Virtue

Li Mubai suddenly waved his hand. A gentle breeze lifted the coachman driving the carriage and set him lightly by the roadside.

The great scholar Li took the reins and drove the carriage himself. "This is a fine steed that can travel a thousand li in a day," he said slowly.

A startling sight unfolded. The carriage had been drawn by an ordinary brown horse, but now it suddenly let out an excited neigh.

Sinews bulged beneath its brown hide, and its body swelled. In the blink of an eye, it was nearly twice as tall as an ordinary horse.

Li Mubai's carriage sped away in a cloud of dust.

Zhang Shen snorted. "You get down too."

He sent his coachman to the roadside, took his place, and grasped the reins. "This horse is big and strong," he said in a deep voice. "Not only can it travel a thousand li a day, it has six legs."

The same transformation happened again. Like the other horse, this black horse swelled in size, its muscles knotting.

The difference was that the flesh on its belly split apart. Bones grew and nerves intertwined as two new legs forcibly sprouted from its body.

The black horse's six hooves flew, kicking up a cloud of dust. Though it had started later, it caught up with Li Mubai's carriage.

"You old thief, you're shameless! What horse has six legs?" Li Mubai raged.

"If I say it does, it does."

"Fine, then my horse has eight legs."

"Hmph, you shameless old thief, you just had to fight me for a disciple, didn't you? My carriage is as light as paper and flies with the wind!"

A gust blew in, and Zhang Shen's carriage became as light as paper, drifting into the distance on the wind.

Not to be outdone, Li Mubai shouted, "My carriage can ride the clouds!"

A bank of white clouds rose from the ground and clung to the carriage wheels, carrying it into the sky.

Xu Pingzhi stared at the spectacle, dumbfounded. Only when the two carriages had vanished into the horizon did he swallow and say,

"Scholars sure know how to bullshit."

Xu Xinnian gazed up at the sky, a yearning rising in his heart. "That's not bullshit," he murmured. "That's the Confucian School's fifth rank: Virtue!"

It had another name, one that came from the director's drunken mockery: Confucians Disrupting Law with Literature!

The Ministry of Justice prison.

Xu Qi'an sat cross-legged on a ragged straw mat, wearing shackles and leaning against the cold wall.

The damp, chilly smell of decay in the air made him feel as though he were back in the prefectural jail.

According to the records he had read in the archives before, examples of officials in the capital's government offices bullying men and preying on women were too numerous to count. Such sordid affairs were suppressed before they ever reached the old emperor's ears.

Wasn't that why the words "reaching the emperor's ears" could weigh as heavily as Mount Tai?

But this was during the capital evaluation. Weren't they afraid their political enemies would attack them over it? Xu Qi'an gave a short laugh. "If they kill me quickly and then use the lives of the whole family to force Second Uncle to swallow his humiliation, won't that settle everything?"

"I was wrong. The middle class might live comfortably, but offend those important people just once, and you're doomed beyond redemption."

"If I want to live like a human being, I need authority and strength."

Clang. The iron door at the end of the corridor opened. Footsteps approached, and soon a jailer led two armed, armored guards to the cell bars.

"We're taking you to eat your last meal," the jailer said with a mocking smile.

After opening the door, he didn't enter. Instead, he stepped back and barked, "Get your ass out here."

Both guards gripped their saber hilts, their eyes wary.

Even with specially made shackles and leg irons on, Xu Qi'an was still a martial artist at Peak Essence Refining. If despair drove him to fight like a trapped beast, they would be in danger too.

"You'd better behave and cooperate. You wouldn't want us to shoot through the tendons in your hands and feet and drag you out, would you?"

Xu Qi'an was silent for a moment, then stood up.

Minister Sun of the Ministry of Justice was bent over his desk, dealing with official business. Case files and memorials were piled as high as mountains.

Suddenly, as though he sensed something, he looked up and out the window.

A moment later, two dark shapes came speeding toward him. Their outlines gradually became clear: they were two carriages, one riding a gentle breeze, the other soaring through the clouds and mist.

The two carriages raced side by side, each striving to overtake the other, and landed together in the courtyard of the Ministry of Justice offices.

The instant they landed, the mighty horses finally collapsed from exhaustion. Their life force seemed to have been drained away, and they died twitching.

