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“This is ridiculous!” Mister
Jian chortled.
“You ridicule the law… do you intend to further defy it?” Cao Cao
retorted.
“…Release me at once,” Mister Jian ordered. “My nephew is Jian Shuo! You
lay a finger upon me, and-”
“Nobody is immune to the law,” Cao Cao interrupted coldly. “The
punishment for breaking curfew is flogging… take him outside.”
Mister Jian struggled with the two nervous soldiers that took hold of
him and cried, “No! No! You dare, and
my nephew will-”
“I am doing my job,” Cao Cao said calmly as he took a multi-tailed whip
from a nearby table. “A man that had broken the law has the audacity to suggest
that I be punished for upholding it?”
“Don’t do it,” Mister Jian pleaded as he was dragged into a yard behind
the cell block. “I’ll pay you… anything you want… don’t…!”
“Perhaps you’ll think twice before you assume that you’re above the law
if you’re punished properly,” Cao Cao suggested. “I’ll do it myself.”
“NO!” Mister Jian screamed as
he was stripped of his main robe and tied to a wooden post with rough ropes,
his face pushed against the splintered wood and his back exposed. “PRAY FOR MERCY! YOU’LL DIE FOR THIS!”
“Will I now?” Cao Cao chuckled. “I think it is you that should pray.”
The soldiers winced as Cao Cao dealt lash after lash upon the back of
Mister Jian, who howled, squealed, and - after the first twenty lashes - prayed
that he would live to see Cao Cao pay for what he was doing.
“This is intolerable!” Jian
Shuo sobbed as he paced back and forth in Wang Fu’s office. “This District
Captain should die for this!”
“And what do I have him arrested him for?” Wang Fu asked plainly.
“…Does it matter???” Jian Shuo shrieked. “My uncle has no skin left on
his back! He will never know what it is to sleep soundly again for as long as
he lives! Why should this ‘Cao Cao’ not die painfully???”
“We can’t do a thing,” Cao Jie said angrily. “He was careful to gather
witness statements and a confession of sorts that your uncle had indeed broken
curfew… and the punishment was completely legitimate.”
“Not to me,” Jian Shuo retorted. “This is an affront!”
“It seems that Cao Cao has made the exact same proclamation,” Wang Fu
said. “He cites the words of your uncle… claiming that he was ‘above
prosecution’. That is, in Cao Cao’s words, an ‘affront’… citing the fate of
Prince Kui as proof that ‘none should be above the law’.”
“Oh, that does it,” Jian Shuo
chortled. “He’s obviously a partisan sympathiser… this is an unsubtle swipe at
us: he did to my uncle what he would like to do to us, at the very least!”
“I don’t disagree,” Wang Fu admitted. “The problem is that he’s a little
bit smarter than is my preference.”
“Dou Wu was smart, and we still got him,” Cao Jie suggested.
“Only because he became desperate and made mistakes,” Wang Fu replied.
“No, this one is clever… his father, the Minister of Finance, is an appointed
marquis, and adopted son of Cao Teng, who was a colleague of ours and a
favourite of a former majesty. His friends and supporters include the heir to
the influential Yuan clan and Kong Rong, a descendant of Confucius. He has been
appraised highly by Qiao Xuan and Xu Shao.”
“But he’s a reputation for using whorehouses and drinking, and - as if
to mock us - staying out after curfew!” Jian Shuo retorted. “How did he even
get the job in the first place???”