Chapter 213: The Court Trial on the Disobedience Case [Part 1]
On the morning of the next day, Sun Shaozong was confused. He felt that his head seemed to have been chopped off by someone. He sat on the soft couch for a long time and realized that he had spent the night in his study last night.
"Come!"
He raised his voice and shouted. As soon as the curtain of the door was picked, Xiangling came in with two small servant girls.
"Ah! Be careful, Master. Don't catch a cold."
When Sun Shaozong stepped on the quilt under his feet and sat on the couch wearing only a baggy single coat, Xiangling screamed and rushed forward to wrap the quilt around Sun Shaozong.
"How did you come here?"
Sun Shaozong rubbed his eyebrows but angrily shouted, "Now that you are pregnant, you should have a good rest. What can you do coming here in the morning?"
Xiangling smiled, covered her belly, and said, "Look at what you said, how can I be so delicate..."
"I said you are!"
Sun Shaozong said without a doubt, but carefully pulled her to the bedside, sat down, and said, "Isn't there someone else serving? Just watch at the side."
With that, he put on his deerskin boots and got out of bed. Together with the two little servant girls, he wore the clothes neatly and covered them with a dark blue official robe.
After finishing dressing up, he was thinking about going out for a breath of fresh air to refresh his brain, but suddenly he remembered another thing.
So he hurriedly pulled the drunken clothes off the clothes rack at the head of the bed, pulled out an amulet from the sleeve, handed it to Xiangling, and said, "When I came back yesterday, I saw that the Guangyuan Temple was still lit, so I let Zhang Cheng go in and ask for an amulet."
With that, Sun Shaozong scratched his head a little awkwardly and said, "I was supposed to ask for it myself, but I have something on at that time. If you feel insincere, then wait for the next time..."
Before the words were finished, Xiangling grabbed the amulet, held it in the palm of her hand, and said with a smile, "Don't need to bother, Master, I like this one!"
The Master was drunk last night, and he could still remember to ask for an amulet on the way. In the view of Xiangling, this intention was already "sincere."
After washing up, Sun Shaozong led Xiangling back to the backyard, had breakfast with Ruan Rong, and announced that all the major and minor events in the family would be handed over to Shiliu and Furong for the time being. He then got on the carriage and rushed to the government.
When he arrived at the Criminal Department, he saw Zhao Wuwei and his two captors waiting at the door of the hall for a long time.
As Sun Shaozong walked inward, he casually asked, "What's the matter? How about the visit to the disobedient case?"
"Report back to the Master."
Zhao Wuwei angrily scolded, "The couple of the Hu family are really bastards. It's no wonder that Old Hu will accuse them of disobedience!"
"Really?"
Sun Shaozong sat behind the desk, rubbed his temples, and said, "Tell me exactly what you have heard."
In fact, according to his original intention, it was the safest way to visit in person.
However, the officialdom has its own rules. If he still did everything personally as before in this position of a fifth-grade Governor, how could he reflect the ”golden” status of the rank?
Going back to the point, the plaintiff's name was Hu Dazhu, who was 60 years old this year and has only one son, Hu Jingsheng, who was one of the defendants in this case.
According to the visit of Zhao Wuwei and others, when Hu Jingsheng was born, his mother was nearly forty years old, and although she had a smooth birth, she was still in a bad condition and couldn’t survive that winter.
After that, Old Man Hu dragged his son to live alone. After 20 years of hard work, he finally expected his son to get married and start a business. But how could he imagine that his son, Hu Jingsheng, was an unfilial bastard? Soon after his marriage, he created a lot of trouble with Old Man Hu.
In the beginning, Old Man Hu was still reluctantly patient and only closed the door on self-reliance.
However, since the beginning of last winter, his body and bones have not been well, and it has been difficult to take care of himself for a while. As a result, he has endured a variety of forms of harassment from his son and wife and has only eaten a large amount of rotten leftovers.
A few days ago, he just got better, so he took the bedding out to dry, and unexpectedly, his daughter-in-law threw a basin of swill in his bedding!
Old Man Hu was so angry that he couldn’t bear it. This was the first time that he filed a lawsuit with the Central Judicial Office.
Wow~
"What a shame!"
Sun Shaozong, who was a new father, was most sensitive to this kind of disobedience and unfiliality. In addition to the hangover, he couldn’t help lifting his fists the size of a vinegar bowl and directly smashing the bookcase into two!
The pen, ink, paper, and inkstone flew around with all kinds of official documents, and the two captors were shocked. The bookcase was half an inch thick, and it was difficult to cut it with an axe.
This was not new to Zhao Wuwei, as he had been with him for a long time, and still seemed calm. While calling the two subordinates to tidy up the official document again, he said with relief, "Master, calm down. Now that this heartless thing has been accused of disobedience, you just have to impose a heavy death sentence on him."
"Nonsense!"
After Sun Shaozong vented his anger, he regained some sobriety and glared and shouted, "Now that we haven't interrogated clearly, how can we decide his death penalty in advance?!"
After a pause, he asked, "How was the relationship between Hu Jingsheng and his father before he got married?"
"This..."
Zhao Wuwei hesitated a little. A constable behind him immediately said, "I heard that the relationship between father and son was not very good. Hu Jingsheng refused to inherit the breakfast stall at home for two years. In the end, the breakfast stall was resold by him."
"What did Hu Jingsheng do for a living?"
"He’s a second shopkeeper!"
Zhao Wuwei answered very quickly this time, "He took the money from the seller and bought a share in a grocery store. Now he works as a second shopkeeper for others in the store, and his life is not bad."
"What about his wife?"
"She’s very shrew-like! I heard that there are famous unruly people in that area. She never loses when quarreling with others!"
Sun Shaozong also questioned a lot of details, and some of the questions, Zhao Wuwei and others were also vague. However, in general, according to the consistent style of the two couples, the abuse of the elderly could almost be determined.
In modern times, this was an ordinary civil dispute, and the punishment was nothing more than forcing the son to pay a certain amount of alimony.
However, it was not so simple to put it in the Great Zhou Dynasty. After all, filial piety was the most important thing in these years. Once the crime of disobedience was committed, Hu Jingsheng would be executed prematurely or even exiled for thousands of miles.
Since it involved human life and was the first case since he took over the position, Sun Shaozong naturally had to deal with it carefully.
Even though he had made a judgement in his heart, he pointed out a few vague places one by one and then sent Zhao Wuwei and others out to keep inquiring so as not to be confused.
This content is taken from (f)reewe(b)novel.𝗰𝗼𝐦