The soldiers on duty at the Ministry of Justice immediately surrounded them.

Minister Sun, dressed in scarlet robes, came out to meet them with a frown. He had a square face, and when he frowned in concentration, he looked stern.

"Brother Chunjing, Brother Jinyan, what brings you two to my Ministry of Justice?"

Minister Sun was still someone they could count on. Although the Imperial Academy and Cloud Deer Academy had been feuding for a long time, the arrival of two great scholars together was enough to make him treat them properly.

Zhang Shen cupped his hands. "The Ministry of Justice arrested one of my disciples today, a man named Xu Qi'an," he said in a deep voice. "Sorry for the trouble, Minister Sun, but please release him."

They had arrested a student of Cloud Deer Academy?

Those old fellows at Cloud Deer Academy were fiercely protective of their own. Minister Sun said, "The Ministry of Justice is in charge of criminal justice and prisons. It does not arrest people without reason. Please explain yourselves."

He did not immediately agree. Although the Imperial Academy had suppressed Cloud Deer Academy so thoroughly in officialdom that it couldn't raise its head, that was because the Imperial Academy was a government-run institution.

Cloud Deer Academy naturally couldn't compete with the Imperial Academy. If the court refused to employ its people, what could it do?

But that didn't mean Cloud Deer Academy was a soft persimmon anyone could squeeze at will. Cloud Deer Academy controlled the Confucian School's cultivation system and was a sacred place in the hearts of scholars throughout the realm.

The academy's teachers were known for protecting their own, so unless someone had actually committed a crime, Ministry of Justice officials would not go out of their way to make trouble for them.

Before the two great scholars could speak, several bailiffs came running over in a panic. "Minister!" they shouted. "A group of white robes from the Bureau of Astronomy is forcing its way into the offices! We can't stop them!"

Minister Sun and the Ministry of Justice officials present turned toward the voices. A group of Bureau of Astronomy disciples in flowing white robes came barging into the Ministry of Justice offices.

At their head was a man with a Pill Furnace embroidered on his chest. He had thick eyebrows, a high nose, and dark circles under his eyes that seemed never to fade, all year round.

It was Song Qing, the fourth disciple of the director of the Bureau of Astronomy.

Seeing how aggressively they had come, Minister Sun frowned deeply and shouted, "You have broken the law by forcing your way into the Ministry of Justice. Leave at once!"

Song Qing stopped, cupped his hands, and said calmly, "Minister, we have come to ask the Ministry of Justice for someone."

Hearing this, Minister Sun's heart jumped. He had a guess, but asked in a deep voice, "Who?"

"Xu Qi'an. The Ministry of Justice arrested him today for no reason."

Xu Qi'an again. Who exactly was this man, to have drawn both great scholars from Cloud Deer Academy and white robes from the Bureau of Astronomy?

In Great Feng, no one wanted to offend the director. Even Cloud Deer Academy, which regarded itself as the orthodox Confucian School, had held its nose and accepted it when the wine-loving director mocked it for Disrupting Law with Literature. They had not tried Convincing Others with Reason on him.

"What's going on? Who is Xu Qi'an? How come I've never heard of him?"

"You're out of the loop, aren't you? Know about the tax silver case? Xu Qi'an was the one who solved it."

"But he's just a martial artist. How did he get involved with the Confucian School and the Bureau of Astronomy?"

"Strange. Why did our Ministry of Justice arrest him?"

The Ministry of Justice officials who had come to watch whispered among themselves.

Minister Sun beckoned a Ministry of Justice official over and asked, "Did the Ministry of Justice arrest a criminal named Xu Qi'an today?"

The official replied in a low voice, then hurried away. A little later, he returned carrying a stack of case files.

"Minister, there's no one named Xu Qi'an in the arrest documents."

No one? Minister Sun's face darkened.

"Who made the arrest?"

"I do know that," the official said, his eyes shifting toward a man in green robes in the crowd. "It was Director Huang."

In an instant, all eyes turned toward him.

After returning to the Ministry of Justice, Director Huang, dressed in green robes, had only had time to take a sip of tea and had not yet gone to claim credit from the vice minister's son. His heart went cold.

P.S. After work, I sat down at the computer to write. While I was writing, I somehow fell asleep. That delayed the update.

Sorry, I'm a little tired today.