Echoes of My Heart Throughout the Court

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This Alpha Is Determined Despite Physical Disability

Eating Melons in the Police Station

[Oh ho! The brains outside the courtroom are about to be sealed off.] Xu Yanmiao lazily gnawed on melon seeds, looking perfectly relaxed.

[This is why I say—it’s always better to rely on yourself than on others. What if your brains-on-the-outside get cut off? Then what? You’re stuck.]

[Also—wow, the old emperor and Minister Bing sure got here fast. Could it be blood ties? That legendary suppression that comes from bloodline power?]

“Huh? That’s a thing?” Minister Bing muttered, then lowered his head to look at his so-called prodigy son, who had just been plopped back down on the floor.

The boy, once on solid ground, very seriously tidied his collar, smoothed the wrinkles in his clothes, then turned around and gave a polite bow. “Greetings, Father.”

That little Bai Ze is full of nonsense! There’s no such thing as “bloodline suppression.” His son has a mind of his own—he, the father, can’t even manage him… like right now.

“Go home. Now,” Minister Bing said with clear irritation. “Look at what you’ve done. Passing little notes? Do you think a courtroom is your personal playground?”

The little prodigy blinked his dark eyes and replied, “Father, I wasn’t playing around. Petitioners are allowed to hire litigation assistants. I merely acted as that lady’s songshi.”

Minister Bing snorted. “Then why weren’t you standing in the courtroom like a real one?”

Bing Yan earnestly analyzed, “I’m too young. If the magistrate sees me, he’ll dismiss me from the start. I’d have to work several times harder just to make him take me seriously. It’s better to operate from behind the scenes. Also, if I stood in court and lost the case, everyone would scold me for being a meddling child, for making a mess of things. But if an adult loses their first lawsuit, people might just say: It’s their first case—just a newbie. It’s understandable.”

Bing Yan concluded, “So, Father, based on all that, I believe working behind the scenes is the best way for me to contribute and to gain experience.”

Minister Bing replied, “Mmm, very thoughtful.”

Then he said, “But you’re still coming home with me.”

Bing Yan blinked in surprise. “Why, Father?”

Minister Bing said, “I can guess what you were thinking. You figured this was just practice, and if you chose a villain to defend, even if you lost the case, it wouldn’t matter.”

Xu Yanmiao let out a silent “Wah!” in his head: [He nailed it! This must be the fabled father-son telepathy!]

Minister Bing saw the surprised look on his son’s face, gave a light cough, and felt deeply satisfied.

Of course, he wasn’t going to tell his son that this “guess” had basically been copied straight from someone else’s homework.

“But.” Minister Bing bent down and knocked lightly on his son’s forehead, half-smiling. “What makes you so sure the person you investigated is truly the villain?”

“I investigated them…” Bing Yan started.

“You investigated whether that household had mutual domestic violence? Did you find out whether that woman ever abused her previous husband? What if her first husband hit her first, and she fought back with all she had, but outsiders labeled her a shrew—and then, in her second marriage, she ran into another man who hit her, and this time, she struck back in fury?”

Bing Yan’s eyes widened slightly at that, but he didn’t get discouraged. He pursued the question: “Father, since you brought that up… does that mean it’s true?”

Minister Bing replied, “No. Your investigation was correct.”

Bing Yan let out a breath of relief.

Minister Bing said, “But can you guarantee you’ll never mistake a victim for a villain? You think you’re just getting practice by defending the bad guys—that it’s understandable, even virtuous, a way of punishing evil and promoting good. But isn’t that, in itself, a kind of arrogance?”

Turns out, your dad is still your dad.

Bing Yan opened his mouth but couldn’t find any words to respond.

Minister Bing patted him on the shoulder. “Let’s go home first. If you want to practice, we’ll discuss it thoroughly when we get back.”

Bing Yan was about to agree, but then shook his head. “No, Father, I want to—”

Minister Bing cut him off. “Don’t bother. That little opponent you were evenly matched with? Her elder already took her away.”

