The Dragon Travels the World: Storms in Xiaoxiao

A widow in Xiaowen County was sentenced to be executed after the autumn harvest. The entire county rallied to her defense and appealed to the prefectural court, but the original verdict was upheld on retrial. The people stormed the execution ground, and Eunuch Ding promised to retry the case and hand down a harsher sentence to quell the unrest. No one expected that the true culprit was the widow herself. The person she had killed was her own son...

The county yamen in Fuyuan County received a petition from a Taoist nun of Qingping Temple, known as Qingyue. The young magistrate ruled that she had no further ties to her family. Qingyue's clan matriarch refused to accept the ruling and insisted on appealing to the prefectural court. The verdict was changed: the nun was accused of defying propriety, of being unfilial and unrighteous, and ordered to return to secular life. Wearing her Taoist robes, the nun gave her life for the Dao. Ten years later, Chu Tianyou unexpectedly met a fellow believer. After hearing the story, he agreed to go to Fuyuan County and reopen the case to clear the nun's name. An old clerk at the county yamen told Chu Tianyou that after the nun's death, the magistrate who had ruled against her hanged himself. No one knew why.

The scholar clan case in Liufang County, the private settlement case in Mingzhou Prefecture, the kiln master's murder in Tao Guan Village, the pig-cage case in He'an County, the Yin-Yang top scholar case in Panmen...

"These cases all stem from the rules of propriety. Observing those rules should be the foundation of peace for family and country, yet they have become a stormy rain for some."

Chu Tianyou closed his eyes and sighed.

Bai Shanshan handed him the written verdict. "My lord, announce the judgment."

"All right."

[Cases only, collecting standalone stories cut from Xu Yan's work, no overarching plot]

Theme: Better to die speaking than live in silence