A Silent Plea for Justice

Jiang Wanqing, the legitimate daughter of the Jiang family, was rendered mute at the age of nine by a bowl of medicinal sweet soup. Since childhood, she had been betrothed to Lin Yanzhou, a down-on-his-luck scholar. Her stepmother, Madam Wen, cared only about wealth and status. She intercepted the letter announcing his success in the imperial examinations, forged a marriage contract, and planned to send her own daughter in Jiang Wanqing’s place. Worse, during a sea voyage, she pushed Jiang Wanqing into the waters beyond Jieshi Bay, intending to dispose of her body and cover up the crime. But Jiang Wanqing was not destined to die: a fisherman rescued her. The mute girl saved by the fisherman disguises herself as a man and travels a thousand miles to the capital. Unable to speak, she uses a brush as her tongue. When three fingers on her right hand are severed, she bites her fingertip and writes her accusation in blood. When no one in court will believe her, she strikes the courthouse drum with her head: boom, boom, boom. Its sound shakes half the capital. The fisherman turns out to be a just official. The dead suddenly return, her younger sister betrays her stepmother in court, and the stepmother’s final attempt to turn the tables is shattered by an original prescription for the muting drug from ten years ago. This is the story of a “voiceless” woman risking her life to demand justice. It is not only about clearing a wrongful accusation and bringing the wicked to justice, but also about someone robbed of her voice making a silent protest that ultimately brings the truth to light. It proves the saying: The net of justice is vast, but lets nothing through.