Bing Yan: “…Oh.”

It was a bit of a struggle for Minister Bing to haul his own kid away, but for the old emperor, carrying off his “granddaughter” was pure, unfiltered bloodline suppression—even though they weren’t related by blood at all. The emperor just picked her up and left. The eight-year-old girl understood perfectly what it meant to read the room: once she realized she’d been caught, she turned into the very picture of well-behaved obedience—not even a hint of struggle.

The old emperor, seeing her like that, suddenly felt a pang in his stomach.

She looked just like her. Too much like her. Just like Xiangyang—so eager to admit fault, yet never willing to truly repent.

Was this the mythical “niece takes after her aunt” situation? But they weren’t even real aunt and niece!

Regardless, with the two “stand-ins” removed, the domestic violence duo were completely dumbfounded.

Without their external brains feeding them lines, they had no idea how to proceed—what tactics to use against each other.

For a moment, the entire courtroom fell into an eerie silence.

After a dozen or so breaths, the magistrate finally confirmed that the two little troublemakers were gone, and slowly asked, “Do you two have anything else to say?”

The abusive couple gulped in sync, then suddenly shouted in unison, “We’re dropping the case! We’re not pressing charges anymore! This is a private family matter—no need to trouble the official!”

The magistrate raised an eyebrow. “Oh? But didn’t you both claim the other had committed marriage fraud?”

Again in unison, the couple said, “No, no—we realized it might’ve all been a misunderstanding.”

“I see,” the magistrate said, drawing out the words. “In that case, you’d best not behave like this in the future. What hurdle between husband and wife can’t be overcome? Dragging each other to court at every turn—what kind of behavior is that? From now on, live in harmony, and don’t go running off to file for divorce on a whim. Some squabbling between couples is perfectly normal.”

The pair nodded furiously. “Yes, yes, absolutely! We’ll definitely live well together!”

[Wishing them an ironclad lock on each other. May they never return to the market!]

That line suddenly popped up, leaving the magistrate briefly stunned: Xu Yanmiao—you’re still here?!

Sure enough, a familiar head peeked out from the crowd. It was already early winter in October, the weather chilly, and he wore a brand-new padded jacket. Blending in with the townsfolk, he looked perfectly natural.

[But from what I remember, isn’t there some kind of punishment for withdrawing a lawsuit halfway through like this? What was it again?]

Before Xu Yanmiao could rack his brain and recall it, the magistrate slammed the gavel to help him out: “But court is not a child’s game—you cannot come and go as you please. Since you both have visible injuries, you’ll each receive ten blows now. The remaining twenty will be administered once you’ve recovered.”

[Wahoo! Well done!]

The couple, however, did not think it was well done.

For them, it would’ve been better to just take all the punishment at once! Now they’d be battered and bruised, spend two months healing, only to be dragged back for more beatings right after recovering. Even an iron body wouldn’t survive that!

“Your Honor! Can’t we just pay a fine instead…”

Legally, that was an option. However… the magistrate smiled: “No. Your offense is too serious.”

[Huh? Really?]

Not really. But technically, the magistrate could refuse to let them pay their way out.

—Just like the law allows commoners to buy a reserve county magistrate title, but if the local officials don’t accept the money, you’re out of luck.

The magistrate waved his hand. “Strip the man’s pants. The woman can keep hers on.”

“Execute!”

Thwack! Thwack! Thwack!

“AAAH!”

Inside the courtroom, as the sound of wood striking flesh echoed, a man’s and a woman’s screams of pain rang out.

“Yikes,” Lian Hang laughed. “That magistrate is too wicked—he even split them up for the beating. Did they really get the remaining twenty blows after healing?”

“They did! They did!” Xu Yanmiao eagerly shared the latest gossip from the past half-month. “Ten strokes to the butt, swollen and bleeding! And just when they started healing, they got dragged back to finish the remaining twenty. You should’ve seen it—bloody and mangled!”

