Chapter 606
Interrogation Overnight
It was getting dark.
The iron chain dragged on the ground, making a cold, harsh sound.
Chen Ji looked up and saw that the main hall of the Censorate had a three-bay facade, with a black plaque with gold characters hanging above the door, which read "A Bright Mirror Hangs High" in gold paint.
Dozens of candles were lit in the main hall, with the candles inserted in bronze candlesticks, illuminating the hall brightly.
Chen Ji remained calm and composed, but the Qi family couldn't wait any longer and wanted to interrogate him overnight to solidify the evidence against him.
Without waiting for any prompting, Chen Ji stepped over the high threshold. The iron chain dragged on the threshold, making a clanging sound that echoed in the empty main hall.
At the far end of the main hall was a screen painted with a picture of the rising sun over the sea. In front of the screen were three desks placed side by side, with three people sitting there, all dressed in red robes.
In the center was Zheng Zhixian, the Minister of Justice, who was in his early fifties with a square face, thick eyebrows, and a slightly downturned mouth. Chen Ji had seen him in front of Renshou Palace.
To the left was the Minister of the Court of Judicial Review, a pale-faced, beardless man whose fingers tapped lightly on the table. Chen Ji had seen him before.
To his right was Chen Lizun, the Left Censor-in-Chief of the Censorate, his face ashen.
Chen Ji's gaze lingered on Chen Lizun's face for a moment before shifting away. Two rows of yamen runners stood on either side of the desk, leaning on their fire-and-water sticks, their faces hidden in shadow, their expressions unreadable.
Two bailiffs pushed him to a spot three zhang away from the official desk and pressed him down forcefully, but no matter how hard they tried, they couldn't force Chen Ji to kneel on the ground.
A constable raised his fire-and-water stick, ready to strike Chen Ji in the back of the knee. Chen Ji turned his head and glanced at him sideways, causing the constable's stick to freeze in mid-air, hesitant to bring it down.
Minister of Justice Zheng Zhixian was unwilling to wait any longer and waved to the yamen runners to leave: "Bring the identification document."
The joint trial by the three judicial departments could only begin after being signed and sealed by the Ministry of Justice, the Court of Judicial Review, and the Censorate. A yamen runner would present a sheet of Xuan paper to the judge, and the Minister of Justice would write his name on a brush and then affix his official seal.
When the signature was handed to Chen Lizun, he hesitated to write it down, saying, "It would be too hasty to conduct an interrogation overnight. It would be better to postpone the interrogation to another day."
The Minister of Justice turned to look at him and said calmly, "Lord Chen, you and the suspect are close relatives, uncle and nephew. According to the laws of Da Ning, you should recuse yourself immediately and are not allowed to participate in the trial, review the case files, discuss the charges, or sign your name. Those who violate this rule will be punished with forty strokes of the cane. Someone, summon the Right Vice Censor-in-Chief to come and sign."
The Right Vice Censor-in-Chief emerged from the shadows of the back hall, as if he had been waiting for this moment. He took the brush from Chen Lizun, wrote his name on the signed document, and affixed his official seal.
The Minister of Justice looked at Chen Lizun behind the desk: "Lord Chen, please?"
Chen Lizun's expression was uncertain as he slowly rose from his seat. Unwilling to leave, he walked to the outside of the main hall and silently watched.
The Minister of Justice, no longer waiting, slammed his gavel on the desk: "Who is there in the courtroom?"
Chen Ji calmly replied, "Bestowed the title of Viscount of Wuxiang by the Emperor, and the Sea Eagle of the Secret Service, Chen Ji."
The Minister of Justice slammed his gavel again: "Do you know your crime?"
Chen Ji looked at the case file and asked, "What crime have you committed?"
"What crime have you committed?" The Minister of Justice repeated Chen Ji's words, then waved his hand outside the court: "Bring witnesses."
Footsteps approached from outside the hall, and two constables carried a man in. The man was wearing a drab prison uniform, his hair was disheveled, and he walked with a limp.
He was dragged to Chen Ji's side and forced to kneel down, his knees hitting the blue bricks with a dull thud.
