"Very well! Guan Yi, right director of the Rites Office, you are a Jing official and a scholar, yet you advocated surrendering our territory, sowed disorder in the Jing Kingdom, and interfered with the Grand Secretariat's decisions. You deserve punishment. Guan Yi, do you accept this?"
The prefectural court hall was so quiet that the sound of a mosquito flying could have been heard.
"I do not!" Guan Yi held his head high and chest out, his expression unchanged.
"Why?" Fang Yun's gaze was calm, as though they were merely discussing some trivial matter.
"We of the human race are the heirs of Sage Kong. Successive monarchs have welcomed open discourse. I am a Metropolitan Graduate. How can I be convicted for my words?"
Fang Yun said, "What does it mean to be convicted for one's words? What are these 'words'? The law stipulates that anyone who curses another shall be slapped across the mouth. Does that count as being convicted for one's words?"
"Cursing someone insults and harms them. It is a wrongdoing, not a conviction for one's words."
"Then, in your view, so long as someone's words can be proven to have harmed another, they can be deemed a wrongdoing?" Fang Yun asked.
"Not necessarily. The speaker might simply be discussing the matter at hand, while someone else takes it personally and believes those words have harmed them. How could that be deemed a wrongdoing?" Guan Yi said.
Fang Yun nodded and said, "I see. Then, so long as the speaker can be proven to have an obvious bias rather than merely discussing the matter at hand, it can be deemed a wrongdoing?"
Guan Yi hesitated briefly before saying, "So long as that person has not personally admitted that a particular remark was deliberate, it should not be