his sweat. “Yes, yes. This way, please!”
Truthfully, he couldn’t comprehend Shen Kunxiu’s behavior; he was just an official using his high rank to suppress people to death. No retaliation could happen before. Now that he was seeing Shen Kunxiu be made to stamp his feet out of anger because of Tang Fan, Magistrate Fan couldn’t help but feel gratified.
On another side, the three brought up by Magistrate Fan were sitting in a side hall, nervous and uneasy. Only half of their butts were touching their seats. After a good minute of waiting, they at last saw Magistrate Fan and a young man walk in, quickly standing to greet them.
Zeng Jin, Yang Wen, and Wu Jun had all participated in Ji’an’s institutional exam this years, having ranked fifth, ninth, and eleventh, respectively. ‘Great Achievement’ had appeared on all of their papers, so as soon as someone had exposed them, they had been arrested and shut up in small, dark rooms. Shen Kunxiu had then interrogated them several times individually, but these three — similar to the rest of the arrested exam-takers — had all denied cheating for the life of him, also claiming that ‘Great Achievement’ appearing in all of their papers had just been a coincidence.
Shen Kunxiu was well-learned, but that didn’t mean that he was able to investigate cases. He had completely bungled a simple case of exam cheating: him letting the involved evaluators free aside, he had not even gotten the exam-takers to confess. Hindered by possible criticism, he had also been too afraid to use torture on scholars, so these three speaking as one had left him with no recourse. Thus, he had needed Tang Fan to come over and help him tidy up this mess.
However, Tang Fan hadn’t expected that Shen Kunxiu would not only not be appreciative, but also make things harder for him constantly. It really made one speechless.
While Tang Fan walked in, Zeng Jin and the rest sized up the young man at Magistrate Fan’s side. Without a single doubt — judging from the other’s bearing as well as how the Magistrate subconsciously fell half a step behind him — the man was an imperial ambassador.
Those that participated in imperial exams nowadays were not necessarily young, with people in their seventies with heads full of gray taking them all everywhere. The youngest of their three was twenty, the oldest nearly thirty, all right in their primes. Looking at this man again, he was also in his twenties, seeming a little younger than even them, yet he was already a third-rank official. Another step upwards, and he would be the highest official in the ministry — comparing oneself to another really could anger one to death!
In officialdom, seniority was valued, and those that had attained it were priority. Even though Tang Fan was around their age, as long as he had the status, they needed to get up and bow to him respectfully.
Not wanting to talk in circles with them, Tang Fan nodded to exempt them from the courtesies. “What’s going on with ‘Great Achievement’?”
They hadn’t expected him to be so frank. After a moment of silence, one said, “Answering you, Sir, it was just a coincidence. We have no idea what’s happening.”
Tang Fan smiled. “Your name is Zeng Jin?”
“Yes.”
“I heard that Consul Shen re-examined all of you. The competence of your second papers are quite different?”
“This humble one doesn’t know where to begin speaking about that discrepancy. However, I really did put in a lot of effort to earn my County Honorate title, with no underhanded tricks. I can only say that the evaluators had acute insight to admit me.”
“The evaluators are dead.”
“Huh?”
All three’s faces were blank expanses of confusion. Evidently, they didn’t understand what he had said, so he repeated, “All of the five evaluating officials that altered your exam papers for you are dead. If you don’t believe that, you can go to the county bureau’s front courtyard and look for yourself. Their corpses are held there. Tell them, Magistrate Fan.”
The deaths of the six had been discovered not long ago. When these three had come in, they hade come in through the smaller gate at the back, so they knew nothing for right now.
Aware that Tang Fan was deliberately cowing them, Magistrate Fan knew intuitively to explain the general state of the corpses, particularly exaggerating their manner and cause of death to be abnormally frightening.
When the three heard that not only had the five evaluators died at more or less the same time, murdered tragically with a slash to the throat, their faces quickly turned as pale as paper, bodies shaking like sieves. They could say absolutely nothing.
Tang Fan appeared to not notice their states, saying to Xi Ming, “Bring them to see the bodies.”
“S-Sir, we don’t need to see them. We didn’t kill them…” Zeng Jin said.
Tang Fan smiled coldly. “Of course you didn’t. Even if you had that notion, there’s probably no way you could slip into someone else’s home and kill them without notice. What’s wrong with making you see the bodies? If you’re going to pursue a career someday, you’ll see an unknown amount of huge spectacles. Don’t tell me that even if you see starving refugees all over the place, you won’t deal with them out of fear?”
