Grateful Beyond Measure for Her Grace
The young girl flinched beside the brothel madam and stared at Bai Jinchi with terror-filled eyes. Scrubbed clean, the child was dressed in an enormous gown that hung loose on her small frame.
"Fourth Young Miss, is this the child?"
Shen Qingzhu asked.
Bai Jinchi shook her head.
"It isn't that girl."
The madam felt a flicker of disappointment, but relief followed close behind. This child had been beaten several times for disobeying her, and her body still bore the marks of it. If she had been the one the Commandery Princess was searching for, the woman would surely have been called to account for every wound on her skin.
Just then the doors of the ancestral shrine swung wide open, and someone shouted at the top of his lungs.
"The carriage of the Zhenguo Commandery Princess! The Commandery Princess has arrived!"
Bai Jinchi turned her head toward the carriage.
It halted just beyond the crowd. The moment Bai Jingyan stepped down with Chun Tao supporting her arm, silence swept over the gathering in an instant. People stared at the Zhenguo Commandery Princess they had only ever heard of in rumors — some in awe, some in fear, and some with eyes brimming with pure curiosity.
"Eldest sister."
Bai Jinchi approached her.
"We brought a child who can't speak, but it isn't her."
Bai Jinchi pointed toward the madam, then shifted her gaze to the trembling girl beside her. Looking back at the madam, who wore nothing on her face but a fawning attempt at flattery, she went on.
"Give the madam some silver and take the child back to the ancestral estate."
Shen Qingzhu nodded.
"Anang!"
Bai Jinchi stared in astonishment at the girl descending from the carriage, then let out a long breath of relief.
"You found her, sister."
"Commandery Princess."
Zhan Yu bowed with a smile on his face.
"Commandery Princess!"
Behind Zhan Yu, Magistrate Ju bent at the waist in a deep bow to Bai Jingyan.
Bai Jingyan looked at Zhan Yu.
"Gonggong, you've worked hard searching for Anang. Now that we've found her, send word for everyone I dismissed to return."
"Yes, Commandery Princess!"
Zhan Yu answered.
"Let's go."
Bai Jingyan took Anang's hand and walked into the shrine.
The clan head came out to the entrance to receive her, accompanied by the clan elders, and followed behind her as she entered. Once the Bai party had gone inside, the clan head ordered all six gates of the shrine courtyard closed — and Bai Jingyan stopped him.
"Leave the gates open. Wide open. We will hold this reckoning right here in the shrine courtyard. It's quite all right. Tell the ancestors and the people outside to watch everything that happens here."
Bai Jingyan seated herself on the chair Zhan Yu had brought over, her gaze sweeping slowly across the clan head and the elders standing in the courtyard, and the young kinsmen who had been dragged there by their servants. Then she spoke, unhurried.
"Then let us begin. Starting with the clan head's grandson, Bai Jingjie — let us establish exactly what wrongs he committed and how he will compensate his victims. One by one, we resolve everything. Only after restitution has been made to the victims will we decide what punishment to impose."
Once every young kinsman had been dealt with in turn, it would be the turn of the others of the clan — and last of all, the clan head himself.
Bai Jingyan had intended to purge the rotten branches of the family, then press the clan head into stepping down by wielding the authority of the Crown Prince and the Commandery Princess. But the old Fifth Master held a ledger in his hands, and there was no longer any need for intimidation. Once that ledger was made public, the clansmen would never again tolerate the course he had steered.
When the young kinsman who had drunkenly shoved Anang's mother into the river saw the girl standing at Bai Jingyan's side, his whole body shuddered. He turned a desperate, pleading gaze toward his grandfather, the Fifth Master.
Bai Jingping, supported by a servant's arm, clenched his fists as he looked at Bai Jingyan — her face cold, her eyes unfathomably deep. It was as if he were looking at the Zhenguo King he had revered above all others, and at Zhenguo Duke Bai Qishan himself.
So this is the iron in the blood of the Bai family of the capital. Even the women of them.