Chen Ji looked down.
She Dengke.
Chen Ji seemed lost in thought.
He never imagined that they would meet again in a place like this.
He imagined that when they met again, he would be free of his shackles, and She Dengke would have bought dozens of acres of fertile land for himself and Chunhua, and would also have a son and a daughter.
They can sit in the fields and chat about their days at Taiping Medical Clinic.
But it seemed as if fate was playing a cruel joke on Chen Ji, tearing apart the people and things he cared about, one by one, to show him. Just to tell him one thing: no matter how many miles he walked or how many buckets of water he carried, he could never return to that small Taiping Medical Clinic on Anxi Street.
Chen Ji asked softly, "Did they hit you?"
She Dengke raised his head, his eyes met Chen Ji's for a moment, then he hurriedly lowered his eyes, his body trembling slightly.
Chen Ji withdrew his gaze, looked up at the flickering candlelight in the main hall, and seemed to be thinking about something: "Tell them everything that concerns me, so they won't beat you again."
She Dengke stood there, stunned.
The Minister of Justice's voice came from behind the desk: "Witnesses below, state your names."
She Dengke knelt on the ground, his voice trembling: "I am She Dengke, a commoner from Luocheng."
"She Dengke," the Minister of Justice slammed his gavel on the table, his voice suddenly rising, "Are you aware of the prison break in Luoyang?"
She Dengke's body trembled even more violently. He lay prostrate on the ground, his forehead pressed against the cold blue bricks, and remained silent for a long time: "This humble subject knows the truth."
……
……
She Dengke lay on the ground, recalling intermittently: "I was lying on the roof at the time and saw Chen Ji enter the inner prison with my own eyes."
The Minister of Justice tapped his finger on the desk: "And then what happened?" She Dengke tried hard to recall: "After he went in, we heard the sound of the bronze whistle."
"A bronze whistle?"
She Dengke's voice was even lower: "The whistle of the jailer, after the whistle blew, people from all directions whistled in response, and many Jie Fanwei rushed out of the alley and rushed into the inner prison."
"and then?"
She Dengke hesitated for a moment: "Then Liang Gou'er made his move, and he killed many people."
The Minister of Justice asked in a deep voice, "How many people did Liang Gou'er kill?"
"The number of commoners is countless."
The Minister of Justice asked again, "After Chen Ji entered the inner prison, did you also go in? What did you see?"
She Dengke replied, "I went in too and saw Chen Ji kill the jailer and throw the key to the cell door to me, asking me to open the door and save Chunhua. He ran to the Prince's cell and shouted something I couldn't hear. Then he went to the Prince Jing's cell and said something I couldn't hear either. I saved Chunhua and escaped."
"and then?"
She Dengke lay prostrate on the ground, his voice choked with sobs: "Then I saw him come out of the inner prison, with the heir apparent."
The Minister of Justice did not ask any further questions. This testimony from witnesses corroborated the details of the incident that day, which was sufficient to establish Chen Ji's crime of breaking into prison.
The hall remained silent for a long time, so long that Chen Ji thought they wouldn't ask any more questions.
However, at this moment, Zheng Zhixian's voice rang out again: "She Dengke, after escaping from the inner prison, who helped you leave Luocheng and escape the pursuit? Was it Zhang Xia, the eldest daughter of the Zhang family, who used the Buddhist sect to send you out of the city?"
Chen Ji suddenly turned to look at She Dengke. He had just asked the other party to talk about things related to him, which was to imply that the other party should not involve others and should just hand over himself.
In this way, the Zhang family will not be implicated.
But She Dengke had already been interrogated by the Qi family countless times and had long since implicated Zhang Xia.
This time, the Qi family wasn't just targeting him, but also the Chen family associated with him, the Zhang family associated with Zhang Xia, and the eunuch faction in the Directorate of Ceremonial Affairs implicated by the Secret Service. After waking up, Grand Secretary Qi endured for a month, intending to use this incident to eliminate all his political enemies and establish his authority, so that the world would not dare to underestimate the Qi family.
