Face-Slapping13 min read
They Picked Me for the Prison Wing — and I Picked a Truth
ButterPicks14 views
I remember stepping into the great hall the way you step into water — with your breath held, aware of every ripple.
"All of you be quiet," the Emperor had said the day the decree came down. "Start with the three departments."
He wanted a way to test a change without starting a war in his own court. So they picked women for the three law departments, and I, Eri David, who had come to the capital with nothing but a rumor about a brother and the stubbornness to find him, was one of the three chosen.
"Tell us your name," the elder presiding officer said when the list was read. He had a white beard and eyes like flint.
"Sir," I answered, "Eri David from Bingtown."
His brows twitched, then he pointed toward the sunny courtyard where a young man lay dozing on a stone table like he'd fallen asleep on a throne.
"Wake him," the elder ordered, "he's the one who will be your direct desk captain."
The young man opened one eye, blinked, and then, by the way he tucked the sunlight like a blanket, almost leaned into me. I pushed his shoulder the way you push a stubborn wheel, and he flinched awake, and his head tipped against my hands.
"A little closer," he said when he finally pried his eyes open, and I nearly screamed. He smelled like a river in summer, and the whole courtyard watched.
"Ellis Mahmoud," he told the room when he saw the audience. "My name. I'm on the Zhejiang cases."
"You're late," the elder grunted.
"I was asleep," Ellis said with a grin that made the elder's scowl crack.
The room laughed. I didn't. Laughter floats like a net — and I had learned, early, not to get tangled.
Vittoria Curtis and Annika Estrada were the other two girls who'd passed the selection. Vittoria smiled like a blossom learned to bow before thunder. Annika hovered like a quiet page. They bowed. I bowed.
"You're assigned to Ellis's desk," the elder told me as if lecturing a child.
"Yes, sir," I said.
Later, when Ellis showed me the tiny office under the eaves — papers, case files, and a mattress — he squinted like a man who has let a small fire go out.
"Listen," he said. "When you follow me, you will hear my orders. Do not argue."
"Why should I?" I asked.
"Because if you do, I'll let you carry the folders alone." He smiled again, dangerously lazy. "That's my threat."
I kept my mouth shut after that because a threat mixed with a grin is harder to parry than an open fight.
The first case they gave me to copy was filthy with people’s lives: a man in Hangzhou named Yu Boyu had been found dead by a maid. His right temple had been pierced by a golden hairpin.
"The maid is the suspect," Ellis said. "She was found with the pin."
"She sits like stone," I said, handing him the copied pages. "She doesn't scream. She didn't run. She didn't even spill her bowl."
"That shows guilt," said the official who'd written the report. He scratched at his beard, looking like someone who'd trained his needle to prick only the poor.
"It shows planning," I said. "Someone made it look like the maid did it. But mistakes were made. The place settings were off. The positions don't match the household's rules."
Ellis leaned over the record and into my hands. "Show me."
I set a teacup for the victim, a dish for the mistress, and the maid's spot where she claimed to be. "If one person is left-handed and would naturally set utensils in the left, then a sudden left-handed impression on the right is odd. If the hairpin shows no fingerprint of a left hand, it can't be the maid."
Ellis stared at me as if I had opened a box of light. "You know things," he said. "You count details like a man counts coins."
"Numbers won't warm a bowl," I said. "But they tell you whether the soup's been poisoned."
He laughed then, soft. "Fine. We go to the prison."
We did. The women's ward smelled oddly of spices and old sorrow — and of the way cloth ferments in confinement.
"Marina?" I asked the woman the court records called Yu's maid.
She turned, slow as a clock, back curled like a single black wave.
"Marina Box," she said. "They call me many things."
"Are you the woman who killed Yu Boyu?" I asked, and the silence sharpened.
"I was sold as a performer," Marina said. "I was bought and relabeled. He used me like a charm. When he laughed and drank, I thought of leaving. Then he died."
"You didn't do it," I said.
"You cannot say as you please," the guard snapped.
"Why would a person kill and then return to the same place as if no crime had occurred?" I asked Ellis later, speaking as we left the prison. "Either they were set up, or they made a scene for the stairs to step on."
He looked at me with a worry like a tide. "If it's a setup, someone is hiding something large."
We kept the possibility to ourselves and spent a day copying and arranging evidence. I mapped out every plate, every seat. I found names that didn't match, and a list of guests who weren't listed. I found that the mistress of the household might have had motive that law reports didn't mention.
"You really think it's three people?" Ellis asked in the dim.