Magistrate Ju picked up the confession of crimes placed at the very top of the pile and began to read it aloud. Bai Jingjie had coerced others into selling their property, seized the assets of his own ancestors, and beyond that, tormented the common people. Aside from the case where he had driven a man to his death, two other deaths were directly tied to his hand — one victim trampled to death on his orders, and one courtesan he had tried to rob of her earnings in a brothel, pushing her from the upper floor to her death below.
All of it was Bai Jingjie's doing, and the evidence had been secured.
"Where are the families of the victims?"
Bai Jingyan asked.
Seven households in all had been persecuted in Suyang, but only five had come today. Whether the remaining two had simply failed to survive the harassment and oppression, or had refused to believe the promise that every case would be judged fairly, no one could say.
The clan head knew he would have to pay for his sins today, and had already given orders that everything be prepared. He turned his head and cast a glance toward Bai Qiyun.
Bai Qiyun was deeply reluctant, but he understood that restitution had to be made.
The sum was so enormous that parting with it felt like bleeding from a wound.
When the white-haired victim received back the deeds to his house and his land, handed down through generations of his family, tears of gratitude streamed down his face. Again and again he bowed toward where Bai Jingyan stood.
"Commandery Princess, thank you! Commandery Princess, my deepest thanks! Never in my dreams did I think I would get them back. I thought the Commandery Princess might not truly mean what she promised, so I didn't even let my son come here. But to actually receive them back — I never imagined it. You truly gave them back. Commandery Princess! Thank you! I will carry this grace engraved in my heart for the rest of my days."
Bai Jingyan rose and raised the old man from his bow.
"These are the wrongs Bai Jingjie committed. As a daughter of the Bai family, I am deeply ashamed. How could I dare accept your gratitude?"
"Magistrate Ju — next."
Bai Jingyan said.
Each time Magistrate Ju read out another young kinsman's crimes, a victim stepped forward to receive compensation or to reclaim what had been taken.
Where a death was involved, Bai Jingyan would ask the family to wait a moment, then announce that Magistrate Ju would see justice done for the deceased.
The news that Bai Jingyan had opened the ancestral shrine and punished the Bai kinsmen who had abused the people of Suyang spread through the whole of Shanyang City — along with word that the victims had reclaimed their ancestral homes or received compensation.
Even those who had never believed the Commandery Princess would truly take the side of common folk abused by the Bai clan hurried, at last, to come forward with accusation after accusation.
Before long, more victims appeared. A white-haired elder arrived clutching the memorial tablets of his son and daughter-in-law, begging the Zhenguo Commandery Princess to see justice done for the dead.
More and more people gathered before the gates of the Bai estate, received their restitution, and bowed deeply to Bai Jingyan.
The faces of the clan elders with guilty grandsons darkened. Even kinsmen who had always kept to themselves clicked their tongues at the sight and turned their heads to stare at their own sons — their eyes asking, silently, whether their sons and grandsons had committed any sins outside these walls.
The women of the clan, who had been waiting quietly at home for news, could no longer sit still and came running to the shrine. Standing in the courtyard, they bit back their sobs and watched their children with anxious, burning eyes.
The young man who had driven Anang's mother into the water to her death was the grandson of the clan head's own brother, the Fifth Master. So terrified was he that he could do nothing but cry out, over and over.
"Grandfather, save me! Grandfather, save me! I can't be cast out of the clan!"
"Grandfather — Clan Head! We were wrong! We'll never sin again! My brother and I have never killed anyone!"
"Grandfather, please beg the Clan Head! Please, spare my life!"
When the Fifth Master's grandson began pleading, every other young man kneeling in the courtyard raised his voice begging to be spared as well.
The clan head looked at the towering stack of case scrolls beside Magistrate Ju, and at Bai Jingyan's impassive face, and a sense of foreboding settled over him.
The clan elders could bear it no longer and turned to the clan head.
"Clan Head, have mercy on the children... They've given back everything there is to give back. Please don't cast them out of the clan. The children truly repent — they've learned their lesson. Beg the Commandery Princess for leniency, for all our sakes. We share the same blood — can you not let this pass?"
