The unacquitted were let go. They stumbled out blinking, shaking, and the first thing they did was turn on their own blood.
They beat the relatives who had dragged them into this for a good hour, curses spilling until their throats went raw.
Then they found the ringleaders and beat them again, and longer, not caring if they bruised and bled.
Even the children pummeled the cultivators with their small fists with indignation.
They could have all been dead without ever finding out why.
When the rage finally burned down to ash, what remained was not hatred for the Terrace.
It was gratitude. The ghost attendants gave them food and water. They took it with shaking hands like men rescued from drowning.
Those three days had felt like eternity.
Trapped in a body that only knew how to walk, pain driven into spirit instead of flesh, sun burning their faces, birds shitting on them while the crowd watched. The humiliation stuck like tar.
