Chapter 218: Good and Evil Have Their Rewards
The crowd was completely bewildered.
No one understood why Ruan Xiang would jump out at this moment and proclaim her own guilt.
However, Ruan Xiang’s words definitively proved that Xu Shaoyin had been confined inside Feiyue Pavilion a day ago.
Manager Yue was white with rage. “You’re lying!”
Ruan Xiang merely stared at Manager Yue with a wretched expression, saying coldly, “Manager Yue, you said it yourself just a moment ago—you accepted my testimony. What, do you want to overturn it now? I wonder if that counts as colluding to give false testimony and making a mockery of the Lord Magistrate?”
Manager Yue’s head pounded.
He always said these dancing girls who signed labor contracts were nowhere near as obedient as those who signed deeds of sale!
But Manager Yue could still distinguish what was urgent right now, so he immediately blurted, “Then I admit to colluding!”
Colluding to give false testimony meant another twenty strikes of the heavy board at most; it wouldn’t kill him.
But forcing an innocent girl into prostitution was something he could not admit to under any circumstances!
Ruan Xiang smiled coldly and fell silent.
But at this moment, Shishi and Huahua exchanged a glance and stood forward together. “We also wish to sue Manager Yue for forcing innocent girls into prostitution!”
“We have injuries on our bodies! Though they are not fresh, they still bear witness to what we endured at Feiyue Pavilion.”
Xu Shaoyin looked over at the two of them, and Shishi looked back at Xu Shaoyin, who was dressed only in her thin inner robes.
Shishi gritted her teeth and hitched up her pant leg. “I have proof! I signed a labor contract; I was only supposed to dance. But to coerce me, Manager Yue forcibly branded the mark of Feiyue Pavilion onto my leg, ensuring I could never marry as a free citizen for the rest of my life…”
Women of the Dayong Dynasty rarely exposed their legs and feet, but right now, on the calf Shishi had bared, the mark of Feiyue Pavilion was starkly stamped into her skin.
The coroner’s assistant stepped forward immediately to examine it, concluding a moment later, “The injury was caused by a branding iron, and the pattern indeed matches the emblem of Feiyue Pavilion.”
Qin Hua did not possess the same kind of physical evidence as Shishi, but she pulled out a document.
“I also have proof! Manager Yue claimed I damaged Feiyue Pavilion’s mercury mirror and forced me to sign a debt contract!”
Qin Hua was trembling all over. She had actually gone through the exact same thing as Shaoyin, except she hadn’t been as strong as Shaoyin.
When Manager Yue pressured her, she could only sign it with tears in her eyes.
Only today in the courtroom did she suddenly realize that this had all been a trap to force innocent girls into prostitution!
Her heart pounding with agitation and her footsteps unsteady, Qin Hua presented the document. “Lord Magistrate! The document clearly states that if I cannot scrape together the money to pay for the mercury mirror within a month, I must ‘voluntarily’ alter my contract to a deed of sale, selling my body to accompany guests in drinking!”
Qin Hua stumbled forward, throwing herself toward the bench. “The document bears Manager Yue’s handwriting and his personal seal!”
The advisory master beside the County Magistrate took the document and compared it with the other pieces of evidence.
The results were quickly determined—it was exactly as Qin Hua had said.
Multiple pieces of evidence and multiple testimonies all confirmed that Manager Yue had indeed engaged in coercive behavior.
Except…
The County Magistrate frowned and said, “There is only the act of coercion, but no actual realization of prostitution. This court can only sentence him to a beating as a warning.”
He could not hand down a conviction based on the actualized crime of forcing an innocent girl into prostitution.
Shishi and Qin Hua froze on the spot, their shoulders suddenly sagging.
Even with all of this… was it still not enough?
Xu Shaoyin also lowered her head. She knew of a way, but…
She couldn’t look up at that person; that was her agreement with that person.
However, in the next breath, Ruan Xiang’s cold voice rang out once more: “…There is.”
What?
The commoners listening outside the court fell into a daze, and everyone inside the courtroom froze as well.
Xu Shaoyin snapped her head up, looking at Ruan Xiang in utter disbelief—she had actually spoken!
Shishi and Qin Hua were completely out of the loop; they were the last to react.
But the moment they realized what it meant, the faces of both girls turned deathly pale.
