Echoes of My Heart Throughout the Court-Chapter 343: Why Did His Majesty Rebel? New

“After Jiabao is executed, are we going to retrieve his body?”

If they wanted to claim the body, they would have to pay for it.

If they didn’t, the government would cremate it at a communal site, and the ashes would be scattered into a common ash pit.

Flesh from her own womb after all, the madam hesitated for a long while, pondering deeply before finally sighing:

“No need. We don’t even have a place for him now. Even if we bring him back, it’ll just be burnt anyway. Let that family redeem him. They’ve waited for a male heir for so long—at least let their ancestral tombs have one to bury. Otherwise, wasn’t all twelve pregnancies wasted?”

Among those twelve, some were born by her, others by concubines. The concubines were rented, forced to bear child after child for three consecutive years—pregnant again before even finishing their postpartum confinement. Once their three-year term ended, they abandoned the children and fled.

But she was a specifically chosen orphan, easy to control, unable to run, made to keep giving birth until she produced a son.

Thinking back, she felt some guilt toward her daughters. Unable to escape that family, endlessly giving birth, she had developed a hatred toward her daughters—blaming them for taking up the place meant for a son, blaming them for her suffering. She treated them with scorn, beatings, and curses. Only when Jiabao was born did she awaken from that madness, trying to make amends, trying to protect her daughters from the clutches of that family.

“Besides, I don’t want to spend any more money on him.” Her voice was heavy.

“I want to save the money for you girls.”

The mother had her own thoughts, and the daughters had theirs.

Perhaps it was witnessing their mother suffer through birth after birth. The elder daughters, who were old enough to remember things, all chose to remain unmarried once they came of age. They paid fines each year and styled their hair in the matronly bun of those who vowed never to wed.

But they still feared having no one to bury them after death, no incense lit in offering, becoming wandering spirits.

As it happened, a group of weavers who had reformed from lives as prostitutes also chose not to marry. The two groups began to live together, calling one another sisters, and made a pact: whoever survived would care for the funerals and ancestral rites of those who passed first.

They did not marry and had no children, so some of them began to take in female apprentices—girls who would care for them in old age and handle their burial when the time came.

They named this place Guanyin Hall, praying for the Bodhisattva’s protection. To better maintain the Hall and ensure the unmarried women living there had enough money to pay the unmarried women’s tax and enough savings for a secure old age, they modeled their operations on trade guilds. All earnings were collectively managed: labor income of every member was handed over to Guanyin Hall, then redistributed. A portion was set aside to support elderly or sick members.

Later, more and more Guanyin Halls sprang up. At their peak, a single Guanyin Hall could house up to a hundred women. In a small rural town with a population of just over 1,500, there could be two such Halls.

Society gave this group a name: “Self-combed Women” (zì shū nǚ, 自梳女).

All of this was made possible by the booming silk industry. Improved silk-weaving tools allowed women to earn decent wages outside of the traditional family structure, enabling them to live independently and support themselves.

Many silk factories actually preferred hiring self-combed women, because they had no family, no children, and didn’t need maternity leave. They could work seven days a week, twelve hours a day.

When the silk factories joined forces and declared the “Four Don’t-Hires”:

Don’t hire those who are in love, don’t hire the married, don’t hire those with children, and don’t hire the old or sick— The population of self-combed women reached its historical peak.

——But all of that would happen much later. In the Great Xia dynasty, on the tenth day of the ninth month in the 35th year of the Tiantong reign, Guanyin Hall was just in its infancy, and the first generation of self-combed women had not yet been given that title.

They gathered together, nervous yet excited, fearful about a future without husbands. In hushed voices, they made a pact: Those who come first must help those who come later. The young must support the old.

Meanwhile, on that same day, both the Left and Right Prime Ministers jointly submitted a memorial, requesting that the Emperor reopen the Child Prodigy Examination (Shéntóng Shì, 神童試).

As the name suggests, the Child Prodigy Exam was designed for boys under fifteen years of age. They did not have to go through the usual layers of the imperial examination—local, provincial, and metropolitan exams. Instead, every three years, their prefecture would host an exam. Those who passed were sent directly to the capital, where the Imperial College (Guozijian) would conduct an evaluation, followed by a second review by the Secretariat-Chancellery (this dynasty used a system of one central province and six ministries).

If they passed the second review, they would face the Palace Examination, personally overseen by the Emperor. Passing that would grant them an official post.

In previous dynasties, the Child Prodigy Exam produced many remarkable prodigies.

For instance, in the mid-to-late Liang Dynasty, the famed minister and financial expert Wang Jinming passed the exam at the age of seven and was appointed Proofreader of the Imperial Library (a ninth-rank official).

During the early reign of the First Emperor of Chu, a prodigy passed the exam at six years old. His writing was so outstanding that people suspected he had used connections to get ahead.

Under the Second Emperor of Chu, a ten-year-old prodigy entered the Hanlin Academy, and during its internal competition, he ranked first in the Book of Songs among all the academy scholars.

During the reign of Emperor Wen of Zhou, an eight-year-old passed the exam and earned the Jinshi degree. His most notable achievement recorded in the official histories was solving the Zhou Dynasty’s logistical crisis. Previously, only 500,000 shi (a unit of grain) could be transported annually. After his reform, that number rose to 2.3 million shi, vastly improving the government’s responsiveness and mobility.

