Like other Chinese cities of the same era, Anqing lacked multi-story buildings. The People's Party built new-style residential areas in several major cities along the Yangtze River. This not only fully utilized urban space and increased the capacity for urban residents but also greatly improved the quality of life for urban residents through the construction of urban water supply and sewage systems as well as power supply systems. If land ownership issues were not involved, this would truly be a great thing.

"These women are really turning the sky upside down! If it weren't for the People's Party blindly indulging them here, how could such things happen!" The gentry expressed their dissatisfaction one after another.

"Is there any shame left for these women to show their faces outside?"

"A group of women living by themselves, what kind of thing is this? What kind of trend is this?!"

More complaints and accusations targeting specific issues appeared increasingly in the CPPCC venue, from women working to women unbinding their feet, from women going to school to women's housing. Later, it was female cadres, female armed police, female police officers; all firepower was concentrated on the matter of women's liberation.

Chen Duxiu didn't want to wade into this muddy water. He knew the moral conduct of this group of "masters" clearly. If they really faced a group of women charging over with brooms, their first reaction would definitely not be to meet them head-on, but to turn around and run.

However, before Chen Duxiu's train of thought could unfold, he heard someone say loudly: "If you ask me, Mr. Cai didn't do much wrong in Western Zhejiang. Rules are rules. Just look at our Anqing; Western Zhejiang is probably about the same as our Anqing. Can it work without management?"

These words immediately received support from a crowd. Of course, no one dared to say that killing people was right. No one loved killing people; landlords, gentry, and the People's Party were the same on this point. Landlords and gentry liked to use killing to intimidate others, but if they were really asked to kill people themselves, they would definitely delegate it to others. The People's Party sentencing Cai Yuanpei under criminal law this time blocked this path.

These people in the Anqing CPPCC had all seen news and operas related to the Western Zhejiang trial. The People's Party did not use personal execution as the standard, but distinguished between principal offenders and accessories. Principal offenders were given heavier sentences, while accessories could receive reduced sentences after exposing the criminal acts of their accomplices. This broke the rules of the Manchu Qing era. Although the Manchu Qing era also preached "a life for a life," the one paying with their life was often not the mastermind; those who actually carried out the killing were often scapegoats. If the mastermind had a strong background, finding a few unlucky ghosts to fill the numbers would be enough for an explanation.

However, the Great Trial of Western Zhejiang clearly told the people that whoever planned the killing had to atone with death. The Anqing gentry certainly knew that the People's Party meant what it said, so they refused to test the law themselves. Needless to say, the attitude of these CPPCC guys was unprecedentedly consistent. "I saw it clearly in the news; a lot of bad things were done by the people below using Mr. Cai's name. How can the blame be pushed onto Mr. Cai? The People's Party also knows that Mr. Cai didn't kill a single person with his own hands. Relying on this to sentence Mr. Cai to death is indeed a great injustice. We should jointly sign a petition to plead for Mr. Cai!"

A white-bearded CPPCC member said indignantly: "Mr. Cai had great kindness to Chen Ke. Back then, if it weren't for Mr. Cai's full support, how could anyone have helped Chen Ke when he arrived in Shanghai? I heard it was also Mr. Cai who tried his best to lobby so that Yan Fu accepted Chen Ke as a disciple. Now that Chen Ke has gained power, he lays a murderous hand on Mr. Cai. Is this... is this still human?"

These words immediately received support from more people. What Chen Ke did was simply deceiving his master and destroying his ancestors! In the eyes of the literati and gentry, this was the truly capital crime that must be punished by death explicitly.

Amidst the public indignation, some people also became uneasy. "Is saying this a bit too much?"

Immediately someone retorted angrily: "What are you afraid of? Freedom of speech! We are neither opposing the government nor publishing hateful incitement remarks. Is it illegal to say a few words about the matter itself? If the People's Party can do it, we can't say it?"

Among the excited gentry, someone shouted even louder: "Exactly so! Doesn't their People's Party want to talk about the rule of law! Doesn't the constitution they shout about every day also protect freedom of speech? If they want to arrest people because of what we said, let them come and arrest me! I want to see how the People's Party will sentence me in court!"

"Exactly!" "Exactly!"

Amidst voices of approval, the Anhui CPPCC was filled with an atmosphere of defending the freedom of speech granted to the people of the liberated areas by the People's Party constitution. Everyone held their heads high, their expressions either firm or tragic, truly having the backbone of guardians of the constitution.

