After entering, there was only Dadui's Faceless Man guarding the place, but Jia Shisi was nowhere to be seen.
It seems that this guy was confident that Yu Ziqing wouldn't return anytime soon.
The people under Jia Shisi respectfully escorted Yu Ziqing back to the palace city.
In the past two years, the Faceless Man has been incredibly idle.
Not to mention the ones who should have been killed, even those who could be killed were almost all wiped out by Jia Shisi.
And overall, things are on the rise. Especially at the lowest levels, it's become a hard goal to ensure no one starves to death.
Anyone wanting to cause trouble and disrupt the increasingly better lives for everyone would quickly find out what it means to be everybody's enemy.
Everyone is busy, Yang is busy with research. Yu Ziqing finds it hard to disturb them.
He, like a loafer, having nothing else to do, started examining the situations of the past few years.
He happened to discover some files; there hadn't been any major cases in years, just some isolated murder cases.
One particularly representative case had file records that were very detailed, documenting everything from confessions to all sorts of details meticulously.
One of the involved individuals had a stutter, and every repeated, stammered word was recorded without any deviation.
Jia Shisi's handling of matters is indeed reliable.
The case was quite straightforward. There was a lazy man who felt more upset seeing others profit from chicken farming than from his own losses.
He then picked some poisonous mushrooms and poisoned hundreds of chickens.
Afterward, he boldly went to the Land God Temple to offer incense, claiming he had served the Earth Spirit for many years and still wanted to become one of the Incense-eating People.
Even if a little lazy, at least he wouldn't starve, and wouldn't need to toil hard.
Inadvertently, he let slip the incident about poisoning the chickens.
Then, the local Earth Deity nearly wet themselves in fear.
Diligently and sincerely devoted, they remained humble during the Earth Deity's chaotic reign; being a truly good person, was appointed as an Earth Deity.
These years, Jia Shisi had purged the Earth Deities several times, and even the deepest hidden ones were dug up.
As long as they are dug up, it's a dead end.
Harboring or sheltering an Evil God was a dead end.
The Incense-eating People were even more of a taboo.
Thus, at once, the land deity apprehended him and reported him.
This incident blew up, and before the court's people arrived, the local villagers, fueled by rage, beat him to death.
Two accomplices who were implicated were chased into an outhouse, and drowned in the latrine.
The reason this incident required cabinet discussion was due to differing opinions among cabinet members.
The primary offender wasn't much of a problem; the issue lay with the two accomplices, as the evidence wasn't airtight, and there was a possibility of the main culprit accusing others at random.
Jia Shisi personally took action, concluding that it was best to kill them directly; drowning in the latrine served as a warning to others.
However, some believed that this precedent should not be set, and while this time, there weren't significant issues,
what if an entire village collectively executed private justice and killed someone, colluding on testimonies, and later it turned out to be wrongful?
What if someone instigated the event, making villagers believe they were doing the right thing, when in fact, they were being manipulated?
This was very easy to happen.
Not every similar case could have Jia Shisi's personal attention.
Junior officers of the court at the lower levels might not have the capability to distinguish truth from falsehood.
They cannot hold Jia Shisi as the standard; they must use ordinary people, and people with average abilities as the standard.
Furthermore, at the beginning of the New Dynasty, with everything being renewed, the decrees of the court promoted benevolent governance, so the requirements for ordinary villagers should not be too harsh.
Therefore, the file still lay here, unresolved.
Yu Ziqing looked at it and felt all parties made reasonable points.
From a personal feelings perspective, Yu Ziqing thought drowning outright was fine; deal with them where they were found.
Yet he had to consider the universality, the capability of the junior officers, and the perspectives of ordinary people.
Thus, Yu Ziqing pondered, and concluded it's best to handle things case-by-case.
The Earth Deity reporting a crime was not wrong, as it's one of the Earth Spirit's duties, which should be rewarded.
The villagers killing someone can't be labeled as wrong, it's just a procedural error at most.
Still, considering long-standing customs and simple emotions, one should not over-correct.
Regarding this case, a little critical education should suffice, just to show a stance.
Maintaining the blood and determination of the subjects is essential.
At most, add a legal education segment into the Jade Tablet later, explaining the case.
Emphasize both punishment and reward; both must be present.
After looking through the file for a while, Yu Ziqing found indeed there were quite a few odd and bizarre matters.
Yet the issues weren't major, so Yu Ziqing annotated some personal comments, advising them to consider.
Becoming addicted to annotation, Yang appeared without him noticing.
Yang floated behind Yu Ziqing, watching as Yu Ziqing annotated "None of your business" on one of the case files, and couldn't help but laugh out loud.
Yu Ziqing raised his head, saw Yang, and couldn't help but tease him.
"You were willing to come out?"
"Ay, if I don't come out, that man named Zhang, he looks for me to drink outside the door every day, not even pushing me, I don't know where he gets so much good wine, I shouldn't have accepted his wine the first time, fell for his trick."
"How is your research progressing?"
"Getting some clues, those three talismans were actually used to link Feng Qi with a certain strong entity.
Someone used its mystical properties, transforming it into the Silence Divine Spell; to fully crack it is nearly impossible.
Unless the original three talismans are found and directly destroyed.
But finding some weaknesses shouldn't be a problem.
Why have you graced us with your presence again?"
Facing the taunt, Yu Ziqing remained unfazed and recounted the previous events.