Chapter 897: Chapter 885: Beyond the Law, There is Sentiment! Chapter 897: Chapter 885: Beyond the Law, There is Sentiment! “What are you going to do?” The woman stepped back as she looked at Aeolus, whose aura was becoming increasingly terrifying. She noticed faint golden scales slowly emerging on Aeolus’s cheeks.

“According to the Xena Pus Legal Code of Education…” Aeolus recited a segment of the code, which he knew by heart, then stated the final verdict without a trace of emotion.

“As of today, you and your husband are stripped of your parental rights to care for and educate. From now on, you shall have no right to bear any offspring!”

Aeolus removed his white cloak and wrapped it around the little girl who was looking up at her mother with a numb expression. He lifted her from the ground and held her in his arms.

The sight of Aeolus preparing to take her daughter away didn’t provoke much of a reaction from the woman or the tense father sitting at the dining table. To them, their daughter was an expendable existence.

However, when the young man who accompanied Aeolus stepped towards their son, the couple immediately tensed up. They stood up and blocked the path of the young man, Otto.

“What do you think you’re doing?” The woman was visibly nervous.

“Didn’t you hear? According to the code, you have already been deprived of your qualifications as parents! So we’re taking your children away!” The young man’s eyes turned blue, the blue of thunder.

“We’ve passed the parental qualification test!” the young woman yelled, her eyes showing genuine protective instincts for her son; she truly loved her son. But the young man, wrapped in thunder, remained unmoved by her distress.

“Passing the parental qualification test does not mean you have the right to abuse your children at will.” The young man suppressed his anger. “If it weren’t for these clothes I wear, do you think you could still stand safely before me?”

“Daddy, Mommy, I’m scared!” The child cried timidly.

“You don’t qualify as parents, and I must take this child today, even if it means using force!” The thunder in the young man’s eyes blazed more intensely. He really didn’t mind striking these two beasts who had abused their own daughter so harshly.

“Otto, don’t waste any more time!” Aeolus, who was holding the girl by the door, called back.

“Understood!” Otto, with a flicker of his form, left a trail of electric light, disappearing in front of the couple and reappearing behind them. He picked up their child and immediately appeared behind Aeolus.

“Rest assured, your children will be fine. Just stay put and wait for the court summons!” These icily cold words reached the couple who wanted to chase after the law enforcers who had taken their son and daughter.

…

“Brian Collin, Sherin Chopra, you two are convicted of intentionally abusing a child, causing serious mental and physical harm of varying degrees, under Article 172 of the Xena Pus Legal Code of Education… sentenced to ten years in prison! To be carried out immediately!”

Hearing her parents sentenced to jail, the little girl held by Aeolus in the spectators’ area had a glimmer of light in her hollow eyes. She heard that the reason for her parents’ imprisonment was the abuse they subjected her to over the years, that there was someone… or rather, a force, protecting her, seeking justice for her.

“That’s too light!” The Dragon Girl, Eddy, standing beside, commented dissatisfied as she looked at the little girl with eyes filled with compassion.

She was responsible for treating the little girl after Aeolus brought her back, so she knew all too well the extent of the girl’s injuries.

Treating external wounds and internal organ damage of the little girl was simple, but healing her malformed bones due to abuse required the girl to endure a significant amount of pain because the bones had to be re-broken and set.

What surprised Eddy was that the girl didn’t make a sound during the excruciating bone-setting process. To bear such pain silently spoke volumes of the suffering she must have faced before.

“They have a son too. Because they treated their son well, the sentence has been lessened.” Aeolus responded.

“Which backwater subcontinent is still stuck in the past with these archaic ideas of male-preference?” Eddy was even more upset.

“Let’s go back,” Aeolus stood up.

“Captain, now that the couple is sentenced, what about their children?”

“They will be taken care of by the Welfare Center. Once the parents serve their time, depending on whether they show any reformation, they may be allowed to take their son back. As for the daughter, due to years of abuse, she will no longer have any ties with them from now on.”

…

“Thud!” After the trial ended, Aeolus, along with his law enforcement team, prepared to return to their office. But just as they reached the main entrance, a middle-aged man who was loitering behind the door saw Aeolus approaching and immediately walked up to him, dropping to his knees without hesitation with a “smack” in front of Aeolus.

