Eu Realmente Não Sou o Alterador de Destinos

"Sir, sir?"

"Hmm?"

"Master Zheng is asking you."

In the main hall of the county office, the plump advisor quietly urged his master. The young county magistrate, dressed in a green official robe, looked as if he had just woken from slumber, his mind adrift.

Have I become the county magistrate?

Zhang Rui gazed around in a haze, then looked at himself. The deep green robe, the mandarin duck insignia—after years of imperial examinations, he recognized this as the official attire of a seventh-rank civil officer in the Great Jin.

He was seated in the county hall. On either side, the constables stood in orderly rows. Kneeling on the stone for the accused was a woman in prisoner’s garb, while at the plaintiff’s seat rested a grand armchair occupied by a relaxed, corpulent elder.

"Is Magistrate Zhang perhaps overwhelmed by his duties lately? You seem rather unwell."

Zhang Rui looked toward the speaker. The elder in the armchair played with a jade ornament, and even as he addressed Zhang Rui, he did not spare him a glance. It was clear this elder was no ordinary man.

The accused woman lay prostrate, her head pressed to the ground, trembling with fear—a portrait of utter vulnerability.

This seemed an unjust trial.

Zhang Rui sized up the situation using common sense, but he had no idea what to do. He had no memory of this case—indeed, he remembered nothing of how he became a scholar, nor which county he had been assigned to. Nothing at all.

"Sir?"

The advis