She Dengke lowered his head, not daring to look at Chen Ji: "Yes, she arranged for us to hide behind the Buddha statue, be carried by traveling monks to Luocheng Tuoluo Temple, and then leave through the tunnel, which leads directly to Guangji Temple outside the city."
The Minister of Justice looked up at the yamen runner: "Where is the Zhang family's daughter?"
The Vice Minister of Justice outside the hall hesitated, but finally one of his men stepped across the threshold and reported: "Your Excellency, we searched the entire city for three hours. We first searched the Zhang residence, but found no one. We then searched the taverns and inns in the inner city, but also found nothing..."
The Minister of Justice roared, "Where are you? Stop dawdling!"
The Vice Minister of Justice bowed and said, "Your Excellency, Zhang Xia seems to have vanished into thin air; we can't find her anywhere..."
Before he could finish speaking, the gates of the Censorate were suddenly flung open with a loud crash.
The three high-ranking officials in red robes behind the desk in the main hall looked up and saw a man dressed in white and wearing a dragon-patterned mask step across the threshold, walking past a group of yamen runners as if no one else was there, and heading towards the main hall.
Behind him followed more than ten spies, including Jiao Tu, Yun Yang, and Bao Hou.
White Dragon.
After the case was concluded in the main hall, the Minister of Justice and others stood up together, watching warily as Bai Long stepped into the main hall.
Before they could speak, Bao Hou beckoned to the spies behind him, and a woman's voice from beneath the wooden monkey mask ordered, "Bring a chair over for Lord Bai Long."
The spies exchanged glances. There were only four chairs in the main hall: one for each of the three men behind the desk, and one for the clerk.
Just as the spies were about to seize the clerk's chair, Bao Hou pointed to the chair behind the Right Censor-in-Chief and, in a hoarse voice from behind his mask, ordered, "Move that one for the magistrate."
Two spies rushed forward, pushed aside the Right Vice Censor-in-Chief, and moved the chair to the foot of the main hall.
Bai Long lifted his robe and sat down, the lamplight flickering and illuminating his dragon-patterned mask.
After the Minister of Justice sat back down at his desk, he said coldly, "Since when have the eunuch faction been allowed to interfere in the joint trial of the three judicial departments? I will definitely go to the palace tomorrow to impeach you."
Bai Long turned to look at him and said slowly, "Lord Zheng, my Secret Service monitors all officials, and the Three Judicial Offices secretly interrogate our dynasty's nobles. It is only natural that I must come and see."
The Minister of Justice's face was grim: "Secret trial? The Ministry of Justice, the Court of Judicial Review, and the Censorate have all signed and sealed the document. How can there be any talk of a secret trial?"
Bai Long said unhurriedly, "According to the laws of my Great Ning, the joint trial by the three judicial departments must be held in the main hall of the Ministry of Justice in broad daylight, and the doors must be open for the people to listen to the trial. The execution must be completed before 1-3 PM. This is what is meant by 'execute the person in the marketplace and abandon them to the public.' Minister, you don't even remember this? How did you become the Minister of Justice?"
The Minister of Justice hesitated.
Bai Long smiled and said, "Lord Zheng, don't you remember? Article 73 of the Criminal Law section of the Da Ning Code states that all serious cases jointly tried by the three judicial departments must be publicly tried in the main hall of the Ministry of Justice, starting after 5 a.m. and ending before 1 p.m., with the common people allowed to attend the trial. If anyone violates this rule, the case will be sent to the relevant authorities for re-examination, and the presiding judge will be punished for violating the regulations, ranging from a salary deduction to demotion."
He pointed to the confession written in front of the clerk, and the Monkey King immediately understood and took the confession to the White Dragon.
Bai Long casually tore the confession in half, then stood up and asked, "Does Lord Zheng still wish to impeach me?"
The Minister of Justice remained silent with a sullen face.
Bai Long led the spies out as if no one else was there: "If you're not going to participate, then quickly take the criminals and witnesses to the Ministry of Justice prison. I'll trouble you all to re-examine them tomorrow." (End of Chapter)