"It makes more sense than two," I said. "Two women couldn't quiet a man easily and then sit down again. One pours wine while the other strikes. Then the positions are all wrong. Someone hid the truth."
Ellis finally nodded. "We'll go to Hangzhou," he said.
We rode hard. The towns we passed were white-walled and narrow, and the further south we went, the thicker the heat — and the secrets. Ellis had arranged introductions. One man, a provincial clerk with a puffed chest, greeted us with the sort of false warmth a dog gives the belly that feeds it.
"We will host a meal tonight," he said. "You must attend."
"I hate such shows," Ellis murmured.
"It's necessary," I told him. "Shows cloud the truth until you are ready to pour it out."
At the inn where we stopped for the night, the innkeeper told us something in an aside that put the final gear into motion.
"A fire ten years ago," he said. "A big one. People sold daughters to survive. Some went south. Some went to the pleasure houses."
"Do you know any named Irving Olivier?" Ellis asked.
The innkeeper tensed, then shook his head. "No, but watch. The man who claims the most must hide the worst."
Ellis made a face like someone who'd smelled a rotten fish. "All right. Tomorrow we meet the magistrate."
The magistrate's reception room was a long hall smelling of ink and old decisions. Men in ink-dark robes bowed. I watched everyone as if each had a tell.
"Ellis Mahmoud," a man said, rising from a seat as if sunken. He was broad and well-fed, with a face like a rolled scroll and the smile of someone who had learned to trade favors for silence. "Welcome. I am Irving Olivier, magistrate."
Ellis bowed. I could see his jaw tighten. Something about Irving set the air taut, like a string about to break.
"We are here about Yu Boyu," Ellis said.
"Oh?" Irving said, bright as a lantern. "I thought you came merely on the patrol inspection."
"We follow the facts," Ellis said. "We'd like to review the household's testimony and the transportation logs."
Irving's smile cooled by one degree. "Of course. Anything that promotes justice is welcome. I will arrange the accounts."
"Do you live near the Yu household?" I asked.
"I am neighbor to many," Irving said. "We all share the district."
That night, Ellis and I watched a man from the Yu household brought forward under the pretense of an updated report. The man looked as smooth as his laced boots.
"Do you have anything to say?" Ellis asked him bluntly.
"Only that the maid confessed," the man said. "She was taken in the book and she admitted."
"Are you sure she admitted while sober?" I asked.
The man blinked. "Yes — sober, drunk, and in between. She confessed earlier."
"Who else was present?" I asked.
"No one," he said.
I felt something like a thread break in the world. Either everyone had lied, or someone had made the lie into a story.
We pressed on until a small scrap of truth showed itself — a ledger burned and then discreetly sent to someone in the magistrate's office. Ellis's eyes went very cold.
"We need to see the magistrate's records," he said. "Tonight."
"We'll go at dawn," Irving said smoothly that night when he thought we were asleep. "I will have anything you want for you in the morning."
I almost said the word 'liar' like you pluck a rotten plum, but I kept my mouth as closed as a wallet. Ellis was better. He let the man show his teeth and watched how the magistrate's hand trembled only when the coin chest was mentioned.
In the morning we were ushered into the magistrate's rooms, where a small crowd had gathered because news travels with the speed of gossip. A clerk passed a sealed bundle to Irving. He pretended to read it, then palmed a piece of paper back into his sleeve.
"May we see all ledger copies?" Ellis asked.
"Of course," Irving said, and his smile turned a hair too bright. "Follow my assistant."
We followed. A dozen men watched. A dozen eyes made a net.
In the private records room, I watched Irving's hand. It slid a ledger as if concealing a lover.
"Stop," I said, stepping forward and touching Irving's sleeve. "Don't you think you should show the original?"
He looked at me, startled. "This is official. Who are you to—"
"I'm the person who copies things for the public record," I said. "And I know a falsified ledger when I see one."
It was like striking a drum. He looked amused, then shocked, then enraged.
"You accuse me?" Irving said, tone rising like steam.
"You've altered the transit logs," I said — and I named the exact page and the exact ink difference. "You let the Yu household send their suspect to the capital under an official escort, but the ledger shows a man paid off. The paper has two hands of ink. One that wrote the names, another that added the transport. You sent the maid away to keep your allies safe."
"You're crazy," he said, but his voice hovered between denial and panic.
"Open the door," Ellis told the assistants. "Go fetch the people at the market. Tell them to come. We'll make this an open inspection."
