The Sleuth of Ming Dynasty (ENGLISH TRANSLATION)

CH 26

Steward Li became worried upon hearing this, promptly saying, “Young Lord, Sir Tang has been greatly kind to us—“

“Old Li, who’s actually in charge of this family right now?” Li Lin cut him off with. “You, or me?”

How loyal Old Li was, to get thoroughly anxious at that. “It’s you, of course!” he said on repeat.

Li Lin had no patience. “Since it’s me, you don’t have a say! Even though he’s an official and we’re commoners, is an official allowed to have no regard for law or the Heavens? This is the capital, not some remote area. If it wasn’t for him, how could Father have become a murder convict?”

Tang Fan sneered slightly. Maybe this Young Lord of the Li’s had read himself stupid. “Li Lin, even though Lady Zhang hadn’t been your birth mother, she had nurtured you since you were a child, never using another’s hands to do what she wanted to do. That warm, motherly heart could move anyone allowed to see it. Between the favors of being born and being raised, how can they be weighed separately? Li Man is your father, but he’s also the very murderer that killed your mother. You being in a conflicting mood and finding everything around you difficult I can understand, but if you can’t distinguish between right and wrong as a result, then what use were all those years of strenuous studying?”

Li Lin stiffened his neck. “Who doesn’t know by now that she was only good to me because she couldn’t have her own son?!”

Tang Fan’s gaze turned cold, and he shook his head. “Seems all those books you’ve read have gone into the belly of a dog. I’ve really let down your mother in the Nine Springs.”

“Since that’s so, please go ahead and leave, Sir Tang!” the other raged. “I know that you’re a Shuntian Judge, but the capital is filled with officials, and your sixth rank really isn’t much. Ah-Dong is a slave of the Li’s, so how she’s getting placed is for me to decide! I said I won’t sell her, so I won’t!”

This Li Lin was a bizarre person.

It could be said that he had gone stupid from studying and had no grasp of everyday matters, but sometimes, he was extremely spot-on and correctly-spoken in his remarks. An official of Tang Fan’s rank was indeed not much in the capital, and as a Judge, he wasn’t to manage something like another family’s selling of its slaves. If he forcibly took Ah-Dong away right now and then Li Lin made a fuss to his superiors, he would inevitably be denounced by a censor as someone that ‘fought with a citizen over a maid’, even if he had done no such a thing. It would influence his reputation.

To say that Li Lin was intelligent, however… from his current statement that his primary mother being good to him had ‘other motives’, Tang Fan’s opinion of him had immediately dropped a thousand zhang.

No matter what feelings were between Li Min and Lady Zhang, that was something for the older generations. As a junior, Li Lin having conflicting and bitter emotions was normal, but he would rather overlook Lady Zhang’s investment in him to blindly shield his father.

That, of course, could be described as a type of filial piety. A stupid one, if it were.

One didn’t need to conduct themself selflessly and honestly, but they at least had to distinguish between kindness and resentment. If they couldn’t tell the difference between good and evil, then they wouldn’t have much of a future.

Tang Fan nodded. “Ah-Dong is part of your household, so you placing her is only fit. That’s correct.”

With that, he was disinclined to give Li Lin one more look, straight-up turning around and leaving.

By the time he came out the Li’s front gate, Old Li quickly caught up to him from behind, panting hard. “Sir Tang, the Young Lord is still young. Please be magnanimous, and don’t lower yourself to his level; this lowly one apologizes to you!”