“You are…” Aeolus was somewhat stunned by the sudden act of the middle-aged man kneeling; he scrutinized the man’s face carefully and found it somewhat familiar.

Then he recognized him—it was a gambling addict father from whom he had taken his progeny according to the Legal Code because of his severe addiction to gambling, which had reached an almost insane level, rendering him stripped of his rights as a Father.

“Sir, I haven’t been to the gambling house for a month, I have quit gambling. I also took the parental qualification exam and I passed. Can you give me back my Son?” The middle-aged man looked at Aeolus with an eager face.

“Yes! But to verify that you have indeed quit gambling, we need to observe you for half a year. If during this period, you have not set foot in a gambling house again, and you possess the qualifications to be a Father, your Son will be returned to you!”

Aeolus observed the man before him; his mental state had greatly changed from before.

“Half a year, that’s too long!” The man’s face revealed his anxiety, “Can’t you make it shorter?”

“No, this is the observation period specified by the Legal Code,” Aeolus shook his head.

The Xena Pus Legal Code wasn’t so heartless, however. It allowed for leniency, and those parents who had lost their children because of it, could reclaim them if they managed to correct and abandon those vices that would negatively affect their children’s future.

“Can’t you make an exception just this once?” The middle-aged man’s face showed begging.

“These are the regulations within the Legal Code, we do not have the authority to amend them. However, you don’t need to worry. We will observe you month by month, and if you truly do not enter a gambling house, I will give you the address of the city where your Son is, and you may go to find him. But you must not have any direct contact with your Son before your observation period is over!”

“One month, that would be fine, thank you, Sir!” Upon hearing that he only needed to persist for another month to see his Son, the middle-aged man’s face showed overwhelming gratitude.

“If you treasure your Child so much, you shouldn’t have become addicted to gambling in the first place and put yourself through all this,” one of the law enforcers shook his head with a sigh as he watched the joyful middle-aged man leave.

“Are we just going to let them take their children back like this?” Dragon Girl Eddy asked. She was dissatisfied with the clause in the Legal Code regarding parents who were deemed unfit to raise their children because they all had flaws that could not be ignored and which would adversely affect the children’s growth.

“Humans are a race full of defects. In their lifetimes, they will make all sorts of mistakes, but these mistakes can be corrected, can be changed. Therefore, every parent has the opportunity to regain custody and the right to educate their children.”

Aeolus shared the insights he had gained while enforcing the Legal Code. The Code would ruthlessly take away their offspring from parents who were unable to provide a better future for their children due to various factors.

But the Legal Code offered these disqualified parents a chance to reform. The Xena Pus Legal Code was not without mercy; it still had a sense of humanity. Its existence aimed to punish the wicked, to warn those creatures contemplating crime, and to make the Creatures of this land better.

…

“Aeolus, we’ve been given another task from above, they’re actually asking us to go and dispel rumors among the lower-class Public?” A teenager walked in, holding a mission brief in his hand, with a look of helplessness on his face.

“Dispelling rumors? What rumors?” The teenager Otto sitting beside him lifted his head in confusion and asked.

“Because of our actions recently, lower-class residents have got the wrong idea. For instance, one of the rumors claims that the Legal Code states that only Nobles can have children, that Commoners possess neither the right nor the qualifications to have children, and that any children born to Commoners are forcibly taken away to be used as Cannon Fodder.”

“Which brain-dead fool started spreading this nonsense?” Otto burst into an angry laughter and slapped the table, leaving a deep palm print, upon hearing this.

“Taking those children away to train Cannon Fodder? Are they kidding? Cannon Fodder? As if they’d qualify to be Cannon Fodder with their talents? I don’t even qualify to be Cannon Fodder!”

Young Otto sneered, “Humans who want to join the Empire’s Legion must start with a Gold Rank at the very least. Among the children we took, how many can rise to Gold Rank? Cannon Fodder, what a joke!”

“And this ‘only Nobles can have children, Commoners can’t’! Couldn’t he have done his research before spreading such a rumor? Xena Pus has never actually officially ennobled any Nobles so far!

And when did the Legal Code ever say that Commoners are not allowed to have children? The Legal Code has explicitly detailed regulations, yet there’re still some people deliberately distorting it.”

Source: Webnovel.com, updated by Aunomay Read