Chapter 24: Occupy the Nest
The Imperial Palace.
As soon as the morning court session ended, countless officials came out of a hall one after another.
Although Your Majesty has not attended court for ten years, the court meetings on the first and fifteenth of each month are still presided over by a prince according to convention. Officials of the fifth rank and above in Chang'an must attend the court to participate in the discussion and resolution of some important court affairs.
Today's morning court was just a routine meeting as usual. Nothing special happened and it ended very early.
Pei Zhe, the magistrate of Chang'an County, was one of the last few people to walk out of the Golden Palace. In a small place, the magistrate of a county is the undisputed top leader, but in Chang'an where the powerful and wealthy are everywhere, a fifth-rank county magistrate is nothing. During the morning court session, he can only stand in the most remote corner like a minion.
After the court was adjourned, officials gathered in groups of three or five, chatting and laughing as they went to their respective offices.
In front of Pei Zhe, several officials were discussing something.
"What, Lord Li's son is not stupid anymore?"
"Not only is he not stupid, but he is also very resourceful. Few young people can match his resourcefulness. Even Lord Xu praised his two birthday poems, saying that his poetic talent and resourcefulness are unmatched among the young generation..."
"really?"
"How could it be false? I saw it with my own eyes and heard it with my own ears at Madam Song's birthday banquet last night. How could such a young talent be a fool?"
"How strange, how strange..."
"What's so strange about this? Like father, like son. Don't you think about who his father is? In my opinion, he may have been deliberately hiding his incompetence over the past few years. Think about it, will the Song family let their daughter marry a fool?"
“That makes sense…”
Pei Zhe followed everyone, and he didn't expect that this morning, he would hear news about Li Nuo from the mouths of these officials in the court.
Just from their description, he could imagine what happened at the Song Mansion's birthday banquet last night.
He felt a little proud.
After all, he knew about this matter earlier than anyone else present.
However, Li Nuo was really strange. He could not recognize all the characters, but he wrote such good poems and his handwriting was a rare and beautiful one... Pei Zhe shook his head. There were too many contradictions in him.
Riding in the sedan chair back to the county government office, Pei Zhe saw shadowy figures in the courtroom from afar, accompanied by the sound of the gavel.
His brows were furrowed. In the Chang'an County Court, he was the only one qualified to preside over cases. Today, it was either County Magistrate Zhang or County Lieutenant Wang who dared to take over his duties while he was away. It was ok for them to join hands to squeeze him these days, but today they completely ignored him!
Pei Zhe walked into the court with a gloomy face, looking at the figure under the "mirror hanging high". After a slight pause, the anger on his face turned into a smile in an instant, and he raised his hand and said, "Morning, sir..."
…
Pei Zhe had met countless children of officials in Chang'an.
Some of them like to prostitute and are guests of honor in all the brothels in Chang'an; some like to gamble and hang out in all the casinos in Chang'an; some love to eat and drink and hang out in various restaurants; some like to run rampant on Chang'an Street with a group of lackeys...
Of course, there are also young talents who are proficient in the six arts at a young age.
But I've never seen anyone like Li Nuo.
As the son of a top official in Chang'an, he has no other hobbies than going to court to handle cases and deal with the daily trivialities of the people.
As the magistrate of Chang'an County, Pei Zhe himself felt a headache with these trivial matters.
How did he enjoy it?
The habits of these children of the rich and powerful really cannot be judged by common sense...
Deep down, Li Nuo was unwilling to deal with these daily disputes.
He handled a total of five cases this morning.
But they were not serious cases. They were either fights, property disputes, or marital disputes. The most serious cases were just a few lashes and a few days in jail. After a busy morning, they didn't even add half a day to their lifespan.
The only case that could extend his lifespan would at least result in a prison sentence.
After handling the last case, Li Nuo looked at the Chang'an County Magistrate standing next to him and asked, "I took over the case of Lord Pei. Lord Pei won't be angry, right?"
Pei Zhe waved his hands repeatedly and said, "No, no, how could it be possible..."
"That's good." Li Nuo smiled and asked, "Besides these, are there any other cases?"
Pei Zhe shook his head and said, "Not today."
He is not as idle as Li Nuo.
As a county magistrate, his duties included educating the people, arresting thieves, encouraging agriculture and sericulture, hearing cases and judging cases, collecting taxes and labor service, promoting education, caring for the orphans and widows, building bridges and roads, providing disaster relief and helping the poor... and so on.
Hearing cases and judging cases is only a small part of his duties. It is already good enough if he can spare some time every few days to do it.
Unless it is a special case such as a serious murder, under normal circumstances, the number of cases to be tried today and which cases to be tried are usually decided at least two or three days in advance. The relevant people need to be notified in advance and the yamen runners must conduct a preliminary investigation. All the cases today were judged by Li Nuo.
But you know what, Li Nuo is very methodical when it comes to judging cases, and he is more like a parent official than Pei Zhe.
Although he was not very familiar with the laws of Daxia and needed to look up the legal provisions in books for every case, the confidence he revealed when solving the case always gave Pei Zhe a feeling that he had been immersed in this field for many years.
Li Nuo and the Chang'an County Magistrate are half colleagues and know the procedures of this industry.
In later generations, court hearings could not be opened at will. A lot of pre-court preparations had to be done. However, he could not be idle for an entire afternoon, so he asked the Chang'an County Magistrate to move the case to be heard tomorrow to this afternoon, and asked the county government's constables to notify the relevant personnel.
Pei Zhe didn't say anything about this.
Although he is not an official of the Chang'an County Government and has no power to judge cases, who can't afford to offend his father? What's more, he is doing things for the people. As one of the top dignitaries in Chang'an, he is not like other playboys. He does not harm the people, nor endanger the court. He does not visit prostitutes or gamble, and does not bully others. What's wrong with having some positive special hobbies?
Since this young master likes to judge cases, let him do it. It will also reduce his burden.
However, it would take some time to arrange these things. It was lunch time, so Pei Zhe asked politely, "It's almost lunch time. My wife made dumplings today. Would you like to have some with me?"
In his opinion, a noble man like Li Nuo should be extremely particular about food and would not agree to it.
He was just going to have dinner and was just saying it politely.
"Dumplings?" Unexpectedly, Li Nuo raised his eyebrows and immediately said, "I left in a hurry this morning and didn't have time to eat breakfast. I'm a little hungry..."
Pei Zhe was stunned, and asked tentatively: "Then... let's go to the back hall to eat together?"
Li Nuo was very hungry and couldn't wait to say, "Let's go. I really like eating dumplings. It's a good opportunity to try Madam's cooking..."
Pei Zhe glanced at Li Nuo, who was extremely decisive, and suddenly felt a little uneasy.
He couldn't guess for a moment whether he liked dumplings or something else...
(End of this chapter)
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