Chapter 56 Complaint
"Yingxue, stop now." Lin Wan cut to the chase, her voice weary. "I already know what you found out."
Jiang Yingxue's heart tightened: "Senior Sister..."
"I'm not here to advise you, I'm here to save you." Lin Wan stared at her, her eyes sharp. "Do you think you've only investigated a few places in Haining County? Do you think lifting this lid will only result in a few officials losing their jobs?"
Yingxue, you're too naive. The blood from two years ago hasn't even dried yet, and now you're touching something that could cost even more people their lives.
She took a step closer and lowered her voice: "For the sake of our shared sect, and for the sake of you calling me senior sister, hand over everything you found to me, and I'll handle it. Then, forget about this and focus on being a good magistrate. I can still cover it up for you."
Jiang Yingxue looked at her familiar yet unfamiliar senior sister, her throat dry: "Senior sister, have you forgotten what the headmaster told us when we entered the academy? 'An official should not fail his ruler, the people, or himself.'"
Truth is like salt; it remains unchanged even when submerged in water. We should have the courage to retrieve it completely.
Lin Wan fell silent.
She stared at the unquenchable flame in Jiang Yingxue's eyes for a long time before finally letting out a long sigh.
“Yingxue, you are ultimately… not on the same path as me.” Lin Wan took a step back, her eyes filled with complex emotions. “The truth you want is too hot to handle, I can’t hold it, and I don’t want to anymore. I will no longer cover this up for you, so you should take care of yourself.”
She turned to leave, but stopped at the door, her back to Jiang Yingxue, and said, "If you've made up your mind by noon tomorrow, bring the things to the prefectural capital to find me. After that, my words will not count."
Lin Wan is gone.
Jiang Yingxue stood in the empty second hall of the county government office, feeling a chill run through her body.
The senior sister's attitude was the best warning. The matter she was investigating was far beyond the scope of the senior sister's protection, and might even implicate the senior sister in the end.
She rode her horse back to her hometown, a hundred miles away, overnight.
It was a small village in the mountains, and only the elderly mother, Jiang, lived there.
Jiang lost her husband at a young age and went up the mountain to hunt and collect herbs on her own. She raised her daughter to become a Jinshi (a successful candidate in the highest imperial examinations). She was strong-willed and straightforward.
When Jiang Yingxue arrived home, it was nearly midnight. Jiang Shi was still awake, mending clothes by the light of an oil lamp.
Seeing her daughter rush in looking anxious, she put down her needlework and asked, "What's wrong? Are you having trouble with your official duties?"
Jiang Yingxue paced anxiously around the room, hesitating to speak several times, but Jiang Shi did not urge her and just watched her quietly.
Finally, Jiang Yingxue stopped, her voice hoarse: "Mother, if someone were to trade a secure future, or even their life, for a truth that might never see the light of day... what should I do?"
Jiang picked up the scissors, cut the thread, and said calmly, "That depends on you. If you choose your future and can still eat and sleep normally when you wake up at night and remember the truth, then choose your future. If thinking about it makes you feel like you have a fishbone stuck in your throat, unable to eat or sleep... then why ask whether you should or shouldn't?"
Jiang Yingxue was stunned.
Jiang looked up at her daughter, then suddenly smiled, the wrinkles at the corners of her eyes smoothing out: "You child, you've been called Stone Head by the villagers since you were little. Once you've made up your mind, not even ten oxen could pull you back."
You already know the answer in your heart, don't you?
Jiang Yingxue's eyes welled up with tears. She walked to her mother, knelt down with a thud, and choked out, "Mother, your child is unfilial. I'm afraid I'll implicate you this time."
Jiang reached out and pulled her daughter up, brushing the dust off her knees with her rough hands: "What nonsense are you talking about? You're doing a good deed, you've done right by Heaven, you've done right by the people, and you've done right by your own conscience!"
Such a person may kneel to heaven, earth, and parents, but there's no need to kneel to anyone else!
After she finished speaking, her tone became lighter again: "Besides, our family line is small. Your father passed away early, and several of your aunts are gone too. It's just the two of us left. Unlike those big families, where the whole family is involved."
Looking at it this way, don't you feel like your burden is much lighter?
Jiang Yingxue: "..." Her mother always managed to comfort people with strange logic.
"Tell me, what are you planning to do?"
Jiang Yingxue took a deep breath: "I'm going to the capital with the evidence."
She dared not investigate further in Haining; the commotion had already alerted people, and she was sure to be silenced.
She wasn't confident she could survive the layers of obstruction to uncover the whole truth. The only way was to present the known evidence directly to the emperor—to lodge a complaint with him.
What should we do about Mom? Maybe we should send her away on a long trip for a while...
Just as Jiang Yingxue was about to discuss it with her mother, she turned her head and saw that Jiang Shi had already neatly packed a blue cloth bundle, stuffing it with dry food, a tinderbox, salt blocks, a small packet of wound medicine, and even a sharpened wood-chopping knife.
"mother?"
"I'm going to stay in the mountains for a while." Jiang said without looking up. "Don't worry, your mother has been hunting for half her life. I can stay in the mountains for a year or two without any problem. But you, be careful on the road."
Jiang Yingxue watched her mother's retreating figure as she quickly packed her things, her nose stinging with tears, yet she couldn't help but want to laugh.
Her mother's decisiveness and ability to act have always been astonishing.
Having made up her mind, Jiang Yingxue no longer hesitated.
She returned to the county government office overnight and carefully copied all the evidence she had collected—Liu San's old shirt, gravel, blurry invoices, the old stonemason's testimony, and her own analysis of the timeline and suspicious points—and carried it with her at all times.
Then, she changed into an inconspicuous gray cloth dress and left the city under the pretext of inspecting the farmland.
Once outside the city, they headed straight for the mountain road, which ran in the opposite direction from the official road.
She knew that by leaving, she was gambling with her official career: without an imperial edict, one was not allowed to leave the territory under one's jurisdiction. This was dereliction of duty, and if discovered, dismissal and investigation would be the least of her worries.
But she had no other choice.
The pursuit came faster than she had anticipated.
On the tenth day, she encountered her first ambush. The attackers were dressed in black and masked, and were ruthless, clearly intending to kill her. Relying on her familiarity with the mountain paths and her strong mental strength, she managed to escape at all costs.
The days that followed were a life-or-death struggle between the mountains and the pursuers.
She dared not walk on the main road, dared not stay in the inn, picked wild fruits and dig wild vegetables when she was hungry, and drank mountain spring water when she was thirsty.
The wound kept healing and then recurring, I developed a low-grade fever, and my physical strength kept declining.
When she fled to the vicinity of Xishan, she was caught up again. After a fierce battle, she was stabbed and lost her footing, falling into the cold mountain stream and being swept away by the rushing water.
Before losing consciousness, she thought she was going to die.
But when he woke up, he found himself lying in a dark and damp mine, covered with an old burlap sack that smelled of mildew.
A dirty, vacant-eyed young woman squatted beside her, clumsily applying a paste of crushed herbs to her wound.
Seeing that she was awake, the woman grinned foolishly and mumbled, "Sister...it doesn't hurt...Silly girl...get the medicine..."
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