Talks reaching this extent, they were forced to go, following Xi Ming out like a funeral procession.
Once they left, Shen Kunxiu came right in. “I heard that you judge cases like a god would, Censor Tang. I specially came here to observe. I assume you won’t refuse?” he asked with a dark face.
Even if I did, would you get out? Tang Fan thought, though there was still a faint smile on his face. “Please take a seat, Consul Shen.”
No more words were to be had in this sour atmosphere. The two were seated quite close together, yet they had nothing to say, all the way until a little bit later, when Xi Ming brought the three scholars back inside.
The three’s faces were paler than when they had left, and they were even staggering a bit underfoot; presumably, they had been shocked by what they had witnessed, and had yet to come back to themselves. This was not strange. If those were ordinary dead folk, it would be fine, but the deceased were all related to the case. Any careful thought about that would inevitably cause one to break out into a full-body cold sweat. With even the evaluators dead, were their own lives in peril?
“Did you all get a good look?” Tang Fan asked them.
“W-we did…”
They were worn-down and timid, like three delicate and powerless little flowers. Who knew how many wrongs they had suffered?
“I received the essays you all made when you were studying at Egret Isle Academy.” Tang Fan accepted a stack of papers from Han Jin, then placed them on the table. “What your levels are does not require my further explanation, and you all must know them well at heart. However, your essays in the institutional exams were very prosey. If you said that no one ghostwrote them, I wouldn’t believe it.”
He had determined their characters with one remark.
“The evaluators are dead. The killers are not yet captured. They may still be in Ji’an City, and may commit the act again. Regardless of why they murdered the five evaluators, to be brief, they are inextricable from this case. If you all continue to stubbornly remain silent, there will be no need to wait for the Court to strip you of your honors — perhaps you’ll be just like them in a few days!”
The three were so scared, they had no idea what to do. Shen Kunxiu’s face darkened. “Censor Tang, do you judge cases by intimidating students?”
Tang Fan ignored him, only looking at Zeng Jin’s group. “If you’re willing to be forthcoming and open, I can send a letter to the Court to beg for leniency for you. At that time, you might have another chance to participate in the next institutional exams. If you fail, you lose your honors, and if you pass, you can keep them.”
“Who’s saying that their honors can be kept?!” Shen Kunxiu said angrily. “People like them put no thought into forging ahead on their own legs, resorting to crooked methods! If they’re allowed to keep those, it would be a disgrace to Jiangxi’s scholarly circle!”
Only now did Tang Fan charitably give him a smidge of attention, saying coldly. “You are implicated in this case, Consul Shen. For your own innocence’s sake, it would best if you tried to control things less, else I’ll think that you’re purposefully attempting to obstruct my investigation, and harbor some schemes.”
Before the other could react, he also said, “Xi ing, Consul Shen is so tired, he’s become a little delirious. Bring him away to rest. Don’t let anyone disturb him easily.”
“Understood.” Xi Ming answered, striding for Shen Kunxiu.
The latter was alarmed and enraged. “What are you trying—!”
Before he could finish, he collapsed limply.
Zeng Jin and the others’ mouths were agape, and they watched in surprise as Xi Ming’s hand retracted from Shen Kunxiu’s neck, after which he picked him entirely up and exited stage left.
Still, no one had sympathy for him. Even Magistrate Fan held some schadenfreude, feeling that Shen Kunxiu really had no sense of right and wrong; it wasn’t odd that even Mister Ambassador would be provoked by him.
“All of you heard that Consul Shen is insistent in stripping your honors. I’ve already given you another option. You can come find me once you’ve thought it over; the one who confesses first is the one I can consider pleading for to retain his honors, with no need to take another exam.” Then, Tang Fan changed the subject. “However, your thinking time is only half a day. When that expires, it’ll be too late, and your further justifications won’t count. In any case, you lot aside, there’s still over ten other scholars that Magistrate Fan has already sent people to summon. They’ll be coming soon. Presumably, they’ll understand what to pick even more than you do.”
The second they heard this, the three hesitated, then scrambled to be the first to say, “Sir, I’ll talk first! I will!”
They were flushed red from the fighting in an instant. Tang Fan was in no rush, allowing them to bicker as he sat there and drank the cup of tea Magistrate Fan had brought him down to its bottom. Fan Yuezheng was observing his body language, constantly taking note of his superior’s actions, and upon seeing this, he quickly had a new pot of tea brought. along with a few plates of snacks, so that Tang Fan wouldn’t be hungry after drinking so much tea.
