Ignorance of the Law Is No Excuse

"Wait, wait, wait. You're saying she's Master Zhuiyue, the founder of our immortal palace?" Luo Hongxia clutched her head, trying to absorb the flood of information pouring in all at once. "Yep." "And she's the one who stole the herbs?" "Yep." "And after spending a whole day on it, you finally caught her?" "Yep." The Immortal Fairy nodded vigorously, looking up at Luo Hongxia with big, watery eyes that shone as if glowing. "So how many years is your palace planning to sentence her to?" Luo Hongxia's mind went blank for a moment, completely unable to process it. Things were moving too fast. How in the world had their founder, Master Zhuiyue—supposedly in death seclusion—suddenly turned into a criminal facing a prison sentence in the blink of an eye? Conflict, bewilderment, disbelief… every sort of emotion flashed across Luo Hongxia's face. Seeing Luo Hongxia so perplexed, the Immortal Fairy's brilliant mind instantly grasped where the difficulty lay. In a profoundly considerate tone, she offered, "The recusal rule, right? I understand! If Palace Master Luo finds it awkward, we can just lock her up at our Dao Seeking Sect!" Inside the spiritual space, Lu Yang, who had been enjoying the spectacle, coughed violently. "Fairy, no, absolutely not!" Lu Yang hastily pleaded. "Is there a problem?" The Immortal Fairy saw nothing wrong with her idea. "Fairy, did you forget? Master Zhuiyue cannot leave this avatar, and this avatar cannot leave Bai Ye's territory!" The Immortal Fairy had clearly already considered that. "Pah, I wondered what you were worried about. Can't we just move the Moon Laurel Tree Ancestor to our Dao Seeking Sect as well? Our sect has plenty of space!" Seeing Lu Yang about to speak, she anticipated his objection. "Oh, you're going to say the moon laurel tree will die if it leaves the Great Snow Mountain, right? That's an easy fix too! We'll just move the Great Snow Mountain to our Dao Seeking Sect, too! Our sect has plenty of space!" In the span of a single breath, the Immortal Fairy had practically annexed the Moon Laurel Immortal Palace into the Dao Seeking Sect. "…I don't think the issue is whether our sect has enough room," Lu Yang murmured. He feared for Senior Brother Dai's heart, not to mention whether he would be beaten half to death upon returning. Heaven be his witness, none of this had anything to do with him! It was entirely the Immortal Fairy's doing! "Are you going to arrest me?" Bai Ye asked. With nightfall, Bai Ye took control of the body; Master Zhuiyue could only appear during the day. In fact, even arriving at Luo Hongxia's immortal cave had been done by Bai Ye flying over with the Immortal Fairy. From the Immortal Fairy's account, Luo Hongxia had already learned Bai Ye's true identity. Only now did she realize she had been so stunned by the identities of Master Zhuiyue and Bai Ye that she had neglected her manners. "Greetings, Tree Ancestor." "Just call me Bai Ye." "Greetings, Tree Ancestor Bai Ye." Bai Ye had always avoided appearing in public precisely because people became overly formal around her. Senior Brother Lu Yang was so much nicer. Even after discovering who she was, he had never acted stiff or reserved. "If you want to see Ah Ri, you'll have to wait until morning." Bai Ye's arm turned into wood, then grew and extended until it took the shape of a small stool. With a swift chop of her left hand, *crack*, she sliced the stool off, and her arm immediately returned to normal. Lu Yang's eyelid twitched. *So that's how it is! Every night when Bai Ye brought a stool to my place, she was conjuring it out of herself!