History of Women in the Wei Dynasty

Chapter 81 Nie Zhao's Last Words
Yuan Zhi came to the dungeon today to personally comfort those implicated in Bingfang's case who were about to be released. The case had been delayed because on the night of the tenth of the second lunar month, the body of a strangled girl was found in a short alley next to Bingfang's house. On a piece of the body's skin were two patterns drawn with grass juice: one was three drops of water, and the other was a crescent moon.

Based on past cases, this was clearly a secret message in the form of "character splitting." Unfortunately, the content remained undeciphered for two months until Zhao Zhi delivered two bamboo slips, which finally matched up. One bamboo slip was missing the "three waters" radical in all three characters, while the other bamboo slip was missing the "moon" radical in the last fragment.

After releasing all the innocent people in the case, Yuan Zhi inspected each of the dungeons one last time.

The registrar rushed over, saying, "We've finally found the governor."

He handed over several planning documents, which were a large-scale hunting plan for a month, from the beginning to the end of May. The plan included the scale of the procession, the hunting routes, the campsites, the enclosures for wild animals, the mountain and forest areas for wild animals, the reward mechanism, and so on.

I wrote a draft before; this is the final revision.

Yuan Zhi took it, pondering how the registrar was becoming increasingly incompetent—why leave the reward mechanism for last? He moved this page forward to look at the first prize, and upon reaching the end, frowned and asked, "Where's the bear?"

When the capital was moved, a large number of birds and beasts kept in the western garden of the Pingcheng Imperial Palace were left behind. For this hunting activity, Yuan Zhi specially selected dozens of wild beasts to release back into the mountains and forests to cultivate their wildness so that warriors could compete to hunt them.

One of the black bears was particularly terrifying; ordinary arrows would probably only tickle it.

However, when drafting the prize, the bear was not listed as the first type of predator in the first prize category!

It wasn't in the second-class category either. Even if the registrar made a mistake, he wouldn't put it in the third-class or ordinary category, so Yuan Zhi didn't flip through the pages and asked directly, "Where's Xiong?"

"It's gone." The villagers hunted it away; in the wild mountains, whoever hunts it keeps it.

Yuan Zhi was annoyed: Nonsense, I only asked you because it wasn't written on the paper.

"I'm asking you, that bear, that bear! Where's my bear? The bear I specially raised for the Great Hunt? Why isn't it listed in the first prize?"

How do you write "The bear is gone"?

"Write by hand! Use a brush, dipped in ink!"

Are you stupid?!

The official and the clerk exchanged disapproving glances.

Because of this short delay, when Yuanzhi and the registrar left the prison together, they saw that Shopkeeper Nie Zhao had woken up again. Nie Zhao was one of the first to be arrested; he was brought in before the Lunar New Year, and on the third day of the New Year, he couldn't withstand the torture and went insane from fright.

According to the prison guards, the prisoner did nothing but sleep and talk to himself, sometimes recounting a lot of details about the case.

"Cui Hao, his entire family executed...Cui Hao..."

Who? The Prefect and the Registrar quietly stopped and listened.

"So Cui Hao... hehe... really?"

"Let me out! Let me out! Let me out! Ah, where is this?" Nie Zhao suddenly lunged at the iron fence, his skeletal head squeezing between the two bars, looking even more like a demon.

He stared intently at Yuan Zhi: "I'll tell you a secret."

The accompanying jailer said in a high-pitched voice, "Ugh, hurry up and talk."

The registrar leaned close to Yuan Zhi's ear, trying to explain why the prison guard was speaking like that, but Yuan Zhi glared away.

Nie Zhaochao chuckled at the jailer: "Which beauty are you? Alright, let me tell you, I've discovered that a high-ranking official who wiped out an entire clan actually has descendants!" He slowly looked upwards, as if there was something in the sky above.

“I had a feeling that the authorities had their eyes on me this time and I couldn’t escape. I was unusually soft-hearted and felt sorry for that old man, so I delivered the news he had been longing for to him before I was arrested.”