Noticing that the fire was almost put out, Tang Fan then said, “Is your talk done? Talk when it is, just leave if you don’t want to talk. This official’s time is very precious — I don’t have any to spare to listen to you all squabble.”
“We’ll talk!” Zeng Jin quickly said, afraid of his companions snatching the opportunity. “Before the exams, we heard word on the wind that said that as long as the words ‘Great Achievement’ were added to our papers, we would get on the roll!”
“Where did that information come from? Why did only around fifteen of you get it, while the other exam-takers had no idea?”
“It was bought! Our information was bought!” Yang Wen rushed to answer.
Tang Fan unnoticeably glanced to the side. Lu Lingxi, on his end, had since found a paper and started taking notes at who-knew-what point.
“Who bought it? Where? Who was the one selling the information?”
Wu Jun hadn’t gotten the opportunity to answer just then, feeling resentful. The second he heard Tang Fan ask three successive questions, he said, “We didn’t see who was selling it. Back then, we went into a private room in Clearwind—“
“Clearwind?”
“It’s a restaurant in Ji’an. Very famous!” Magistrate Fan supplied.
Tang Fan hummed. “Go on.”
“He was sitting behind a screen and stating himself to be a Daoist of Great Peace. After I paid a hundred taels of silver, he told me the information.”
Tang Fan looked at the other two scholars. “This is also true for you?”
Zeng Jin and Yang Wen both nodded. “It is. What he said isn’t wrong at all.”
A hundred taels was no small amount. Even in a large academy like Egret Isle, scant few could afford that. Furthermore, they had purchased a piece of information of unknown veracity. After paying so much for it, these students would definitely not tell anyone else, so only about a dozen of them had cheated. Had the other party’s price been a bit cheaper, perhaps more than sixteen people would have been arrested right about now.
“Magistrate Fan, I’ll trouble you with taking Han Jin along to Clearwind to verify whether what they’ve said is true. If someone really did sell information on the institutional exams there, it’s not impossible that the shopkeeper had noticed.”
Magistrate Fan quickly agreed, then left with Han Jin.
“How did you all come to know that someone was in Clearwind selling inside information?” Tang Fan asked the group.
“Answering you, Sir, it was Zeng Jin that told me!” Wu Jun said.
“Sir, I also heard Zeng Jin say so! I heard many of our schoolmates did!” Yang Wen said. “He must have not controlled his mouth and blabbed about it everyone, and someone who couldn’t afford the info got jealous of us, then told Consul Shen about it!”
Zeng Jin went red. “Who’s blabbing?! I only told a few of you! Who would talk about something like this everywhere they went?! I only learned it from what someone else said!”
“Who did you hear it from?” Tang Fan asked.
“Lin Zhen! I heard from Lin Zhen!”
“Who did he hear it from?”
Zeng Jin shook his head. “I don’t know. When he told me at the time, I only half-believed him. His assignments are typically good, so there was no need for him to cheat at all, but his dad pressured him a lot. Out of fear that he wouldn’t pass, he ended up taking the risk.”
Tang Fan thought for a bit. Thinking that he had nothing else to ask, he waved them off. “You all can withdraw. It would be best to not leave the city. This official may have to summon you at any time; if you aren’t found, you’ll be responsible for the consequences.”
The three exchanged looks. Drumming up his courage, Zeng Jin cautiously asked, “Sir, we spoke of all we know, and you just said you could not strip us of our honors…”
Tang Fan was angrily amused. “When did I say anything like that? I said it could be considered! Enough, you can all go your separate ways. Me not arresting you right now is already a special favor to you. Future event will depend on your perfomances!”
Seeing that the three were reluctant to leave, his expression sank. “What? Do you want me to be like Consul Shen and lock you up in dark little rooms?”
Once they heard that, they could only obediently leave.
Results soon came from Magistrate Fan and Han Jin, but they could also be called non-results.
Clearwind’s shopkeeper had said that someone legitimately had rented one of the private rooms on the eve period of the exams for several consecutive days. He and the restaurant staff had also see different people go into that room in quick succession, but had never paid attention to their specific appearances. Since Clearwind was a famous local restaurant, many officials came to eat there every day, coming and coming, and unhappy to be asked questions. The shopkeeper and them had dared not commit a faux-pas.
At this point, Tang Fan had a lot of clues, yet pretty much no gains of real substance. Him and Shen Kunxiu turning hostile had spread quickly, however, becoming known to all. Purportedly, Shen Kunxiu was thundering mad after waking up from being knocked unconscious, letting it be know that he was going to send a memorial to the Court about Tang Fan’s poor conduct and whatnot.
