In the Government Office, the authoritative voice was dull and heavy, and the crowd of onlookers found it extraordinary. After so many years, this was the first time the county magistrate had opened court to hear a case in the afternoon!
Li Chang straightened his official robes. Even though it was early autumn, he was beginning to sweat. Looking down at the man kneeling in the courtroom, and at Xia Zheng standing beside him, Li Chang immediately felt a surge of pity for the man.
There was no need to hear the case, Lin Dashuan's abduction and trafficking of the young girl from a good family were irrefutably proven, and, according to the laws of the dynasty, sufficient to incarcerate him for several years. With a strike of the awe-inspiring wooden hammer, Li Chang bellowed, "Lin Dashuan, you trafficked a child, and the evidence is irrefutable. What do you have to say for yourself?"
