Chapter 898 Catch them all in one swoop
Chapter 898 Catch them all in one fell swoop
One month later, Lingxiao Palace.
The Jade Emperor widened his eyes and looked in disbelief at the immortal officials kneeling below.
Wow, there are more immortal officials kneeling down to confess and repent than those standing!
He had known that the immortal officials in heaven were not clean, but he did not expect the situation to be so serious. If he killed them all, there would definitely be some innocent people. If he lined them up and killed every one of them, there would still be some who escaped!
Looking at the golden treasure chest again, what was filled inside was no longer fairy jade, fairy materials, and fairy treasures, but a jade slip catalog. Just the list of confiscated or recovered stolen money and stolen goods was enough to fill this giant storage magic weapon with a space storage function, equivalent to the size of a dozen football fields.
Next to the golden treasure chest, there is another black treasure chest carved from black jade. The capacity of the chest is similar to that of the golden treasure chest, but it contains case files and evidence of concluded cases.
Fairy messengers serving the Jade Emperor have already randomly selected several case files and presented them to the Jade Emperor for his review. All of them were handled extremely well, with ironclad cases that were firmly established.
The chain of evidence is so complete, including not only signed confessions, but also testimonies, physical evidence, video materials, case analysis reports, criminal psychological profiles, damage reports, sentencing assessment reports, and donation and reduction of guilt review reports...
Want to reverse the case?
Unless Daozu Hongjun reverses cause and effect and goes back in time to the time before he committed the crime, he can urge him to stop in time.
With this box of "Biography of a Hundred Immortals" as the endorsement, all the sinful immortals kneeling before the Jade Emperor had an expression of resignation. Not to mention crying out for injustice, some immortals even secretly slapped themselves in the face, looking heartbroken and regretful for what they had done, revealing a sense of shame that "I'm sorry to be born an immortal."
In the past, the Jade Emperor had a heavenly punishment mechanism in which he would select a few lucky immortals for severe punishment. Regardless of whether the punished immortals were guilty or not, they all showed resentment, as if they believed that God was blind.
Never before has there been such a situation where people are so obedient, honest and have no complaints.
Now, not only did they appear, but hundreds of immortals did the same. Logically, the Jade Emperor should feel gratified, but in fact, he only felt extremely chilled, with a chill rushing from his coccyx straight to the top of his head.
"Your Majesty, the guilty immortals kneeling in the palace are just the tip of the iceberg. There are thousands of immortal officials and immortal messengers whose ranks are not high enough and who are not qualified to kneel here and confess their crimes. These immortal officials have been detained in the Thunder Mansion and Thunder Prison and are awaiting their fate."
Wen Zhong spoke with a cold face, not showing the slightest sense of accomplishment in clearing up all the corruption in the Heavenly Court in a month and arresting thousands of criminal immortals.
The reason is very simple. During this anti-corruption storm in Heaven, without the help of that evil son, it would be difficult for Wen Zhong to find out even one percent of the truth.
If we talk about the merits, the first merit goes to that evil boy undoubtedly.
That evil boy has such incredible abilities, but his heart is not right. Wen Zhong knows that he supervises all officials and rectify the administration of officials for ulterior motives, so it is difficult to judge whether this matter is a blessing or a curse for the three realms.
He even suspected that he was being schemed against by that evil man, being used as a pawn!
At the same time, Wen Zhong couldn't help but blame himself in his heart. If so many immortal officials had problems, then how many of their divine duties were actually fulfilled?
How much prayer response and how much blessing can the mortals in the mortal world get if they worship such a group of filthy gods who occupy high positions for personal gain?
Is it true that the purpose of mortals worshipping gods is just to seek psychological comfort?
What is the meaning of the existence of heaven?
The point of self-blame is that 500 years after the great catastrophe of the Conferred Gods, Wen Zhong did not immediately make drastic changes to the discipline of the Heavenly Court due to his status as a disciple of Jiejiao and the commander-in-chief of the Shang Dynasty's attack on Zhou, and because he was worried about offending the Jade Emperor. However, he did not expect that the past causes would lead to the bitter consequences of today, with so many immortal officials being dismissed. As the head of the Heavenly Court's discipline inspection, he also bears an unshirkable responsibility.
Although there were reasons for it, even if he had lost face and enforced discipline regardless of the consequences, the result might have been that the Jade Emperor and the immortal officials from the Chan sect and the Great Zhou would have jointly resisted him, and he would have also been misunderstood and rejected by the immortal officials from his fellow disciples of the Jie sect and the old ministers of the Shang Dynasty. He would have ended up being deserted by his friends and family and was left alone, and the rectification campaign would still not have been carried out.
I can appreciate his character, but I can't get over the hurdle in my heart and feel at ease thinking that I have done nothing wrong.
Even though he was used by that evil boy, Wen Zhong accepted it. Even without saying it, he couldn't help feeling a little grateful towards him in his heart.
He even has to say thank you!
Looking at so many guilty officials who were killed by irrefutable evidence, the Jade Emperor, who used to like to sentence immortal officials with great majesty and severity, couldn't help but feel troubled.
Could God show mercy and grant amnesty to pardon them all?
Doing so can indeed bring favors to all the immortals and gain a large number of loyal people. After this incident, these criminal officials will become the most loyal party of the emperor in the future.
The resentment of the immortal officials who came from Jiejiao and Shang Dynasty and were forced to be deified because of their failure in the Battle of Conferred Gods and their physical bodies were dissolved was naturally eliminated, which was of great benefit to the Jade Emperor in consolidating his ruling position in Heaven.
But doing this is unjust!
Some powerful immortals with extremely high status and profound Taoism are touted by mortals as the so-called "rules themselves" and "principles themselves". But in fact, no matter how great the immortals are, they are still under the pressure of the laws of nature. The saying "there are always people better than you" is exactly this truth.
The Chan sect, which had achieved a great victory in the Conferred Gods Ceremony, was in high spirits, but its doctrines explained the Way of Heaven, rather than formulating it.
You have done too many things that are against the will of heaven, and now you are telling lies with a blink of an eye, trying to make up explanations for the way of heaven. You can deceive yourself but you cannot deceive heaven.
Even gods have to be reasonable. Although the Jade Emperor is the king of all gods, it does not mean that he can do whatever he wants. If he pardoned those officials whose crimes were proven to be proven wrong just for his selfish desire to consolidate his power, there would be a chaos calamity coming down from the nine heavens, and his tenure as the Jade Emperor would be over, even without the father and son of the Wen family rebelling against him.
But if the Heavenly Rules were followed strictly and all these criminal officials were sent to the Execution Platform, the Jade Emperor would have to go to Hongjun Daozu the next day to ask for help and start another round of Conferring Gods, otherwise there would not be enough immortal officials in the Heavenly Court.
It is said that it is difficult to find a three-legged frog, and there are a lot of people who want to be officials. Even if the number of immortals in this period is far less than that in the period of Conferred Gods, it is not impossible to solve the urgent problem by picking out the tallest ones among the short ones and promoting some mortals who have accumulated some merits.
But now the mortal world is in the midst of a demonic calamity. The human race in the Southern Continent has been taken in by Wen Rui, and only some western humans in Xiniu Hezhou are left, seeking shelter in Buddhism to survive.
Even if they wanted to promote some people to become gods and fill vacancies in the heavenly court, it was impossible.
The Heavenly Court has never been as short of officials as it is today. Even on the eve of the Conferred God Ceremony five hundred years ago, the number of vacancies for officials was not as high as it is today!
(End of this chapter)