Chapter 50 - Departure

                                    

                                          


                          
        
                          
The rest of the day was uneventful. I bought a new money pouch for myself. It was brown in colour and made of some animal skin which resembled leather. When I saw the list of wish, I laughed a little and the guards were wondering what was so funny. I wonder what happened at home that made my sister want to have a pet monkey. The last time I checked the list of wishes, my siblings were still missing me, I wonder if they will remember me when I finally get home.
                          
Nobody in our group besides me really talked to the peddlers and the people unconsciously avoided us since the guards were carrying weapons and word quickly spread about Ding Sha slapping Ku De Hua & Ku De Ren. Somehow people were gossiping that you would get slapped if you even looked at our direction. 
                          
Even if the area around us were cleared of people, the rest of the market were bustling which is a sign of how prosperous Yao Feng town is. As one of the few towns that is near the capital, merchants will undoubtedly stop here while heading towards the capital and you can find everything you want here. You can also get the latest news from the capital sooner here as well as benefit from the new trends that the wealthy and powerful are sporting.
                          
Of course, all these mattered little to our group as we are probably the most powerful group of people currently in the town and the trend setters. I can see a little disdain flying out of Uncle Cui and Uncle Tang's eyes when they look at the pampered young mistresses of the wealthy family who were shopping which I find funny. Sometimes I see fear in the eyes of the small shop keepers when they look at us. Probably due to the rumours of us flying around and that in this world, people of the higher caste often bully those of a lower caste. However, usually it is only the children who do the bullying as they get bored of bullying when they grow up and they stop seeing the lower caste as people.
                          
When we passed by the residential areas of the upper class, I noticed a few women wearing dresses similar to those that my mother wore last year. I guess they are still a little outdated even if they are the closest town to the capital.
                          
At dinner, Judge Cui started teaching me more about the laws of this world. "Shi er, I saw that you wanted to help the Ku brothers with the appeal when they approached us?" Judge Cui asked while munching on food to avoid making this conversation serious.
                          
I look at him and nod my head in acknowledgement and put down my bowl and chopsticks. "I think they are pitiful and there are questionable points in this case."
                          
"You are right, but have you ever wondered what the role of the judge is? Judge Cui asks like how an old teacher would start his lecture and without waiting for an answer, he answered his own question and said, "Our main purpose is to check for corruption, and our secondary purpose is to provide the people an avenue to appeal cases where they believed it was judged wrongly. We do not intervene with the sentencing powers of the magistrate."
                          
Judge Tang then joined the conversation and said "If they asked for an appeal because they believed that Magistrate Dong made a mistake while judging the case, we could have considered stepping in but all they had was speculation. Speculation is not enough to say that Magistrate Dong made a mistake while judging the case and they too, know that anyone would have made a similar decision when presented with the facts and evidence that Magistrate Dong had."
                          
 "But the case clearly has many questionable points! The fact that the murder weapon disappeared is a joke! How can the murder weapon disappear overnight when nobody has entered or left the house?!" I argued back in unjust.
                          
*sigh*
                          
Judge Cui and Judge Tang gives out a soft sigh. "Shi er, just like how you didn't raise an objection to what I said in the market earlier because it would show conflict among us, we cannot just accept every appeal case that comes our way because it would ruin the magistrate's reputation and put his competency in question." Judge Cui said softly.
                          
The guards were still munching their food quietly since this conversation was obviously above their pay grade when Judge Tang ended the conversation and started talking to Liu Kang "Liu Kang, you should get ready for your trip back to the capital tomorrow. Prepare what you need and tell us if you need anything,"
                          
...
                          
Farewells are always depressing, but it is a little better if we know that it isn't goodbye. Today, Liu Kang is leaving the riding circuit and returning to the capital to inform my father, the governor about what we experienced so far.
                          
While the battle with the monster need not be reported so urgently as we already took care of it, our encounter with the army should be reported as soon as possible since none of us can sleep properly if we don't. While I told Liu Kang that he will be sent back to accompany us on the rest of the riding circuit, nobody really knows what my father will do, especially since the journey back and forth will take several months at least so we might already be far away from Yao Feng town. 
                          
At the city gates, everyone is seeing Liu Kang off. It isn't goodbye so nobody is feeling sad but it still stings to know that we are losing a comrade so early in our journey. I spent the night preparing rations for him. I prepared more of the favour that he likes best. He calls it milky spicy but it's just curry favoured bacon...
                          
As he sits on the tanned horse that the magistrate office lent us, he waves back at us as he disappears into the horizon...
                          
 "He'll back soon..." I mutter softly as I watch his figure gets smaller and smaller in the distance...
                          
...
                          
Back in the capital, in the royal palace, a man in armour is marching towards the emperor's study in the evening.
                          
"Inform his majesty about my arrival and announce my arrival." He gives the palace eunuch an order.
                          
The eunuch shivers a little and quickly runs inside to inform the emperor about the general's arrival.
                          
Upon reaching the halfway mark of the study, the eunuch kneels down and yells "Your majesty, General Ling is here and he requests for an audience!"
                          
"Hmm... General Ling? Why is he back so soon? Summon him in quickly." A deep voice echoes towards the court eunuch.
                          
The court eunuch quickly runs towards the door of the study and stands at the side of the door of the study. The court eunuch then shouts loudly "Summon General Ling!"
                          
General Ling takes off his helmet and walks into the room, making a *clink* sound with every step he takes.
                          
Once he reaches the halfway mark of the room, he kneels down on one knee and greets the emperor.
                          
"General Ling greets his majority, the Emperor of the Empire on the Sword Continent!" He says loudly with respect.
                          
The emperor gives a slight nod and says "Do away with formalities for now, why are you back so fast?"
                          
General Ling raises his stand and stands up as he was instructed to do away with formalities. He then makes a frown and says "While we were cleaning the villagers that had made contact with the monsters and demons, a group of men in black barged into the camp and rescued the villagers we have caught. We have captured and killed a faction of the escaped villagers but the majority of them have fled to Yao Feng town and are now refugees, while the whereabouts of the rest of the escapees are unknown."
                          
"My men have all formed their cores and if this group of men could barge in, rescue the villagers and escape without harm, they must be highly skilled so I made the decision to report this to your majesty! Since the events 6 years ago, your Majesty had ordered me to look out for events that could lead to rebellions as the emperor's star has dimmed. If a person could recruit such a group of skilled experts, they could be a threat to the emperor!" General Ling addresses his concerns to the emperor.