* Sitting on her little wooden stool, Bai Ye excitedly turned to look at the Immortal Fairy. "Senior Brother Lu Yang, keep going! You were just about to tell the part about entering the Imperial City!" Storytelling was hardly the Immortal Fairy's forte, so she sensibly returned control of the body to Lu Yang. "After our trip to the East Sea wrapped up, Old Meng dragged me off to the Imperial City by force…" Luo Hongxia was also rather intrigued by Lu Yang's adventures. Rather than waiting in silence until dawn, she might as well listen to his tales. "Just like that, I reported the Fourth Prince for rebellion, and the Fourth Prince got locked up…" "Later on, the Fifth Prince got locked up too…" "Because we stole the imperial throne, Emperor Xia and I almost got locked up as well…" Luo Hongxia's eyelids twitched uncontrollably as she listened. With Lu Yang recounting his stories, the night passed quickly. As the sun and moon traded places, flames gradually ignited across the moon, marking the arrival of morning. "Xiao Ye, let me borrow the body." The persona switched. Though the appearance remained identical, Master Zhuiyue's gaze was noticeably sharper, entirely devoid of Bai Ye's innocent, bewildered ignorance. "Greetings, Master Zhuiyue." Even though she had already known the person before her was Master Zhuiyue, Luo Hongxia still found it difficult to connect the breathtaking, peerless beauty in the historical portraits with this pint-sized girl. "Little Luo, was it? Formal bowing is a rule Jiang Ping'an and the others established for their royal court. In our immortal palace, there's no need for so much ceremony." "Understood." "Regarding your theft of herbs from the medicine treasury…" "How can you call it theft? I founded this entire immortal palace! Naturally, the herbs belong to me!" "It is true you founded the immortal palace," Luo Hongxia replied, "but once you passed the title of palace master to Master Jingchuan, ownership of the palace transferred to him as well. Afterwards, Master Jingchuan passed it to the third palace master, then the fourth… all the way down to my generation. "Therefore, strictly speaking, legal ownership of all assets within the immortal palace currently resides with me. Using the medicinal herbs without authorization constitutes an unauthorized transfer of property, which legally amounts to theft." "I… I am the palace's founder!" Master Zhuiyue protested feebly. The Immortal Fairy understood what Master Zhuiyue was getting at and seized Lu Yang's body once more. "Are you trying to say the criminal code exempts mortal elders over seventy-five from serving prison time, and cultivators should follow that precedent? "You don't look a hundred thousand years old. You must have frozen yourself somewhere in between, haven't you? Exactly how old are you this year? Are you even seventy-five thousand?" "Stop, stop! I'll serve time!" "Actually, your act of theft doesn't require prison time," Luo Hongxia helpfully offered. "As long as you compensate the immortal palace and obtain our forgiveness, you can be granted a suspended sentence, or even be exempted from criminal penalties altogether." Master Zhuiyue was overjoyed. *I knew you were on my side, Little Luo!* Compensating the palace and obtaining its forgiveness would both be effortless. "However, your act of drugging the moon laurel trees caused severe harm, constituting the crime of endangering public safety with hazardous substances. "Under combined punishment for multiple offenses, I'm afraid it will be very difficult to grant a suspended sentence." "I…" For the first time in her life, Master Zhuiyue suffered from being ignorant of the law. The Immortal Fairy kindly reminded her, "Ignorance of the law is no excuse for breaking it!" Luo Hongxia then turned her gaze toward the Immortal Fairy. "Lu Yang, although barging into the hot springs does not constitute a crime, it disturbed public order. It is an administrative offense, requiring a few days of administrative detention." Luo Hongxia had been searching for Lu Yang precisely because of this matter. "I was chasing someone at the time!" "Still, the situation was not urgent enough that you couldn't detour around the hot springs." "I…" The Immortal Fairy discovered that knowing the law didn't help either. Lu Yang buried his face in his hand. He had known all along things would come to this. He might as well treat it as experiencing another facet of life. "Don't worry, Little Yangzi! How could this immortal let you rot in jail? This has nothing to do with you!" the Immortal Fairy said with righteous accountability. Lu Yang was stunned. "Fairy, what are you planning?" "This immortal will possess you for a few days and do the jail time in your place!"