Chapter 553: Sorry to Interrupt, Please Continue
There was once a joke that circulated among men:
A man must learn to treat himself better. Because the moment he falls sick or collapses, another man will take his job, spend his money, sleep in his bed, lie with his wife, and beat his children.
For the longest time, Zhu Ping’an had thought it was merely a cynical joke—a bitter little piece of humor people used to tease one another.
But now, listening to the white-bearded elder speak with such grief and indignation, Zhu Ping’an suddenly realized something.
That joke had actually been far too gentle.
The reality before him was far crueler.
A kindhearted, honest man had saved a woman’s parents from death. He had married her, clothed her in silk and finery, given her affection, care, and security. He had treated her parents as though they were his own flesh and blood, showering them with silver, land, and property, granting every request without complaint.
And his kindness had not stopped there.
He had also taken in a starving orphan who once scavenged for scraps alongside pigs and stray dogs. He had fed him, clothed him, taught him how to survive, how to conduct business, even helped him build a family of his own.
Yet in return?
The woman whose family had been saved betrayed him shamelessly, becoming unfaithful despite everything he had done for her.
The orphan he had rescued became a white-eyed wolf, repaying kindness with treachery—eating the man’s food, spending the man’s money, living beneath the man’s roof…
…and sleeping with the man’s wife.
Judging from the reactions of the white-bearded elder and the entire village of Ma Family Village, this cruel reality was unquestionably true.
Good deeds are rewarded?
No.
Not here.
Kindness had not received kindness in return.
Instead, this brutal reality trampled upon the very values people clung to their entire lives. It overturned the simple belief that good would be repaid with good and evil with evil.
Honestly…
After hearing the full story, even Zhu Ping’an felt a surge of curses raging wildly through his mind.
What a damned, rotten reality.
Forget the Ming Dynasty natives, who placed immense importance upon morality and ritual propriety—even Zhu Ping’an, a modern man who had crossed over from another era, felt utterly revolted after hearing the story. An ugly, smoldering anger lodged itself inside his chest and refused to settle.
“Your Excellency!”
The white-bearded elder’s emotions grew increasingly agitated, his body trembling as he spoke.
“To kill one is to warn a hundred! Only by punishing the past can we prevent future wrongdoing! Ever since the adulterous pair drowned a hundred years ago, our Ma Family Village has remained free of such disgraceful filth for over a century. For more than one hundred years our village customs have been pure, our people prosperous and upright!”
The surrounding villagers erupted once more into furious agreement.
Indeed—
These two were absolutely despicable.
But even so…
Pig-cage drowning was still a private execution.
And what was a private execution?
It meant punishing someone outside the formal process of law. It meant inflicting penalties through personal authority rather than official judgment.
Which, strictly speaking, violated the law itself.
As the ancients said:
“Do not grant private rewards that disrupt public justice; do not carry out private punishments that undermine state law.”
For example, if someone murdered your friend, you were not supposed to seek revenge personally and kill the murderer yourself. You were meant to hand the criminal over to the authorities and allow the government to punish him according to law.
Thus, no matter how disgusting this affair was—
No matter how revolting these two people were—
They could not simply be drowned alive because the villagers hated them.
Once laws existed, the world was no longer merely a realm of impulsive vengeance and wandering heroes.
Everything had to follow the law.
Of course…
“Following the law” did not mean these two would escape punishment.
In truth, the punishments recorded throughout China’s dynastic histories were often a hundred times crueler than drowning in a pig cage.
Lingchi—death by a thousand cuts.
Dismemberment by five horses.
Waist-severing.
Boiling a person alive.
Molten lead poured down the throat…
And under the founding emperor of the Ming, the Hongwu Emperor Zhu Yuanzhang, there were even more terrifying tortures.
For instance:
The “Shovel Meeting”—corrupt officials buried alive in rows with only their heads exposed above ground before executioners swung massive axes through them, severing several heads at once.
Or “Brushing”—a deceptively elegant name for an unimaginably bloody punishment. Prisoners were stripped naked, laid upon iron beds, doused with boiling water, then scrubbed with iron brushes until nothing remained but skeletons.