Lian Hang was stunned. “Wait, you saw it happen?!”

Xu Yanmiao: “Nope. I’m not into watching people get beaten.”

—Even though he firmly believed domestic abusers deserved the death penalty, he had no interest in watching them suffer or die.

Lian Hang nodded, eyes gleaming, and dove into the next piece of gossip: “So, the son of Minister Bing and the daughter of the Princess of Fangling—do they know each other’s identities?”

Xu Yanmiao thought for a moment. “I don’t think they did at first. Later on… not sure.”

He hadn’t looked into that particular gossip yet.

Lian Hang rubbed his hands together in excitement. “I heard that Minister Bing’s kid signed up for the child prodigy exam, so maybe he hasn’t had time lately—Xu Lang, I bet you, once that exam’s over and the kid’s free again, he’s definitely going to try and challenge the little princess to a rematch. He totally looks like he wants to settle the score.”

Xu Yanmiao: “Eh? No need to wait for the exam to be over. They can compete right now.”

Lian Hang was caught between laughter and disbelief. “Xu Lang, today is the day of the Child Prodigy Examination—you don’t seriously mean that Minister Bing’s son would skip it just to spar with the little princess?”

Xu Yanmiao: “No, he met the little princess at the Child Prodigy Examination.”

“Pfft—!”

Lian Hang had just picked up his cup of warm water when he spit it out in shock, patting his forehead and underarms. “I’m not burned, I’m not sick with a cold… So why do I feel like I just hallucinated?”

Xu Yanmiao: “No hallucination. The little princess really is taking the Child Prodigy Exam.”

Xu Yanmiao: “Shocking, right? I just saw—well, I just found out too, and I was shocked as well.”

Lian Hang was utterly baffled. “She’s a girl—how did she even get into the exam?”

“Oh, at the time she said…”

“Examiner. The Child Prodigy Exam is part of the imperial examinations. I’ve combed through all seven parts, thirty volumes, and four hundred sixty articles of the Great Xia Code—nowhere does it state that women are forbidden from taking the exams.”

The little princess, Yan Linghui, was not dressed as a man. She stood tall at the gates of the examination compound and declared loudly, “My actions do not violate the law. Why, then, am I being denied entry?”

The examiner was the Imperial Tutor-in-Training of the Crown Prince’s Left Academy—the Prince’s Reader, surnamed Huo, given name Guozuo.

Huo Guozuo was mentally exhausted. “Little princess, this is no place for your antics…”

“I’m not being frivolous,” Yan Linghui replied calmly and articulately. “If there is no law explicitly forbidding women from participating in the exams, then I have the right to take them. Otherwise, are you saying that anything not permitted by law is automatically forbidden?”

A bitter, conflicted smile crept onto Huo Guozuo’s face. “Since ancient times…”

Yan Linghui cut him off: “No, there are precedents in previous dynasties. A nine-year-old girl named Lin Youyu passed the child scholar exam and was granted the title of Ruren by imperial decree. Forty years later, another eight-year-old girl, Wu Zhiduan, also passed but was criticized for being too forward and damaging propriety. Even so, she was still rewarded with silk and honored.”

She clearly laid out her argument: “No matter the outcome, women were never barred from sitting for the imperial exams in previous dynasties. Are you suggesting that our current dynasty is inferior to the previous one?”

The skin on Huo Guozuo’s face twitched as he replied dryly, “Well, not exactly, but…”

He knew he was being unreasonable. Yan Linghui was absolutely right—there was no law forbidding women from taking the exams. Whether or not she would be awarded an official title afterward was another matter, but legally, nothing barred her from participating.

Still, Huo Guozuo didn’t want to let her in—not because of the law, but out of personal resentment.

No one knew this, but he hated prodigies. He hadn’t passed the imperial exams until he was sixty. His career had no major achievements, and he had risen solely through years of service and age. Only recently had the emperor, out of pity, promoted him to the role of Prince’s Reader—so that he could at least enjoy the perks of a fifth-rank official before dying.

