Chapter 1323: Chapter 1322: Severe Punishment
Sewer...
That’s not a good place.
The sewer in the Royal Palace isn’t as spacious as people imagine, because this is Nagariel.
As long as it doesn’t flood on rainy days, it’s not a problem for the people here.
Sewage?
That’s called sewage?
So the Royal Palace’s sewer is very narrow, with a diameter of only two feet.
A normal person can easily crawl through the pipes, but that would have to be in new pipes.
Old pipes have all sorts of accumulations that haven’t rotted despite being soaked for a long time, so they rarely degrade naturally, eventually clumping together and entangling.
Some you can remove, while others, in a continuous calcification state, have merged with the pipe walls.
Even if the pipe is smashed, it won’t break.
This also leads to the actual space of the sewer being much narrower than people imagine, especially in some bends, where it’s impossible to pass.
Today, when the Royal Palace kitchen provided dinner for everyone in the palace, they found the sewer was blocked.
In another section of the main channel, they discovered the Eldest Princess, already drowned in the water.
She was head down, stuck in the sewer, and she seemed to have died very painfully.
By the way, during her drowning, she had a miscarriage, a very natural phenomenon.
Listening to the Chief Steward and some people describe the whole incident, the replacement King suddenly stood up.
He furiously smashed everything around him onto the ground and kicked over everything he could!
He suddenly realized that the Eldest Princess’s death was due to pregnancy.
He didn’t know his own condition at that moment, only thinking of destruction, devastation!
He completely trashed his room, and if it hadn’t been for the timely arrival of the Royal Palace Guards, he might have set this palace on fire.
In the end, he lay alone on the bed, curled up, spending the night without letting anyone accompany him.
The next morning, he found the Federation’s liaison and made his demand, "I want to leave here; I want to take my family to the Federation, as we previously agreed."
The Federation’s liaison looked at him formally, not worried at all that this enraged ’King’ would harm him, "What we said was after everything is over..."
"It’s over now!" the replacement King interrupted the liaison, pointing to the ground, then outside, "This place has already become what you wanted; if this isn’t the end, then what is the real end?"
"You want power; I gave it to you. You want the royal family to become a fixture; I did it. You want to eliminate the monarchy; now there are only legislators, no King!"
"What do you want exactly? What do you want from me for it to be over?"
He roared loudly at the liaison, the two stood very close, almost touching.
The liaison took a step back, glanced at the doorman, and then the latter closed the room’s door.
Before the replacement King could react, the liaison punched him in the face!
He staggered back and fell to the ground, the sudden blow disrupting his sense of balance, and he sat on the ground, clutching his cheek, crying out in pain.
Meanwhile, the liaison took off his jacket, placed it aside, unbuttoned his collar and cuffs, and walked towards him.
The replacement King wanted to say something, but evidently, the liaison wasn’t going to give him the chance.
He was pressed to the ground and severely beaten by the liaison, each punch landing solidly like pummeling a sandbag, making a dull thud.
After a while, the cries of pain turned to pleas for mercy, and the liaison stood up, panting, glancing down at the bloodstains spattered on his shirt, and lifted his foot to stomp the replacement King’s chest with his thick-soled shoe.
"Watch your tone..."
"You’re just a stand-in; don’t truly think you’re the King of this country!"
He picked up something nearby, found a piece to wipe his hand, cleaning off the blood on his knuckles.
The replacement King was still lying on the ground, his face swollen from the beating; if not for considering he shouldn’t have a broken face, he might have been in a worse state.
He didn’t even have the strength to wail; during the short yet lengthy ordeal, all he could do was endure the attacks.
The liaison’s words made him completely blank out.
He hadn’t thought about this for so long, so long!
He’s not the King; he’s just the Eldest Prince’s stand-in; he’s just a substitute!
And this... also signaled that the Federation people actually know his identity?
He looked at the liaison in horror, lips moving, but said nothing.
The liaison, shrugging his shoulders, put on his jacket, his knuckles split in two places; earlier a punch caught the replacement King’s teeth, tearing the skin, still bleeding a bit.
"We know who the real Eldest Prince is, and we know who you are, where you came from, and why you’re there."