"No," Irving said at once. "You cannot—"
"We will," Ellis said, and his voice became the edge of a blade. "Because law cannot live in a room locked by the rich."
The doors were thrown open. The magistrate's clerks, the neighboring household, market people — every person who had a stake or a sour ear — crowded in like flies to honey.
"What's happening?" a clerk squealed.
"We're making a public record," Ellis said. "And you will witness it."
He took the boxed ledger from Irving's sleeve and set it on the table with the casual ceremony of a grave-digger. Then we brought out the copies I'd made the night before. They matched the original 'official' story. But under it, in different ink, was another line: a note of a paid escort and a transfer of a prisoner on a 'special arrangement'.
A murmur ran around the room. I watched Irving's face cycle through surprise, then anger, then calculation.
"How dare you pry!" he shouted. "You have no right to invade official records."
"You made them public when you sent a woman to die," I said. "You hid the truth behind the magistrate's seal."
"Seal! Seal!" Irving cried. He pointed at the carved seal on the table as if it were armor. "This seal binds how you speak!"
"Let the people decide," Ellis said. "If a magistrate uses his seal to hide a crime, that seal is worthless for justice."
At first the crowd was just noise. Then someone in the back began to clap, slowly. A pair of women near the door pointed, then began to whisper. The clerk who had handed the ledger paled. The people who had been bribed by the magistrate realized their names were now paper pinned to the wall.
"You're making false accusations," Irving said, starting to pace. "You will ruin me."
A guard tried to shrink him into a corner, but Irving burst toward the table and, hands shaking, tried to snatch the ledgers away.
"Stop!" Ellis shouted, and the room shushed as if he had slapped the air. "You will answer. Under oath. Here, in public."
"I did not do anything wrong!" Irving screamed, then faltered. I saw it — the moment he had nowhere to hide. The crowd had him like a fish flapping in the air.
"Did you alter the ledger?" Ellis asked. "Who paid you for the escort? Whose name sits behind your ink?"
Irving laughed at first — the laugh of a man trying to make a joke out of a noose. "You will not take my post," he cried. "You defame me."
A woman in the crowd reached up and hit the table with her palm. "You defame us!" she shouted. "You took our daughters!"
That was the first crack in Irving's mask. A merchant's wife who had years ago sold a child to survive spoke with the texture of a life lived.
"You lie!" Irving shrieked, panic finding the coils of his throat. "I did only administrative work. The Yu household—"
"Aha!" someone shouted. "Here is the receipt." They produced a small scrap of paper, half burned at the corner, with Irving's handwriting and a name scrawled like a signature. Suddenly the room smelled of smoke and the past. The clerk who had kept his ledger stood up and said, "I wrote what he told me. He told me to mark this as ordinary transport. He took my scrivening and reworded it."
Irving's eyes bulged. He stood in the center of the hall, looking smaller than the carved seal at his side.
"What do you want?" he pleaded suddenly, and his voice had dropped from arrogance to begging. "Take my post. Take my coin. Don't destroy me."
A ripple of laughter, then shock. Someone took a coin from their purse as if offering a bribe to save a man. But the crowd's mood had shifted from murmur to fury.
"You sold people," a man yelled. "You turned our miseries into your store of silver!"
A group of household servants began to chant, and soon the entire hall joined in, a steady cadence of: "Justice! Justice!"
Irving's face fell like a house. He went through the motions everyone goes through when caught: disbelief, anger, denial, then bargaining. He flung himself into the clerk's throat, but the clerk stepped aside.
"Forgive me," Irving begged suddenly in an almost animal tone. "Please, I did it for my family. For my sickness in the boy's chest. You must know. I had to —"
"Begging won't give back a life," I said. "You sent a woman to the capital to die without testimony."
"Not to die!" Irving cried. "I told them to hold her! I told them—"
"The ledger shows otherwise," Ellis replied quietly. "Names, ink, receipts: all the things you thought would protect you."
At that point Irving realized the crowd had the ledger and the receipts and the names and people who had been bought and sold were standing in the hall with faces like proof. He crumpled against a pillar. "Please," he begged, "I will pay restitution. I'll give my estate. I will... I will—"
"You will answer to the Provincial Council," Ellis said. "And you will be stripped of your magistrate's seal."
That is the moment when a man who had believed money could smooth everything finally collapses.
"No!" Irving wailed, then pulled himself upright. His kind transformation was brutal and quick: from arrogance to frantic denial to pleading. He stamped and shouted. "It's a lie! You are lying!"
