Arriving at Magistrate Peng’s official manor, after a bit of discussion between Zhi Wei and Ning Yi, they decided to present themselves as royal guards since they have the appropriate identification and all local government have the obligation of housing royal guards anyway.
Magistrate Peng is a middle aged scholarly looking man who welcomed them politely and then sent his servant out to find a physician to tend to their wounds.
Noticing a hint of worry in Magistrate Peng expression, Zhi Wei inquires after it but Magistrate Peng just shakes his head with a resigned smile “Thanks for your concern. Dragons can’t win over the ruling snake, you guys can’t help with problems over here….” (This is a Chinese saying that says no matter how great and powerful a person is, it is difficult to win over the local scoundrel who has all his friends around him. So what the Magistrate is saying is that even though Zhi Wei might be of some importance in the Capital she can’t really help him when it comes to dealing with local powerful scoundrels because while they might bow to her status while she is around but they will just revert right back to the way they were once she is gone.)
Full of smiles, Zhi Wei protests “But we are royal guards.”
“Royal guards…” Magistrate Peng laughs sadly and shakes his head again as he walks away “Around here, the Shen family, are the royals. What can a guard do here….”
Zhi Wei smiles then sends Helian out to see what information he can find. After a bit, Helian is not back yet but some loud noises could be heard coming from the front of the manor. The front of the manor is where the official magistrate business is conducted so who would dare to make trouble there? Magistrate Peng’s furious voice come floating back “I have worked diligently for the last ten years to serve the Emperor and the people, what wrong have I committed that you are taking my post away from me?!” Zhi Wei sneers coldly as more loud arguments followed. After a bit, Helian comes back with an expression that is a mixture of anger and excitement “Provincial administrator Shen is accusing Magistrate Peng of accepting bribery and is giving his job to Shen Jun Xin…who by the way, is Provincial administrator Shen’s cousin.” Helian had just finished talking when a group of men burst in and one of the men yells “The new magistrate is moving in! Anyone who has no business of being here has to leave immediately! Report your identity, then scram!”
All the men are wearing magistrate guards’ uniforms. The leader of the group is an arrogant looking pale face man who is wearing a gold-laced black hat. Judging by the pattern on his belt, the man is actually a fourth sub-level official. (These particular hats are worn by government officials so that means this man is the new magistrate. All government officials are differentiated by levels so the fourth sub-level is fairly high.) Standing beside the pale face man is a fifth level official who snickers arrogantly as he points at the yard “This manor is closed today. Magistrate Shen needs to have important meetings with his subordinates so everyone else who has no business here has to get out!” Rushing in, Magistrate Peng protests angrily “Even if you are taking over, what has that to do with anyone else. You have gone overboard!”
“Old Peng” The pale white faced man, Shen Jun Xin gives Magistrate Peng a look of disdain “You should shut up now. You can’t even save yourself, why waste time on unimportant people. Instead, you should start thinking about how to write your statement of confession!”
“These guests are royal guards!” Magistrate Peng stumps his foot in frustration “You can’t do this!”
“Stop!” The fourth sub-level official threatens coldly ” So what if they are royal guards? They are just sixth level guards or do you imagine you can use them to get yourself off the hook? With me here today, no one can protect you!”
Full of indignation, Magistrate Peng replies “Preposterous! The royal guards might not have high level status but they are still the emperor’s royal guards. Once they leave the palace, they represent the Emperor. Are you really so arrogant that you can even ignore the Emperor’s own royal guards?”
His head cocked to the side, Official Liu (that’s the fourth level official) stares at Magistrate Peng with amusement for a few moments before suddenly bursting out in laughter. Leaning close to Magistrate Peng’s ear, Official Liu snickers “…you are correct. In the places that are under Governor Shen’s control, then he is your king!”
Stumbling back in shock as he stares at Official Liu, Magistrate Peng finally lets out a long sigh “I have known for a long time the Shen clan is arrogant but I didn’t know it was to this point!”
“Take off your magistrate robe! You are confined to the library until the governor decides what to do with you!” Shen Jun Xin gives Magistrate Peng a hard shove. Taking Shen Jun Xin’s cue, his men rushed up to flip off Magistrate Peng’s hat (this is significant because it is a symbol of his office).
“What crime did I commit?!”
“Accepting bribes!”
“You can go search my room right now!” In the middle of struggling, Magistrate Peng points at the direction of his living area “If you can find any more than ten silvers then you can extradite me to the Capital.”
