Volume Two: The Mighty and the Mean Chapter Thirty-Six: A Savage Counterblow, Part One

Huang Ming’s reaction once again defied everyone’s expectations. Why was he not panicking at all?

On the contrary, Xu Qingzhi and Zhang Han, who had not been named, were already pale with fear.

Lin Jinyan was first stunned, then gave a cold laugh. “Putting on airs! I want to see how long you can keep up that stubbornness. Or are you, Huang Ming, one of those who dares to do but not to admit it, insisting you were wrongly accused?”

“How could I not admit it?” Huang Ming looked straight back at him, not yielding an inch. “Yes, over this period of time, the few of us did work with Joyful Residence, Gentle Fragrance, and the other twelve houses to establish a new courtesan ranking. So what of it?”

“So what? You all heard that, didn’t you? Vice Dean Li, he has just admitted in public that he carried out such a shameless and immoral deed, one that has greatly damaged the fine reputation of your Imperial College!”

Lin Jinyan was instantly delighted and at once said to Li Kejian, “Can the Imperial College still keep such a disgraceful pest among its ranks?”

“Wait.”

Before the Vice Dean could respond, Huang Ming cut in first. “What exactly do you mean by shameless and immoral? What exactly do you mean by a disgraceful pest? I would ask Lord Lin to make himself clearer.”

“Ha. Ha ha...” Lin Jinyan let out a few chilly laughs. “At this point, you still want to argue your way out of it?

“You are a student of the Imperial College, yet you went to dance with women from the pleasure quarters and engaged in such filthy conduct. You are utterly disgracing the face of us scholars, and staining the reputation of the Imperial College. Is that really so hard to understand?”

“Indeed, this kind of behavior is not only blackening the name of the Imperial College, but also bringing shame upon the court itself!”

“If even people like this can continue studying at the Imperial College, then the whole world would have reason to laugh at us.”

Several nearby officials, who had come over to lend support, also spoke one after another, all of them acting as though Huang Ming and the others had committed some monstrous offense and deserved severe punishment.

At last, the Ministry of Rites official Wei Ziru delivered the final verdict: “Students as unruly as this, whether judged by etiquette or by the rules of the Imperial College, should be expelled outright.

“Vice Dean Li, this is actually also the meaning of the Vice Minister. I ask that you judge impartially and do not let the reputation of the Imperial College be damaged any further.”

This was a direct pressure placed upon Li Kejian, forcing him to make a decision at once.

Li Kejian’s face once again showed hesitation. He glanced at Zhang Bi, then let his gaze fall on Huang Ming, and was about to open his mouth to settle the matter.

Though he did not wish to do this, though he bore no ill will toward Huang Ming, a student who had only recently come to the Imperial College, and though he had received Zhang Bi’s request for help... still, in the face of such a display and such facts, he could only choose the greater good.

But someone spoke even faster than he did, and that someone was once again Huang Ming.

“I still have a few words to say.”

Li Kejian immediately shut his mouth. He wanted to see what other means Huang Ming had to save himself. Everyone present likewise shifted their attention almost entirely onto Huang Ming.

His face still wore that same calm smile, the look of a man with everything in hand, though a flash of light flickered in his eyes. “I think I understand what you gentlemen mean.

“Simply because the few of us have some connection to pleasure houses, you have decided we are corrupting public morals?”

“Is there anything wrong with that? Pleasure quarters are filthy places, full of corruption and vice. Gentlemen disdain such places!” Lin Jinyan shot back at once.

“In that case, Lord Lin, and all of you here, have never once gone to a pleasure house?”

That question made several of them hesitate slightly, but Lin Jinyan swiftly stepped in and said, “Indeed. My family’s discipline is strict, and I have never gone to such filthy places!”

“Mm, Lord Lin is upright and candid; I admire that.” Huang Ming nodded, then let his gaze sweep across the other officials, whose faces clearly showed some hesitation, though he did not immediately expose them. “So, in the eyes of all of you, pleasure houses and the like are places a gentleman ought to despise. Not only should one not go there, even hearing about them once would require washing one’s ears.”

“That’s a bit too much...” someone could not help but mutter.

Huang Ming smiled at him, then suddenly raised his voice. “Then I have a question for all of you gentlemen: what exactly is the Music and Dance Office under the Ministry of Rites for?”

The hall fell silent at once, and then a burst of laughter erupted from among the students.

Huang Ming gave the officials no chance to speak. He continued loudly, “Under a major court office that prides itself on placing rites above all else, there is the Music and Dance Office, a bureau that specifically manages state-run pleasure houses. And yet now there are still people loudly declaring that pleasure houses are a grave offense against propriety and despised by gentlemen.

“What is that supposed to mean? Is it only the local magistrate who may set fires, while the common people are forbidden to light lamps? Because the pleasure houses under the Music and Dance Office belong to your Ministry of Rites, they are somehow proper, while the pleasure houses run by ordinary merchants are improper?

“Are you saying that the customers who go to the pleasure houses under your Music and Dance Office are practicing the rites of marriage with the women there?”

“Bold words!”

“Presumptuous!”

“Shut your mouth!”

Wei Ziru, Lin Jinyan, and another official whose expression had grown especially dark all spoke out almost simultaneously, interrupting Huang Ming’s mockery and scorn.

The students present could not help laughing again, and then all of them burst into open laughter. The atmosphere in the hall was now filled with merriment, and even several lecturers from the Imperial College were suppressing smiles.

No one had expected Huang Ming to be so eloquent, so sharp-tongued, and his courage was even more astonishing than expected.

He had truly confronted these officials, whose status far exceeded his, face-to-face and blow for blow.

But he was still not finished. After a brief pause, Huang Ming went on, “What, since you cannot persuade with reason, you want to crush people with power instead?

“Do I speak falsely? You keep invoking rites and rules, but in truth, are you not only scheming over those bits of benefit?

“This gentleman here must be from the Music and Dance Office, yes? The reason the Censorate and the Ministry of Rites have both moved to impeach a nobody like me, someone who has not even earned a degree, is probably because your Music and Dance Office has been working behind the scenes—calling in favors, forming cliques, and pushing out competitors!”

One towering accusation after another was hurled at the heads of these officials, leaving them completely stunned.

Even Lin Jinyan, the censor most skilled in argument, had flushed red with anger, yet could only stand there speechless, unable to find a forceful rebuttal.

Because all of it was true, and true in a way that could not be neatly laid out before everyone.

And now Huang Ming had dragged it all out into the sunlight. How were they supposed to bear that?

Wei Ziru’s expression shifted several times. At last, he had fully experienced the boy’s sharpness, and knew he could no longer allow him to continue stirring things up. So he pressed on again. “Even so, that does not mean you have not committed a fault. According to the rules of the Imperial College, the three of you should be expelled from the institution!”

This was outright bullying by force, an attempt to impose guilt where none existed. Even Li Kejian frowned, already wanting to push back.

And then Huang Ming let out another long laugh. “If you want to say I have committed a fault, it would be better to say that each and every one of you has committed a far greater one!”