So, from the bottom of his heart, he despised those who achieved success at a young age.

Especially this Child Prodigy Exam—full of little kids. Six years old? Seven? Nine? Twelve? No need to fight their way through the brutal imperial exams, no need to write essays on statecraft—just memorize the classics and compose a few essays or poems, and they could be granted the same qualifications as a jinshi and enter the Hanlin Academy. After coming of age, they’d be directly granted official positions.

Why should he have to accept this?!

He didn’t dare sabotage the Child Prodigy Exam outright—but stopping a little girl from entering the venue? That, he could do.

So what if she was a prodigy? She was still helpless right now.

Huo Guozuo’s mind was in turmoil. He cleared his throat and said, “Little princess, I truly don’t mean to make things difficult for you. But no matter how reasonable your argument is… a girl entering the imperial examination venue—it’s just not proper. Please don’t make things harder for me.”

Yan Linghui asked coolly, “Proper according to what? Which law? Which volume? Which chapter? Which article?”

Huo Guozuo gave a faint smile. “According to society’s standards of propriety.”

Yan Linghui let out an “Oh,” then suddenly lowered her head and began to wipe at her tears, her voice hitching with sobs: “B-but my mother… she was a strong, proud woman all her life. Her greatest regret was not being able to become a female official. She’s been listless, joyless, unable to eat or sleep. As her daughter, how could I bear to see her suffer like this? That’s why I traveled thousands of miles alone from Liaodong to the capital…”

“If you won’t let me enter the exam, Sir Examiner, I fear my mother will be devastated with grief.”

“Mother—!” she wailed.

The scholars gathered to watch the Child Prodigy Exam had originally thought this little girl was just being unreasonable. But once they heard she had traveled all the way from Liaodong to take the exam for her mother’s sake—bringing only a few attendants with her—their impression of her changed dramatically.

Several scholars began speaking up in support: “If it was allowed in the previous dynasty, it should be allowed now. Let her take the exam.”

Indeed, filial piety was the ultimate trump card—the one thing that could greenlight just about anything.

Even murderers, if they killed for their parents, might receive leniency in sentencing.

Huo Guozuo never expected Yan Linghui to invoke filial piety against him.

He had been prepared for her to use her title as a princess—he had even thought of how he’d show his bravery by not bowing to power. But filial piety? That hadn’t crossed his mind at all.

As the voices supporting Yan Linghui grew louder (especially since they were only asking to let her into the exam, not give her an official post), sweat began pouring down Huo Guozuo’s forehead.

[Oh ho! What a show I’ve stumbled into!]

Huo Guozuo’s pupils shrank. The sweat on his forehead flowed even more freely.

Why is Xu Yanmiao here?!

Xu Yanmiao, however, was paying no attention to Huo Guozuo’s panic. He was muttering to himself with great amusement:

[No wonder she’s a prodigy—her thinking isn’t rigid at all, she’s really flexible.]

Huo Guozuo couldn’t help but assume Xu Yanmiao was mocking him for being inflexible, and silently grew irritated.

Then again, he couldn’t think of any grudge between them—he’d never even targeted Xu Yanmiao before. So why was he being sarcastic?

Xu Yanmiao, meanwhile, was completely baffled:

[Huh? Why’s Huo Guozuo looking at me? He should be watching the little princess—she’s already sobbing and asking whether filial piety or social rules matter more!]

[Oh!]

A spark of inspiration lit up Xu Yanmiao’s mind.

If the old emperor were here, he would definitely try to stop that “clever” little mind from doing anything rash.

Unfortunately for Huo Guozuo, he lacked such foresight.

[Is he hoping I’ll help him out of this mess?]

[After all, someone who’s outsourced their filial feelings might really not know how to answer that kind of question.]

The officials observing the Child Prodigy Exam: “?”

Outsourced filial piety? What does that even mean?

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