Chapter 62 part 2

After a while, Wang Qi said: "I think we should sort out what happened at that time. Since we are here, we will probably be called out soon. When we go to court, we have to clearly distinguish what is right or not. This matter, how it started, how it processed, and who were the ones who became physical. It must be clear."

"What Brother Wang said is extremely true."

Next, the crowd began to sum up the occurrences that day, whispering so that the jailers could not hear. There were a lot of quarrels, and the discussion was mostly just about who became physical and who took the lead.

Now that they have just entered the prison, they actually started fighting, but the manners of a scholar are relatively gentle and Lin Miao was also watching from the side.

Lin Miao sat aside and closed his eyes helplessly.

The court day came soon. In order to show his fairness and justice, Hu County Magistrate specifically allowed people to listen.

The platform outside the main hall of the county government was crowded with people who came to observe, and there were two to three hundred people in total.

Among them, some came to present their own cases on court day, and there were also some who treated this as entertainment. As early as a few days ago, there have been rumors that students from two academies fought and killed a student. It has always been street thugs that create fights. It is rare to hear of scholars fighting. Don’t those scholars believe in the Confucian saying that a gentleman speaks but does not act?

This kind of news is very tempting to some people, and when they heard that the trial will be opened today, people who don't have other things to do came.

"Start court session!"

With a strong and powerful call, the officials shuffled to their positions at a trotting speed, shouting phrases and slamming their staffs on the ground. At the same time, magistrate Hu, in an official attire, walked out of the back hall, one step at a time with his feet splayed outwards. He was followed by the official registrar and the court scribe.

Magistrate He sat down under the high-hanging plaque and the scribe took out the complaint from the previous day and handed it to magistrate Hu to review. Generally, each court day opens with a previously unfinished case, and every three, six, or nine days is a court day.

As time passed, more and more people gathered outside the main hall, and some people from earlier cases were all finished with their court sessions. The magistrate Hu returned to a side room to drink tea and rest for a while before returning to the main hall.

There was a sound of the gavel, and the registrar said: "The Sun couple has reported several students of the Qingyuan Academy for beating their child to death, and the Sun family and the people of the Qingyuan Academy have come to court."

Not long after, some people were brought in from outside the hall, all from Qingyuan Academy.

At this time, there was a sudden noise outside the hall, the sound was neat and powerful.

"Murderers pay with their lives! Murderers pay with their lives!"

There were a dozen students wearing student uniforms walking in from outside the gate of the county government office. They lined up in three rows, and they walked to the main hall of the middle gate with agitated expressions, and the people around the gate couldn't help but give up.

These students abided by the rules and stopped at the platform. Not long after, another person walked out of the crowd. It was Gao Youzhi ¹.

He scolded with a full face: "What do you say you are doing!"

"Owner of the academy, Sun He died innocently. I hate that I couldn’t replace him as the victim. We..."

"You guys!" As he said, Gao Youzhi shook his head and walked into the lobby.

At the same time, Sun Youtian, the husband of the Sun family, knelt down in the hall with a thump, and cried: "Heavenly Lord, please listen!"

Seeing this, the people outside the door pitied them and scolded the students of Qingyuan Academy² for being savage and vicious, and they even beat them to death if they didn't agree with them.

The faces of the people of Qingyuan Academy were pale.

Lin Miao sighed, but he refused to sit and stood upright in the hall, his back rigidly straight.

"Brother Lin." Gao Youzhi saluted with his hands.

Lin Miao ignored it.

He let out a laugh, and said in a daze: "Although we were classmates, and your father was my teacher. But this is a matter of life, so I hope Brother Lin can forgive me."

Lin Miao raised his eyes to glance at him. Looking at his hypocritical appearance, he didn't know what to say.

This Gao Youzhi has always been like this. He is the most adept at putting on appearances, but the key is that people can't find his faults, and can only swallow down the misery. Occasionally, Lin Miao was so angry that he wanted to kill him [Gao Youzhi], but in the end he was a scholar, and not a cruel one. Apart from gritting his teeth angrily, he was helpless.

So he can only ignore it.

A government officer came up and smiled at Gao Youzhi: "Please sit down, the master of the academy. According to the rules of our county government, you are born as a student, and you are a master with suffering, so you should have a seat."

Gao Youzhi looked at Lin Miao, and the government officer also glanced over, and said with a wry smile: "Lin Academy Master doesn't want to sit."

"Fine, then this one will humbly sit." After speaking, Gao Youzhi sat down on the armchair while supporting his sleeves.

There was another commotion below, and the first officer Hu Xian said: "Who is in the hall? Report your name!"

A thin middle-aged man wearing a blue shirt, standing under the hall, responded: "Student Zhu Hesheng³ was paid by Qinghe Academy, and came to represent the Sun couple in this lawsuit. The Sun couple lost their beloved son, and their emotions are out of control, so we fear they will mess up court order. The master of the academy could not have them come, so he invited this student to replace them."

1. remember, he is the owner of QingHe Academy ↑
2. just a reminder: QingHe is the school Juncai goes to and Qingyuan is the school TingRang attends. The names can get quite confusing ↑
3. he is not really a student. It's just a way of addressing himself as an educated person. It's like announcing he is a scholar in a humble way. ↑