The council cleared him the following afternoon, and it happened with none of the drama Yuan had braced himself for.
Lei presented the evidence methodically, unhurried, letting each piece land in its own time — the mismatched wax, the scribe's retracted certainty, the coached prisoner testimony recanted under proper questioning. Minister Feng, to his credit, examined each piece with the same dry, careful attention he'd brought to building the original case, and when he finally spoke, his voice carried no defensiveness, only the plain acknowledgment of a man who dealt in evidence rather than pride.
"The case as originally presented does not hold," Feng said simply. "I withdraw the accusation, and I would recommend this council formally clear Yuan Wei's name, along with a proper investigation into who constructed this frame and why."