Or “Gut-hooking”—exactly as horrifying as it sounded. Iron hooks inserted through the anus, pulling out the intestines alive.
And most infamous of all—
The Hongwu Emperor’s signature punishment: skinning and stuffing.
The victim’s skin would be peeled off intact, turned into a grotesque human-skin sack, stuffed with straw, and displayed publicly as a warning.
Compared to such punishments, drowning in a pig cage was hardly the most terrifying method imaginable.
The conduct of the man and woman inside the cage was, to put it precisely, adultery.
Therefore, they should be punished according to whatever the Great Ming Code prescribed for adultery.
That was the key issue.
Zhu Ping’an slipped his official credentials and blackwood tally plaque back into his robes and began searching through the laws of the Great Ming in his memory.
The imperial examinations covered Ming law extensively, so he was quite familiar with the statutes. Very quickly, he recalled the relevant provisions one by one and reached a clear understanding of how the matter should be handled.
Fortunately—or perhaps unfortunately—
This was not modern society.
In modern times, adultery had long since ceased to be a criminal offense. By 1997, modern law no longer punished consensual affairs between adults. At most, such scandals merely became gossip fodder, feeding tabloids and internet media.
Mistresses.
Casual affairs.
Secret lovers.
Modern society had endless varieties of such messes.
But this was ancient times.
This was the Great Ming.
And unlike the modern world—where some people even shamelessly glorified infidelity as “ability”—adultery in ancient China was considered utterly disgraceful and morally unforgivable. Every dynasty, every legal code, treated it as a crime.
The Ming laws regarding adultery were especially detailed, with different punishments depending on the exact circumstances.
Zhu Ping’an’s gaze slowly swept across the crowd before finally settling on the man and woman inside the pig cage.
He studied them for about two seconds.
How they would be dealt with depended entirely on the precise circumstances of the case.
That distinction mattered.
“Remove the cloths from their mouths,” Zhu Ping’an instructed the young men beside the cage.
“Huh?”
The youths stared at him in shock.
Remove the gags?
Was he planning to release them?!
“Y-Your Excellency, this…” several of the young men stammered, utterly dumbfounded.
The crowd immediately erupted into uproar.
The villagers could not understand him at all. Their eyes filled with anger and disbelief. Had they not feared Zhu Ping’an’s official status, they probably would have rushed forward and beaten him half to death already.
Even with that fear restraining them, many had already begun silently categorizing him as one of those corrupt “dog officials.”
In stark contrast, the man and woman inside the cage were overwhelmed with excitement.
Especially the woman.
Tears shimmered in her eyes as hope surged wildly through her heart. The battered steward, whose swollen face barely resembled a human being anymore, also writhed excitedly within the cage.
“Your Excellency!”
The white-bearded elder suddenly stepped forward again, voice trembling with anguish.
“If these shameless sinners are not eliminated, our Ma Family Village will never know peace again! If this continues, the village’s moral customs will decay day by day. This old man would have no face left to meet the villagers… nor our ancestors!”
His eyes suddenly reddened.
“If they are not drowned today—then I shall drown myself instead, to apologize before the ancestors of Ma Family Village!”
With that, the old man shoved through the crowd and rushed toward the raging river pool.
“Careful!”
Zhu Ping’an reacted instantly, reaching out to stop him before he could leap. The villagers also panicked and hurriedly grabbed hold of the elder.
“Please calm yourself, Elder,” Zhu Ping’an said earnestly, bowing deeply with cupped hands. “This official merely has several questions to ask. Once the facts are clarified, I shall naturally handle the matter according to law.”
Then he added solemnly:
“Even if the Son of Heaven breaks the law, he is punished the same as a commoner. Whether emperor or peasant, guilt is determined according to the law alone. Once I have fully understood the circumstances, they will absolutely be punished according to Ming law.”
After speaking, Zhu Ping’an bowed deeply once more.
The white-bearded elder stared at him for a long time before finally sighing heavily.
“…Very well.”
He waved his hand reluctantly.
“Do as the official says.”
Only then did the young men grudgingly remove the cloth gags from the prisoners’ mouths.
