Jiapingguan Chronicle

Chapter 2724 Still Vigorous in Old Age 108.0
"This is quite normal, isn't it? It shows they really care about these kids. Only when they care and genuinely want to nurture them will they have high expectations and be strict, right?" Jin Miaomiao rested her chin on one hand, while unconsciously drawing circles on the table with the other. "Weren't we like that when we were kids? Now we seem to have a lot of skills, and we're respected by everyone, but who knows what we got those skills from? Not to mention others, all of you here probably suffered just as much as those kids when you were young, right?"

"That's true." Xia Chen stroked his chin and looked at Song Yaojia. "Let alone you two, even though we don't have anything particularly outstanding, we were both taught by renowned masters when we were young, and we were also strictly disciplined. You..." He looked at everyone, "haven't you ever had your palms struck by the teacher's ruler?"

"To be honest, I've never been beaten, but my brother has," Chu Han chuckled. "When I was little, the tutors my father hired were all from very prestigious families. Many of them came from powerful clans and couldn't stand all the formalities, so they ran away to enjoy the freedom they sought. However, they were extremely strict with my brother, me, and all the other children studying at the Prince of Jing's residence. We were allowed to make very few mistakes, but not none. They allowed one or two mistakes, but if you made a third, especially the same mistake three times, they would go crazy. You wouldn't get any food that day, and that was considered a relatively light punishment. In more serious cases, you might have to kneel in the ancestral hall all night." He looked at Xiao Fengqi, then at Qi Zhifeng, "And you?"

“Isn’t this a coincidence? They’re from the same place, and they have the same master.” Xiao Fengqi sighed helplessly and said, “Sometimes, I really feel like they were all taught by the same person, and their styles are exactly the same.”

"Either kneel in the ancestral hall, or kneel in the Buddhist hall, or starve. Oh, and there's also the beating on the hands." Qi Zhifeng shrugged helplessly and said, "Their methods of punishing students are always the same few. I thought it was just my family, but I didn't expect everyone to be like this. Even a century-old family like this can't escape this custom."

“All masters under heaven seem pretty much the same, so no one can say who’s worse off. However, you’ve missed one thing.” Jin Miaomiao held up a finger and shook it, “That is copying books.”

"That's true!" Qi Zhifeng and Jin Miaomiao gave each other a high five. "Brother Fengqi might be a little better off, but I'm so pitiful. I've copied the same book hundreds of times. After I finished copying it, my hands were so badly damaged that I couldn't even keep them."

“So the three of us are basically going down this path.” Jin Miaomiao pointed to herself and Shen Cha. “Copying books is also a common punishment. It looks easy, but it’s not easy at all.”

"It's not easy at all!" Qi Zhifeng pouted. "It took half a month of applying medicine before this arm was even a little better and less painful." He looked at Shen Cha. "I just didn't expect that Sister Xiao Cha would make a mistake."

“I’m human, not a god, of course I’ll make mistakes.” Hearing Qi Zhifeng’s words, Shen Cha was both amused and exasperated, and said, “Miao Miao and I probably copied the most. I guess that’s when I developed my love for reading case files.”

“Me too.” Chu Han raised his hand. “When I was a kid, I said that I could copy books, but copying case files instead of those classic texts was meaningless. The more case files you read, the more patterns you can find, problems you can discover, and flaws you can see. Speaking of which, I have a question for you. Have you ever seen any wrongful convictions or miscarriages of justice by reading case files?”

“Yes!” Shen Cha nodded. “But it can’t be considered a wrongful conviction. At most, it’s just a miscarriage of justice. When I was going through the case files in the capital, I found a few wrongful convictions. Fortunately, they weren’t major cases. It was just a matter of who paid whom money and how much. Those major cases were hard to investigate. Every step was perfectly aligned, and you could see the competence of the people handling the case.”

“Yes, basically all the problems are with these small ones, and they’re harmless, at most a matter of a few taels of silver. As for the big cases, you’ll see many people signing off on them, very cautiously, so it’s not easy to make mistakes. On the contrary, with these small ones, many people just do a sloppy job and are not careful, so the chance of making mistakes is much higher.” “Yes.” Shen Cha nodded. “Actually, I don’t think the Shi family is wrong to be strict with those children. They are young, and this is the time to nurture them properly.”

“That’s not what I meant.” Chu Han waved his hand. “It’s right to be strict with children, but at that time, they were only two or three years old, not old enough for early education.”

“They all came from the Liao or Jin kingdoms. I’m afraid we need to change their accents and lifestyles as soon as possible, so that they can truly become native-born people of the Great Xia.” Shen Cha sighed. “That way, it will be easier to deceive everyone. Otherwise, even if their plan goes smoothly, it will be exposed sooner or later.”

"We've considered all of what you've said, but it breaks our hearts to see these children suffer like this. They shouldn't have to bear these burdens, yet they're unlucky enough to be sold out by their own family," Chu Han sighed. "But compared to the children in the other courtyard, they're much luckier. They excel in various aspects and are valued by the Shi family, so they've specially hired many renowned scholars to teach them. The children in the other courtyard aren't so fortunate. After the other courtyard was raided, we interrogated the stewards responsible for looking after them. They said these children's aptitude isn't good enough and they need to be observed for a period of time—a few days, ten days, but no more than a month. If they still don't show anything remarkable, they'll have to send these children back."

"Take it back?" Jin Miaomiao frowned. "You just don't want it anymore?"

"Yes, those in charge felt sorry for the children. They said they were like objects, being picked over and over again, keeping those who suited their tastes and returning those who didn't. But they were clearly their parents' precious daughters, so why did they have to suffer like this? At the time, one of our judges from the Dali Temple said that if they were their parents' precious daughters, they wouldn't have to suffer like this."

“To be honest,” Shen Cha sneered, “if their families cared about them, they wouldn’t have been brought here.”

“That’s right.” Chu Han nodded, sighed softly, and said, “Of course, those few infants are an exception. They won’t send them back. They plan to raise those children and see if they have any talent when they grow up. Even if they don’t have any talent, they will have a place to arrange for them.”

"How is this any different from child trafficking?"

Shen Haolin took a sip of tea, placed the teacup on the table, and it made a crisp sound.