Lan Xichen frowned to himself as he reread the old trial transcript in his hands.
Through his discussions with Jiang-guniang and Mingjue, he had been persuaded that the best way for him to identify incidences where the rules could be misapplied or upheld incorrectly and result in injustice was to research the past for cases where that had already happened.
Technically, he was not supposed to have access to these records yet – he was not yet Sect Leader, and would therefore have to assign himself punishment for snooping about in the full, unfiltered and unedited files which he did not yet have the authority to read. However his friends had convinced him that this was a necessary infraction if he was to fulfill his goal of bringing his Sect closer to righteousness in practice as well as claim.
Of course, he could have waited until he became Sect Leader to peruse them – but his already limited time would then be even more constrained, and it would likely take him several years to complete his research.
And Xichen wanted to have at least the framework of a plan laid out before then.
So despite his guilty conscience, he was regularly breaking into secured records and making copies of any cases where the judgements and punishments seemed suspect to review at length later on. This would, in theory, allow him to identify any anomalies that needed to be addressed – or, as he was discovering much to his dismay, patterns.
For now, he was storing his contraband in a secret qiankun bag that he kept on his person; growing paranoid that his rule-breaking would be discovered.
It was not at all comforting to him to realise how much corruption seemed to be hiding beneath the surface of the sect which prided itself on virtue. The thought of how undeserved that reputation might actually be was as frightening as it was disheartening.
Unfortunately, it was also stirring up old questions and doubts.
He had long ago decided that he had no wish to know the details of his mother's crime; preferring to remain ignorant of the unknown facts that he could not change.
Perhaps it was cowardly of him, but he had no interest in tainting her memory with the sordid details of what she had done.
But ever since he had made the decision to prepare to make changes to the way his Sect upheld their rules after he became Sect Leader, the more uneasy he felt about that decision. The more he looked through old records and reviewed past decisions of his Sect, the more he began to feel that he was doing her memory a disservice.
While learning the unvarnished truth of what had happened back then would change nothing, and would probably only serve to make him miserable, he was beginning to suspect that there might be another purpose for looking into the case than simply reopening old wounds.
Much as it sickened him to consider it, the possibility that his mother had been wrongfully punished meant more than just leaving him disappointed and disillusioned in his Elders.
It meant that something was very, deeply wrong with the system of justice in the Cloud Recesses.
And as future Sect Leader, he had a duty to investigate and right those wrongs – no matter how painful or difficult the process might be for him personally.
He simply didn't know what he would do if his darkest, most dreaded suspicions held any truth.
How could he possibly live with the knowledge of his mother's fate if he discovered it hadn't been deserved?
How could he live with it if it had?
There were too many old cases piling up in his secret store of copies where injustice had reigned due to prejudice, favouritism or animosity, or even simple cruelty for him to dismiss the possibility that his mother had been – if not innocent; then perhaps guilty of a lesser crime than that of which she had been accused.
Deciding to access those particular records was now becoming something he was unhappy to realise would most likely be necessary.
At least he still had time before he reached them.
For now, he shook his head, and began to copy the transcript before him.
There was still a lot of work to do.