The case of the imperial exams, from its outbreak to the present, had become known to all of Ji’an Prefecture, spreading throughout every street. First had come the mass cheating, then the scholar that had hung himself, then the imperial ambassador’s assassination attempt, and then the evaluators’ bizarre deaths. The commonfolk didn’t know the inside information, but they most loved to hear about such strange and tortuous stories. Purportedly, the gambling dens had even opened up a pool, betting on whether the judgement-god Censor Tang would be able to discover the truth this time around. After Tang Fan heard of this, he had no idea how to react, and ended up having Lu Lingxi bring ten taels to a gambling den and earn himself profits.
Several days later, the rest of the exam-takers that had gone off to other counties had been retrieved individually by Magistrate Fan. Their confessions were more or less the same to Zeng Jin’s group, not much of a discrepancy to be had except for the starting sources of the information being different. Some said they had heard it from A place, some had heard it from B place, and it all went around until it ultimately involved one important figure: Lin Zhen.
Yet he was long dead. There was no way to ask after it anymore.
The deaths of the five evaluators was even stranger, the killers from the same group that had tried to assassinate Tang Fan. The formerly-ordinary case of cheating on imperial exams had become a bit odd due to these additional few couple of deaths. Amongst the commonfolk, it was even rumored that Consul Shen Kunxiu’s eight characters with incompatible with Ji’an, so once he came here, Ji’an was never at peace — something quite absurd and best left unheard.
Tang Fan hadn’t believed that Lin Zhen was a key figure, hency why he hadn’t put much of a stake into Lin Fengyuan’s refusal to open his coffin. Now that many clues had expressed that Lin Zhen really did have a significant role in this case, the opening of his coffin for an autopsy was critical.
Before that, though, he would definitely have to join up with Lin Fengyuan. If he could obtain the other’s understanding and approval, Tang Fan would be spared from getting denounced as investigating cruelly and in no accordance with human emotion. As was known, following the death of the five evaluators, Shen Kunxiu had written a memorial scolding Tang Fan every which way, also claiming that he wouldn’t be able to decide this case at all, made the people start complaining wherever he went, and now had not only failed to find out the truth, but had caused the evaluators to die strange deaths.
That was a plain reversal of right and wrong. However, there was an abundance of people nowadays that wished for Tang Fan to fall into misfortune. They cared nothing for whether what was on the memorial was true or not. Even if it wasn’t, the Emperor couldn’t come to check it out in person.
Political struggles frequently required not actual evidence, but reasonable excuses, just like Yu Qian’s murder charge back in the day: ‘Although there is no clear evidence, there is a motive.’ Tang Fan didn’t want to fight it out with Shen Kunxiu, but with this reaching this extent, he needed to send a memorial to defend himself, which really wasted a lot of time.
In light of the disharmony between Tang Fan and Shen Kunxiu, the Court decided to dispatch another imperial ambassador to assist Tang Fan in the investigation — which, in reality, was them doing two separate investigations, which would end with the results being processed for mixed consideration. This demonstrated that the Cabinet had no confidence in Tang Fan, but he had no power to refuse.
At this point, around six days had passed since he had come to Ji’an. This period was neither short nor long, enough for him to discover many things. On this day, because he had been interrogating confessions out of those scholars, he was a bit tired, and fell asleep early. His original plan to find Lin Fengyuan for questioning was pushed back for tomorrow.
During his sleep haze, he suddenly felt a hand on his middle. He subconsciously frowned some. Thinking that it was Lu Lingxi coming to rouse him by doing some mischief, he didn’t even open his eyes to say, “Yiqing, quit messing around!”
“Who’s Yiqing?” a voice said beside his ear.
That wasn’t Lu Lingxi!
Tang Fan jumped, any notion of tiredness immediately flying into the nine heavens above, and nearly shouted.
The very next moment, his mouth was firmly covered by a hand. “Don’t yell. It’s me.”
His eyes opened wide. He looked at the man who was half-leaned against the headboard, dressed all in black, and had come from who-knew-where.
Wait a second. When he had slept until midnight last night, he seemed to have sensed someone next to him then, too…?
Seemingly noticing what he was thinking, Sui Zhou thoughtfully supplied, “It was me last night, too. Seeing you sleep so soundly, I didn’t wake you.”
“…”
“Again, though. Who’s Yiqing?”
“…”