Aside from these cases, many child prodigies who passed the exam made names for themselves throughout history.

But the Great Xia Dynasty had yet to produce a child prodigy of its own.

The Emperor’s response was: “Find the Crown Prince—he’s overseeing state affairs.”

Naturally, the Crown Prince made a decisive stroke of the brush and approved the motion.

It would still take time for the policy to reach all the prefectures, and for now, the reopening of the Child Prodigy Exam caused little public stir.

Someone said to Minister Bing: “I heard your young son is twelve this year and already thoroughly versed in the Classics and Histories. Surely he’ll shine brilliantly in this upcoming exam. Congratulations!”

Minister Bing let out a sigh. “I really don’t have the heart to care about that right now.”

The person who asked the question immediately caught on and, following Minister Bing’s line of sight, cast a strange expression toward a figure—first nearby, then a bit further away, and then far off in the distance—who was walking faster and faster: Xu Yanmiao.

[Yaozu might be a scoundrel, but Minister Bing is terrifying too.]

[He took advantage of someone else’s downfall, luring both uncle and nephew to sell themselves for money, and even used fakes to scam them afterward.]

[And at that time, he didn’t even know Yaozu was a bad egg. Isn’t this just bullying commoners because they can’t fight back? Using fake money to buy a concubine, and even cheating people out of that money…]

[Time to slip away.]

Xu Yanmiao muttered in his mind while quietly edging away, shifting to the side step by step, pretending to be deep in thought—his walking path deliberately diagonal, not straight.

The old ministers nearby almost burst into uncontrollable laughter.

—Dear Xu-lang, don’t you think you’re being way too obvious?

Meanwhile, the newly appointed Minister of Works wore a sullen expression.

Can you guess why I’m not laughing?

“Ahem, ahem.” The person who asked the original question tried to offer some comfort.

“Although… although it seems like Little Baize doesn’t like you very much…”

Minister Bing retorted with conviction, “Don’t talk nonsense! Little Baize doesn’t dislike me. He just wants to respect me from a distance!”

Everyone else: “……”

Even if there’s technically a difference, it’s really not much, is it?

The man who asked the question choked a little: “Right, right… he just wants to keep a respectful distance. Still, Minister, you don’t need to worry too much. What Little Baize really resents is your use of power to manipulate the people. If he finds out that you already knew Yaozu was a villain…”

Bing Hui’s eyes lit up with hope. “Then he’ll stop keeping his distance from me?”

“Not exactly,” the man coughed again. “It’ll just shift his impression of this incident from ‘bullying the commoners’ to ‘a villain punishing another villain.’ In comparison, the negative feelings… might be slightly less intense.”

Bing Hui: “…Well, thanks for that, I guess.”

“Ahem, actually, there’s another method.”

“What method?!”

“If you go around upholding justice more often for a while, then Little Baize might start to believe that what you did to Yaozu was a righteous act—just you stepping in to punish evil when you saw it.”

Bing Hui’s eyes sparkled.

Well then, here comes the real question: Where can he go to uphold justice?

Bing Hui spent over a month asking around… and finally heard about a peculiar old mansion.

According to the word on the street, this mansion was extremely strange. A year ago, a neighbor had seen two men enter it late at night—and it seemed they never came out again.

What was even stranger was that a burly man stood guard at the gate day and night. When others asked, he claimed to be the mansion’s gatekeeper.

But what kind of gatekeeper looked that fierce—like he’d either fought in a war or taken a life?

Moreover, not only had those two men never been seen leaving the house, even their clothes and meals were brought in by that burly man.

And today, a carriage pulled up in front of the mansion. The person who stepped out was neither the burly man nor one of the two men inside—it was a newcomer. Yet the burly man treated him with extreme respect.

Bing Hui was overjoyed. He took out a real silver ingot and handed it to the person who had brought him this piece of news. It stung a bit to part with the silver, but this was a necessary expense!

“There’s definitely something fishy about that mansion!”

Bing Hui’s mind worked quickly: “Either someone is planning something big in there… or the owner of the mansion is being held captive!”

Minister Bing reported the matter to the City Patrol Censor, and through proper procedures, arranged for the Five City Constabulary to dispatch officers. They followed him to the mansion and laid in ambush outside.

This chapt𝒆r is updated by frёewebηovel.cѳm.

Then the mansion’s front gate opened.

A group of guards stepped out first to clear the way. Then a man came out, holding his lower back and grumbling loudly: “Not a single change! A whole year wasted raising them! I knew it—humans aren’t chickens! Locking two men up together won’t magically make one of them turn into a woman!”

At his current distance, Minister Bing couldn’t clearly hear what the man was muttering.

Then Minister Bing made a hand gesture, shouted loudly, and leapt out. A wave of patrol officers followed behind him, rushing forward and surrounding the man and his guards.

“Five City Constabulary conducting an investigation! You are suspected of harboring ill intentions and unlawfully imprisoning the property’s owner. To act so brazenly under the Emperor’s very nose—surrender now!”

The old Emperor, supporting his creaky old back, blinked in confusion—then exploded with rage: “Under the Emperor’s nose? Brazen acts? WHO?!”

Under the bizarre stares of everyone around him, he paused.

Wait… surely… they don’t mean me… right?

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