Shishi rushed over uncontrollably, grabbing Ruan Xiang’s hand, her voice shaking as she asked, “Xiangxiang, what are you saying? Say it again?”
Qin Hua also understood. Tears spilled from her eyes in an instant, and she covered her mouth. “No… it’s impossible. Xiangxiang… you wouldn’t! I don’t believe it!”
Yet, Ruan Xiang stood in the courtroom like a living corpse, a hollow, bitter smile plastered across her face.
“I am the evidence of Manager Yue forcing an innocent girl into prostitution… The coroner’s assistant may verify it.”
Moved by her courage, the County Magistrate immediately ordered the coroner’s assistant to take Ruan Xiang down for an examination.
Before long, the coroner’s assistant and a specially summoned midwife returned to the court to testify together.
“Ruan Xiang indeed bears proof of being violated and coerced; she has lost her innocence…”
The evidence and witnesses were all present.
Manager Yue was sentenced on the spot: his property was confiscated, and he was exiled three thousand miles away to the bitter cold lands.
Unwilling to enjoy such privileges alone, Manager Yue dragged in Boss Wu and several other regular patrons of the wine house. Anyone who had conspired to force innocent girls into prostitution was summoned one by one.
Several more cases were added to the docket, to be deferred for later trial once evidence was gathered.
The outcome could be considered a fulfillment of justice.
However, Shaoyin, Shishi, and Qin Hua could not bring themselves to feel happy at all.
The result was what they had wanted, but the sacrifice made in the process… was the last thing they wished to see.
The commoners outside the court chatted animatedly, cheering for the resolution of this bizarre and salacious lawsuit.
The court officials dispersed, leaving only Shaoyin, Ruan Xiang, Shishi, and Qin Hua standing lonely in the middle of the massive, empty courtroom.
Shishi and Qin Hua wanted to comfort Ruan Xiang, but Ruan Xiang exuded a cold aloofness that warned everyone away.
Qin Hua wept. “Ruan Xiang, I’m so sorry. I even cursed you just now… I thought you had been bought off by Manager Yue…”
Shishi reached out to embrace Ruan Xiang, only to find that Ruan Xiang’s body was ice-cold, devoid of any warmth, as if she were a mere hollow shell.
Ruan Xiang ignored the emotional breakdowns of Shishi and Qin Hua.
She only stared fixedly at Shaoyin. “Xu Shaoyin, I helped you. You promised me that you would redeem my deed of sale at all costs… so I can die clean.”
Xu Shaoyin hurriedly shook her head. “No…”
Ruan Xiang’s expression flipped instantly. “You want to go back on your word?”
“No, I won’t go back on my word! I’m saying I will redeem your deed of sale, but please don’t die. You must not die! There are still many, many things in this world worth living for!”
“There’s nothing left. Nothing at all.”
She had been trapped by Manager Yue into signing the same debt contract. When she went home to beg her family for help, they only shunned her, claiming she brought shame upon them by being a dancing girl at a wine house.
Upon hearing she was in debt, they avoided her like the plague, shutting the door in her face and throwing out her few blankets. “Get out, get out, get out! From the moment you entered Feiyue Pavilion, you ceased to be a part of this family!”
They made absolutely no mention of the fact that she handed her Feiyue Pavilion earnings over to them month after month.
Unable to repay the debt, the moment the one-month deadline arrived, she became the lowest kind of courtesan, her vermilion lips tasted by ten thousand men.
Ruan Xiang curled her lips slightly into a smile. In the past, her smile could captivate numerous guests at Feiyue Pavilion, but today, Qin Hua and Shishi found it devastatingly bitter to behold.
Yet Xu Shaoyin said firmly, “You only need to wait a little…”
“Wait for what? Wait for you to back out?” Ruan Xiang snapped furiously. “I asked you why I should trust you, and you said it yourself—your family’s ancestral home is still in your hands! Are you saying you don’t want to sell it now?”
Xu Shaoyin understood Ruan Xiang’s thoughts. At this moment, she dared not say that she didn’t need to sell the ancestral home and that she possessed another treasure to redeem her.
So she simply played along with Ruan Xiang’s assumption: “I will sell it, but the front two courtyards of my house are currently rented out. You have to at least give me time to evict them!”
Ruan Xiang was furious. She only wanted to get back that humiliating deed of sale so she could die clean and enter the next cycle of reincarnation.
Yet Xu Shaoyin was actually breaking her word!