“To the Capital? Governor Shen has all the authority he needs to deal with you!”
“I am innocent!”
“To not respect Governor Shen is a crime itself!” Shen Jun Xin shouts back then points at Zhi Wei’s courtyard “A few mere sixth-level guards, to dare not come out and bow down to Official Liu is a crime!”
“Bang!” A boot suddenly flew out of the courtyard and slams right into Shen Jun Xin’s face. Shen Jun Xin lets out a yelp then almost faints when he gets a whiff of an indescribable smell.
“Crime?! Bow to you? Might as well bow to your grave!” Not bothering with the door, Helian jumps out through the window with only one shoe on. “You Hans (another way to refer to the Chinese people) are really terrible! Filthy!” Through the half opened window, Zhi Wei who is sipping tea shakes her head and sighs as she leisurely plays a game of “blind chess” with Ning Yi. Hearing Zhi Wei’s sigh, Helian immediately turns around and gives her an apologetic smile “I am not talking about you.” Calm and unaffected, Zhi Wei replies “No worries, filthy indeed.”
“If my Eight Braves are here” Helian puffs up his chest “they would for sure give him a lashing.”
“You could give it as well.” Zhi Wei dryly reminds him.
“You dare!” Finally snapping out of his daze, a furious Shen Jun Xin yells “You dare to harm someone in the magistrate manor! You are dead! Guards…”
*Crash!* With one swoosh of his whip, Helian sends Shen Jun Xin flying back about 10 steps until he landed face down into the dirt.
“You dare!” Official Liu apparently could fight a bit since he immediately put a foot on Helian’s whip “Where did this cocky kid come from? Guards! Arrest him!”
With another twist of his hand, Helian flips Official Liu off his whip and sends him into the dirt as well. Looking around with a sneering smile, Helian shakes his head “The thief yelling for justice, the arrogant accusing others of being cocky? I thought I was arrogant enough out in the wild grassland but apparently compared to you guys, I was quite tamed.”
“You dare to attack a sub fourth level official!” Official Liu grabs the whip then reaches for his sword with another hand. However, before he can pull out his sword a foot has stepped on his right hand. Official Liu looks up but he could only see the man’s bright starry eyes peeking out behind the white veil. The man slowly plucked his official seal off from his waist, looked at it then says slowly “Sub Fourth level.” Still moving slowly, the man takes a seal with the letters “the royal palace, emperor’s personal sword carrying guard” off from his own waist and smacks it on Official Liu’s face as he says “Fourth level.”
“…..”
A bit of explanation there. This particular ranking of officials is called the Nine Ranking System. (By the way, there were quite a few different systems used by various emperors in China’s long history so this is just one of them.) In this system, the smaller the number the higher the rank which is why the sub fourth level official Liu looked down on our leads when he thought they were simply sixth level guards. The sub fourth level is lower in rank than fourth level so that’s why Gu Nan Yi out ranked Official Liu. Gu Nan Yi’s seal also gives him the right to carry swords in the palace around the Emperor which is an honor that is given to very few people.
Almost passing out when Gu Nan Yi walked right on them like he was stepping on wooden planks, the two officials yell angrily “This is insurgency!” and orders their guards to attack…but how could the likes of them get close to Helian? With utter ease, Helian sent all the guards flying like he was merely kicking balls around.
Magistrate Peng who was just trembling with anger moments before now looks around in complete surprise.
“You guys are the ones who are insurgents!” In the middle of chaos, a chess piece shoots out and opens the window to reveal Zhi Wei’s cool and stern face “The great crown prince Helian of Huzhuo clan of the North Wildlands has been sent here on official royal business as the Imperial Censor and you dare to treat him like this?!” Dazzled by the long list of titles, the two officials and the guards promptly lost all their arrogance as they exchanged bewildered glances- weren’t they just sixth level guards? Where did a crown prince come from?
All text copyright @ www.Ninja-Reflection.com
Awesome. Thanks!
BRAVO!!!!!!!
oooohhhh!!! soooo good! Thanks…can’t WAIT for next week. So good.
Helian, surprise me in this novel scene, I was impressive by this move. I can wait to see what happens next week. Thanks for the translations and the exclamation ………..
This novel scene, He stands out, I always though he is somewhat of an intrusion in between ZW and NIng Yi … But again I am impress……….
It is terrible what they did to Helian’s character in the drama. He was such an awesome character from the beginning to the very end so it was such a shame to see the drama made this larger than life character into an annoying man who let his selfish desires rule him.