Yuan Zhi gestured to the jailer, who continued to pretend to be a woman and asked, "How annoying, did he receive it?" "He received it... I guess—" As his voice lowered, Nie Zhao sat down against the bars, his eyes half-open and his mouth half-open.

The jailer quickly stepped forward to check his pulse. Poor thing! Dead.

Cui Academy, west of the city.

The servants of Guchang Bird Forest waited for a long time. When Confucius finished supervising the exam, they immediately came over to report: "The mother of Miss Weiyao, Zhao, hunted a bear to thank you, Master. You have been busy, so I went to inform the head of the academy first. The head of the academy told Zhao to take the bear to Guchang Bird Forest."

Confucius, along with Liu Gongquan and others, were all astonished. They decided to go and see for themselves.

Along the way, their disciples followed, and the number of people increased. Yuan Heng and other Xianbei students, who loved excitement, also joined in.

Upon entering the bird forest, the group spotted the large black bear from afar. Yuan Heng exclaimed in surprise, saying to Yuan Zizhi, "There used to be a bear of similar size in the West Garden, no, this bear is even bigger."

At the servant's signal, Zhao Zhi bowed to Confucius and the other scholars, briefly explained her purpose, and after expressing her gratitude, she asked Confucius, "If you are unwilling to keep it, I will..." kill it right now!

"Wow……"

The surrounding schoolchildren erupted in cheers, and many even clapped.

"My goodness, bears are really intelligent; they can even throw stones!"

Zhao Zhi watched with amusement. While waiting for Confucius in the woods, she had nothing better to do, so she picked up a few pebbles and tossed them between her hands for fun, which the black bear had somehow learned.

However, it can only throw two balls.

"Hehe." Confucius, feeling pity for the beast's survival instinct, said, "This bear is lovable, let's keep it." He could still make decisions on such trivial matters.

Kong Mi, Cui Shang, and other disciples were overjoyed.

The most interesting part is yet to come. The black bear is not very good at throwing stones, and the stones fall to the ground. Hearing the humans laughing at it, it is afraid of being slapped by Zhao Zhi, so it quickly learns the second move it just learned while playing... squatting in a horse stance.

And so, the black bear became the guardian spirit of the Guchang Bird Forest, and was even given a name by the students of the school: Black Whirlwind.

Zhao Zhi traveled quickly, and not long after Wei Yao returned home, Zhao Zhi also went home.

"Confucius said that those notes were not just for tutoring in preparation for the joint exam. He told you to memorize them well, and after the great hunt, he would take the disciples of your Xunyi Academy to travel to the surrounding counties and Gaoliu County to teach at the county schools in those places."

Fearing she might have misunderstood, Wei Yao asked carefully, "Did the teacher say whether it was he who was lecturing at the county school, or whether it was us disciples who were lecturing at the county school?"

"Let you speak."

That's wonderful!! Wei Yao had never been this excited in both of her lives combined. She understood that her mentor was going to build up a reputation for his disciples' classical and historical scholarship.

In the Great Wei Dynasty, even the sons of powerful and wealthy families hoped to become famous at a young age and then enter officialdom.

After the initial excitement, Wei Yao told her mother about the fight between Du Ling and Du Tongding. The inn had already reported it to the police, but Du Ling was surprisingly bold and escaped.

"A cornered dog will jump over a wall." Zhao Zhi comforted her daughter, "Don't worry, we won't escape the city." Did she really think the patrolmen were just sitting around doing nothing? Besides, the grand summer hunt was just around the corner, and before Governor Yuan left the city, he would definitely conduct a city-wide search, locking up all the beggars and scoundrels first.

Zhao Zhi was concerned about something else: "Du Ling has run away, who will teach your classes now?"

"The teachers from the university school take turns teaching us. Teacher Li told us that if we can't hire a good teacher in the long term, the number of students coming to the Weixue Academy to study the Book of Poetry may decrease next year."

(End of this chapter)