Chapter 26

The next day, I presided over court at the county office, interrogating those involved in the Skeleton Case.

Yun Huaixi, Dong Jingmo, Mother Liu, and the others knelt on the ground.

“Someone, open the main gate.” I turned past the screen and took my seat, “Let the common people hear everything.”

Two Bailiffs hurried out to open the county office’s main gate, and the townsfolk crowded at the entrance, craning their necks to look inside.

I struck the gavel: “Who stands before the court?”

Yun Huaixi kowtowed heavily: “This humble woman, Yun Huaixi, accuses Dong Jingmo of secretly amassing wealth and recruiting soldiers, and of murdering the groom Zhao Tiandong.”

Dong Jingmo was about to speak when a young girl squeezed in from the doorway, knelt outside the court, and raised a petition in both hands: “This humble woman wishes to accuse County Magistrate Yu Baisu of colluding with Dong Jingmo, and of forcing respectable women into prostitution!”

At these words, the townsfolk were greatly shocked.

I ordered the girl to be brought in.

“You?” I looked closely-it was the little maid who had served me tea in the back hall of the county office. “Do you have any evidence for these claims?”

“I do!” the girl declared loudly. “My sister, Muxu, was taken by them to Drunken Beauty and made one of the One Hundred and Eight Fragrances! They thought my whole family was dead, but missed me. These are crimes my sister and I witnessed with our own eyes in the county office and Drunken Beauty. I beg you, sir, to uphold justice for me!”

Song Lan took the petition and handed it to me.

I unfolded it and read carefully: not only did it detail how Drunken Beauty forcibly abducted women to become courtesans, it also specifically mentioned that Yu Baisu and Dong Jiao, under the pretense of constructing wells for drinking water, built secret tunnels beneath the wells, through which many weapons were transported out of the city and sent to the Capital.

The evidence was irrefutable. Dong Jingmo and Yu Baisu could not deny it and had no choice but to confess.

I cleared Zhao Tiandong’s name, rescued the women trapped in Drunken Beauty, and, in the name of the Imperial Commissioner, spared Yun Huaixi and Muxu from the punishment for petitioning officials. I also awarded them a plaque inscribed “Heroic Women.”

Thus, the Skeleton Case was concluded. Dong Jingmo, Yu Baisu, and the other criminals were escorted to the Capital by Qin Zhezhou.