The moment the gag came free, the swollen steward immediately burst out in frantic gratitude.
“To save a life is worth more than building a seven-story pagoda! Your Excellency’s kindness is immeasurable! I swear I’ll build a shrine in your honor someday and offer incense day and night!”
The woman also cried repeatedly:
“This humble woman thanks Your Excellency! I shall chant sutras and pray to Buddha every day for my benefactor’s blessings!”
The villagers exploded in fury upon hearing them.
“Shameless!”
“Dog adulterers!”
“Disgusting pair!”
Curses rained down endlessly from every direction.
Yet Zhu Ping’an ignored it all completely.
His face remained calm as he turned toward the white-bearded elder.
“May I ask, Elder—when exactly were these two discovered committing adultery?”
“Just now!” several villagers shouted at once. “We caught them in bed together!”
“We had heard rumors long ago,” others added angrily, “but never caught them before. This time we seized them red-handed!”
The village elders nodded in confirmation.
Zhu Ping’an lowered his head and looked toward the pair inside the cage.
“Is that true?”
The two avoided his gaze.
Neither admitted it outright nor denied it.
Which was essentially admission enough.
After all, with so many witnesses catching them in the act, denial was impossible.
“Oh.”
Zhu Ping’an nodded faintly.
“So they were caught in the act.”
Then he turned back toward the crowd.
“May I ask whether Master Wang himself is present?”
The villagers immediately turned their eyes toward a man standing nearby.
His complexion was dark and ordinary, his features so average they would disappear in any crowd. Yet his clothes were of fine quality. This was clearly Master Wang.
At this moment, however, his face was filled with humiliation and despair. His spirit looked utterly crushed, as though his soul had already left his body.
“When the adultery was discovered,” Zhu Ping’an asked, “was Master Wang personally present?”
“It was Master Wang who led us there to catch them!” the villagers answered all at once.
Master Wang lowered his head heavily and cupped his hands toward Zhu Ping’an.
“My family has brought shame upon itself,” he said bitterly. “I have made a fool of myself before Your Excellency.”
Zhu Ping’an nodded quietly after hearing this.
He asked no further questions.
Instead, he turned toward the white-bearded elder and the villagers of Ma Family Village and bowed deeply with cupped hands.
“My apologies for disturbing your affairs.”
“Please continue.”
Then—
Without another word—
He turned and walked away.
“…What?”
The crowd froze in place, stunned.
For several moments, no one understood what had just happened.
The first to react were the two prisoners inside the pig cage.
“Your Excellency! Your Excellency, don’t go!”
“You said you’d save us!”
“Please, Your Excellency! Please!”
Their screams became shrill and desperate as they watched Zhu Ping’an’s departing figure.
But Zhu Ping’an never turned around.
Instead, in a calm, quiet voice, he recited the law of the Great Ming.
“According to Regulation Nine of the Collected Statutes of the Great Ming: If a husband catches his wife committing adultery in the very place of the act and immediately kills both adulterer and adulteress, he shall not be prosecuted.”
His voice drifted softly upon the wind.
“Under Ming law, if a husband catches the adulterers in bed… he may kill them on the spot.”
Kill them.
Whether by clubbing, drowning, or sinking them in a lake…
What difference did it truly make?
Zhu Ping’an shook his head faintly.
Without looking back again, he untied his horse, mounted it in one smooth motion, and rode away.
Behind him, distant sounds drifted faintly through the wind—
Desperate crying.
Excited cheering.
Then the rhythmic chant of the villagers once more:
“Heave-ho… heave-ho… heave-ho…”
Finally—
Two heavy splashes echoed from the river.
The crowd erupted into thunderous celebration.
“We Ma Family Village shall enjoy another hundred years of prosperity!”
Even the white-bearded elder’s voice, crying joyfully toward the heavens, carried faintly across the distance.
Zhu Ping’an let out a long sigh.
Then he pressed his heels harder against the horse’s flanks and rode away faster beneath the fading sky.
Good and evil will always meet their reward.
Heaven’s justice turns in endless cycles.
If you do not believe it—
Then look up and ask:
When has Heaven ever spared anyone forever?