After the White-faced Middle-aged Man finished speaking, everyone bowed and acknowledged his order. Xu Yi was no exception.
He had wanted to seize on the Black Robed Elder's mistake and make a huge fuss—not to earn merit, but to buy time and get a clear read on the situation. He hadn't expected Zhou Zongshi to be so quick-witted, chopping off his own arm and leaving Xu Yi no opening.
Of course, he could keep pressing the matter, but if he did, he would be going up against the White-faced Middle-aged Man directly.
His instincts told him that the White-faced Middle-aged Man was probably leaning toward Zhou Zongshi. But that was only a leaning. If Xu Yi refused to take a hint and irritated him, the man might do more than lean toward Zhou Zongshi—he might be driven straight into the opposing camp.
By now, Xu Yi had figured out the man's identity from the way the others addressed him: Chou Taichong, Chief Seal Envoy of the Prison Litigation Department.
In other words, Chou Taichong was the presiding judge here, with the final say in the case.
Once the interlude between Xu Yi and the Black Robed Elder was over, Chou Taichong went straight to the case. Zhou Zongshi recited the account he had rehearsed countless times, laying out the entire course of his entanglement with Xu Yi. Naturally, he spared no effort to embellish his tale, making every word drip with blood and every sentence brim with anguish. He painted Xu Yi's treachery, deceit, shameless backtracking, and brazen audacity in the most vivid colors, until everyone in the hall was glaring at Xu Yi.
Even the most wicked among them, for all their differences, ultimately favored goodness and despised evil.
What's more, most of those present knew only that Zhou