"We can turn a blind eye to everything you’ve done in the past two years, because you’ve actively cooperated with our work, so these..."
He slightly turned his body to reveal more of the space behind him, "Whether it’s the Royal Palace or those Princesses, they’re rewards we’ve given you."
"But you need to understand who the real master is here!"
"We say it’s not over!" He slightly intensified his tone, "Then it’s not over!"
"If there’s a next time, the one who jumps down might just be you!"
After tidying up his attire, the liaison looked at the substitute King lying on the ground as if he had lost all his spirit, a trace of ridicule flashed across his face, "By the way, your father had an accident and died yesterday, he’ll be buried in a few days."
"If there’s anything you want, like some pendant or photo as a keepsake, I can get it for you."
The substitute King was stunned for a moment, a somewhat aged image appeared in his mind.
His original father, an ordinary man.
Actually, not too ordinary, because of his connections, his family lived quite well locally, considered a privileged class.
He hadn’t seen his father, his true father, for a very long time.
So much that what that person left in his heart had become somewhat blurred.
He couldn’t even imagine what he looked like, always some parts were vague, but now with this bad news, it was the second blow.
The liaison left the room, the substitute King no longer needed to support his body, and lay completely on the ground.
He sighed softly... sigh—
As if lamenting the Eldest Princess’s fate, lamenting his own fate, or lamenting his father’s fate.
After being beaten, he finally calmed down.
He had actually lost a long time ago.
He lost as early as when he was studying diligently abroad in the name of the Eldest Prince.
He was just a substitute from the start, and still is now. Just because he lives here, doesn’t mean he’s truly become the Eldest Prince, the highest status person in this country!
What he holds doesn’t belong to him.
At this moment, he truly calmed down, no longer thinking about "running away," because he had no place to escape to long ago.
The substitute King was pondering his life, pondering philosophical questions.
The Federation’s expert team had already begun accepting the task of law reform, and when they opened Nagariel’s dual codes, they couldn’t help but laugh at the country’s former rulers.
"Look here, even if those rulers committed murder, they only had to pay a small amount of money to escape punishment; these laws were practically crafted to allow them to do whatever they wanted!"
Many experts laughed and shook their heads; to them, the laws here, instead of being norms to restrain people’s moral behavior, seemed more like acquittal methods devised by the rulers for their own conduct.
"It looks like the workload is much greater than we imagined, so let’s start with some of the things currently happening."
"Things here need to stabilize quickly. Before I came here, I had already commissioned the United Development Company to list the most common crimes in society."
"Our first stage of work is to draft new laws for these most common crimes from top to bottom as quickly as possible."
"We’ll handle what we understand and are interested in, and finally discuss together."
An assistant began to distribute materials, which had already been prepared without needing to collect them themselves.
After this law revision, Nagariel will settle completely; previously, there was no real opportunity for law reform.
Suddenly changing laws amid political reform and a major reshuffling of the privileged class could easily trigger public panic, leading to some unpredictable consequences.
Now these issues no longer exist, and the reform of the national system has not encountered major problems, indicating that the people have begun to accept it.
The yearning and recognition for the Federation among the people deepens, and at this time, when the Federation intervenes in matters closely tied to the daily life and work of ordinary citizens, the people of Nagariel won’t be as sensitive.
Materials were distributed one by one, and an expert raised a question after reading a few lines, "Ladies and gentlemen, regarding sentencing, are there any standards?"
A lifelong Judge chuckled softly, "We once talked about sentencing issues; in different periods and regions, facing different situations, there should be more options."
"It’s like a robbery case."
"In the Federation, it’s indeed a serious crime, but we can give first-time robbers a chance to correct their mistakes."
"Most people commit a crime for the first time out of impulse, suddenly a thought pops into their head, and they just do it."
"They haven’t considered the consequences, but fortunately, our society is a stable and safe society, people’s self-discipline is strong, and they have a profound reverence for the law."
"Therefore, we can relax the standards of sentencing."
"But here..."
The Chief Justice smiled, "What we need to do is immediately prevent the recurrence of criminal behavior, rather than giving them a chance to correct it."
"First, raise the cost of committing crimes."
"My personal suggestion is... as long as the sentencing standard reaches fifteen years or more, rule for death directly..."