Bai Jingyan answered without a flicker of expression.
"They tormented the common people and committed countless crimes. Clan Head — will you handle this according to the laws and rules of the Bai family, or shall we leave it to Magistrate Ju?"
The clan head shuddered. The laws and rules of the Bai family were far harsher than the law of the land. If they were applied, the boys would face several hundred strokes of the rod. Not one of them would survive.
Casting them out of the clan first, and then — once he was on good terms with Bai Jingyan — asking Magistrate Ju for leniency, was the children's only path to survival.
"Father! Can the pampered children of the Bai family endure such hardship? And Jingjie is still young! He's already sat in prison, and he's already repaid what was owed! Beating them to death won't bring the dead back to life, will it? The silver has been repaid in full — so why must you be so merciless?"
Bai Jingjie's mother, kneeling on the ground, screamed and wailed as she looked at her son, who did not shed even a single tear.
"Our Bai family is the house of a founding hero! We have piled up military merit beyond counting — and yet our Bai children cannot even be guaranteed peace?"
At those words, Bai Jingyan lifted her head. Fierce eyes poured out a murderous aura.
"Where did you learn to spout such nonsense!"
Bai Jinchi, boiling with rage, hurled out the curse and then whipped the lash from her belt, cracking it through the air. With a sound that split the air, a crushing force rolled over the courtyard, and the pleading woman froze, trembling in terror.
"One trip to prison, and you call it hardship? My seventeenth younger brother was only ten years old when he gave his life for this country! He followed our great-uncle and shielded the common people with his own body! His head was cut from his shoulders, his belly was cut open — and his stomach held nothing but dirt and tree bark! Did these dogs and swine suffer as much as my brother? Or were they perhaps even younger than he was?"
Thinking of her seventeenth brother, Bai Jinchi felt as though her heart were being torn apart. Her blood surged backward in her veins. Her Bai siblings couldn't endure hardship? Could anyone's suffering even be measured against what her seventeenth brother had endured?
"Our Bai family's military merit was not earned for the sake of shameless people, nor was it earned to shelter humans who are less than dogs and swine! Yes, our house is that of a founding hero, yes, we've piled up a mountain of merit — but every bit of it was won on the battlefield by the men of our capital Bai family, gambling their lives for it! Merit earned with death staring them in the face! And people like you invoke that merit while tormenting the common people and treating human lives like grass?"
Bai Jinchi enunciated every word, distinctly.
"If you coveted military merit so much, why didn't you go out to the battlefield and earn it alongside my grandfather, my uncles, and my brothers when they fought? My elder sister, gravely wounded for the sake of this country, defied death to drive Xiliang from the Southern Border and beat back Nanyan besides, protecting the people on Jin's frontier! Is there a single person seated here who lifted a finger for this country? Do you believe their virtue belongs to you? Are you trying to use it to wipe away the sins of men less than dogs and swine? Even delusions ought to have limits."
The clan head looked at Bai Jinchi for a long moment, then shifted his gaze to Zhan Yu the gonggong. Swallowing his anger, he answered in a low voice.
"We share the blood of the Bai family, and so we... likewise..."
Bai Jingyan looked at him once. Her beautiful eyes had turned as cold as ice.
"If you share that blood, then you should have known this much of your duty. The Bai family has marched to the battlefield generation after generation and gambled their lives amid seas of fire — not for the sake of merit. Not once have we ever used that merit to bury a wrong. And shamelessness we would never stoop to at all.
Within the ancestral shrine of the Bai family dwell the spirits of the Bai ancestors! The legitimate line of the Bai clan — the Bai of the capital — has guarded these mountains and rivers from the days of our great-great-grandfather to this very day. There are hundreds of memorial tablets in this hall alone, and not one of those souls passed peacefully into heaven. Every single one of them gave their lives for this country.
Born to serve the people; dying in devotion to the nation. These six words are the root of the Bai family. And the Bai of the capital has lived up to them. Elders gathered here — lay your hands upon your chests and ask yourselves honestly. Could you bear that kind of sacrifice?"