The cold air in the Grand Tribunal Chamber was thick with the scent of unrolled thick parchment and drying seal wax.
Two hundred Imperial Censorate Marshals stood in motionless, black-iron ranks along the marble outer edge, their axe-spears resting at port arms.
In the center of the hall, kneeling upon the cold stone floor, was Scholarch Bao.
The Chief Judge was stripped of his ritual hat and counting frame-stitched surcoat. His bare wrists were bound in heavy anti-spirit vein iron chains that bit into his gray flesh.
Beside him stood Zhao Wuji.
Even with four royal axe-spears crossed before his chest, the young master of the Grand Fortune Clan refused to drop to his knees. His brocade robes were stained with coal dust. But his chin remained lifted, his lips curled into the poisonous, legalistic sneer of a corporate heir addressing a regional tax clerk.
“Inspector Tie,” Zhao Wuji said, his voice ringing with high-born defiance across the silent hall.
“You may arrest Scholarch Bao for office irregularities in his town filings. But you can’t touch the Grand Fortune Clan! The Four Academies hold sovereign patent charters granted under Imperial Seal during the Second Dynasty! That fire brute Lin Ke is a heretic!”