People picked up their phones — a new thing in that old hall — and someone filmed. The crowd circled. A governor's aide, who had watched these things before, sighed and called in a carrier to send the ledger to the capital for review.
Irving fell to his knees on the wooden floor like a pin knocked off a board. "Please," he said, "I did it for the medicine. For the boy. I didn't mean—"
His voice shriveled as the crowd began to chant for law. Some clapped; some spat; some cried. A woman touched the ledger and laughed as if at a released trap.
"Shame on you," someone said. "You cost us our daughters."
"Shame!" came the echo.
Irving's hands shook so hard he could not hold himself upright. He crawled and then slumped, chest heaving.
"Beg me," he murmured to the crowd — then he cried openly, the kind of asking that used to be hidden behind heavier doors. People filmed him, posted, and the post would get traction. In just hours, the news would spread and his position would be forfeit.
"Stop!" he cried suddenly, "I will go to the gallows if you spread this. I'll beg the Emperor. I'll—"
"Your begging will not bring her back," I said.
He dropped his head. The crowd parted like water around a stone as the clerk reached to take the magistrate's seal off the table and set it in a box.
"Take it away," Ellis said softly.
They seized Irving's office keys and his robe. Men in uniforms led him out, not as a magistrate but as a man with shackles in his future.
When he passed by, the people touched him as you touch a ruined wall — with pity and disgust.
No one applauded. No one made jokes. They watched like a community learning how to breath again.
And in that public fall, in the courtyard and in the ledger's open ink, the Maid — Marina — received a kind of air.
"It is done," someone repeated. "We have shown the law is not for sale."
"I wanted justice," Ellis said, not triumph but fatigue in his voice.
"You made it public," I told him. "That is what mattered. A hidden ledger cannot hold a life."
That day Irving Olivier became a man who had to beg for mercy in front of everyone. The punishment at the time was humiliation, removal from office, and immediate custody to await his trial in the capital. He pleaded; he denied; he tried to bargain. He broke. He crawled. He asked forgiveness like a child.
It was not a neat ending. The poor would still be poor, and a mother would still carry a grief no ledger could measure. But the ledger had been opened. The city had seen a magistrate fall, and his fall was a warning that the law might bend back toward truth.
"Will it fix everything?" I asked Ellis after they took Irving away.
"No," he said, "but it makes the next hour better than the last."
A few days later, because the truth bled into the open, Marina's confession was reexamined. People who'd been silenced began to speak. The Yu household's mistress admitted certain things; others were brought forward. The affair was messy: a combination of jealousy, power, and desperation too old to untangle easily.
We went on to travel, to check the condolences, to file reports. I continued to fold ink into paper until my hands were raw.
"Why did you fight for me?" Marina asked me once, in the hot green of the prison courtyard.
"Because I thought you didn't do it," I said. "Because someone had to be stubborn with the facts."
"You are stubborn," she said. "In a city where stubbornness is a small blade, you are a small forest."
Ellis was different after that. He smoked less and watched the way the wind moved his papers. He talked to me in road language — short sentences, with trust laid in the pauses.
"Why did you come to the capital?" he asked me once on a piece of road where the sky looked like stretched silk.
"To find my brother," I said.
"Do you have him?" he asked.
"Not yet," I said. "But I will. I have learned how to follow ink. It will tell me where he goes."
Ellis smiled then and seemed to think about how a man in his place might quietly love a woman who knows maps by paper noise. "Good," he said. "Find him."
We kept working, and when the Emperor's idea to include women in the law departments proved controversial, I noticed that the men who objected were the ones whose hands hid ink.
"It will happen again," someone said in the corridor.
"Maybe," Ellis said. "But now there are eyes that look for paper forgeries."
He put his hand on the small brass hairpin I kept in my pocket — my first talisman from the old days. I had found it in a heap while packing, a simple copper pin, bent but stubborn.
"Keep it tied to your hair," he said. "It marks you as someone who won't give up."
I put it behind my ear the way I put my face to the wind then. Later, I put it into a small box in the desk drawer, a mark of nights when ink and law had been the only comfort.
That hairpin would be the sound you could remember: a soft clink when you opened the drawer at midnight.
I walked the long road back to the east wing of the department and sat with my ledger. I stamped dates and places. I wrote down how Irving Olivier had gone from a dignitary to a kneeling man.
"Today I learned," I wrote in my own ledger, "that a public fall hurts the proud and heals the truth."
And when I closed the book, the copper pin in the drawer clicked like a small, defiant bell.
The End
— Thank you for reading —