Chen Duxiu certainly didn't know the internet term "derailing the thread," but his feeling was the same as those repliers who tried to discuss the post seriously but found the whole discussion had long gone thousands of miles off-topic. And the most amazing thing was that after some discussion, this thread would always seemingly inexplicably jump back to the content discussed in the main post.

No matter how they attacked the People's Party or what dissatisfaction they had with the People's Party's policies, in the end, the gentry concluded with "Cai Yuanpei should not die." Every dissatisfaction with the People's Party was ultimately transformed into a reason why Cai Yuanpei should not die.

This discussion had not been going on for just a day or two. Apart from not daring to deny the fact that Cai Yuanpei personally issued the order to kill, in the eyes of the gentry, everything Cai Yuanpei did had reasons, even very correct reasons. Cai Yuanpei's starting point of "rectifying order and eliminating chaos" was very good; what messed things up were the executors below. If things could be executed as Cai Yuanpei expected, it would absolutely not have resulted in the subsequent tragic state.

Besides analyzing and defending what Cai Yuanpei had already done, some gentry also raised various hypotheses about the past.

"If the Western Zhejiang side hadn't been so radical and had done things more through consultation with the locals, how could Mr. Cai Yuanpei have been forced to use the method of purging counter-revolutionaries?"

"Isn't this talking about democracy? Those people in Western Zhejiang shouted democracy, but why weren't they democratic when doing things? Relying on their numbers to forcibly carry out land reform, it would be strange if nothing happened!"

Among these CPPCC members, there were also those who had read more books. Someone immediately shouted: "That is called the tyranny of the majority! I saw it written in Mr. Yan Fu's book!" Usually, people in the CPPCC called Yan Fu by his full name. Once someone dug up usable content from Yan Fu's book, Yan Fu was immediately crowned with the title of Mister again.

Those with clearer thinking in the CPPCC immediately summarized these points: "Mr. Cai was also forced. Regarding the matters in Western Zhejiang, those people in Western Zhejiang were not without responsibility. They went their own way, opposing democracy and consultation. Implementing the tyranny of the majority. Everyone has a temper; it's not like Mr. Cai didn't speak against radicalism! These people are radicalism."

"Right! Both sides have responsibilities in this matter!" This view immediately received clear approval from almost all CPPCC members.

With a basic consensus, this group of CPPCC members utilized their specialties and began to "judge" this case morally. Finally, they pooled their wisdom and sorted out a line of thought. After sorting it out, the CPPCC members solemnly handed a stack of manuscripts to Chen Duxiu, hoping that the great scholar Chen Duxiu could organize this into an article for publication.

The CPPCC members fully expressed how they respected Chen Duxiu's character, ability, learning, and status, believing that Chen Duxiu could absolutely represent the true thoughts of the entire Anhui. Even though the voices of female opponents blasting from the electric megaphones outside could be heard, these CPPCC members still believed that they could truly represent the public opinion of Anhui. Even phrases like "truth is often in the hands of the minority" popped out.

The core idea was one: Chen Duxiu, work hard, go for it. Publish articles in Chen Duxiu's personal name, and everyone will support Chen Duxiu's right to freedom of speech. If the People's Party is unfavorable to Chen Duxiu, the Anhui CPPCC will absolutely not sit idly by.

Among these empty words, the only relatively constructive suggestion was that since the printing factories in Anhui were controlled by the People's Party and there might be printing problems, these articles might as well be published in places like Shanghai. Firstly, they wouldn't encounter so many obstacles; secondly, it would allow Anhui's views to be understood by the whole country. Even though the People's Party had been in Anhui for the longest time, Anhui did not only have voices echoing the People's Party.

Chen Duxiu certainly knew what these people wanted to do; they were eager to express their thoughts. And as usual, these guys always pushed others to the forefront of the storm. It wasn't that this group of people in the Anhui CPPCC hadn't tried it themselves, but the result was a head-on blow from the masses. After repeated attempts and failures, these people all understood that they couldn't do these things. They could only turn to help from stronger people.

People who dared to publicly plead for Cai Yuanpei naturally had to have enough reputation. If a nobody did this, they would only end up humiliating themselves. It wasn't suffering humiliation from the People's Party; regardless of the size of the reputation, the People's Party didn't care about literati at all. The humiliation literati suffered came from within the literati group. "Not knowing the height of the sky and the depth of the earth!" "Who do you think you are?" This was the first reaction of literati when they saw others. Raising one's arm and receiving a response from all directions didn't apply to just anyone.

So Chen Duxiu didn't feel anything inappropriate. At this time, if the CPPCC people didn't look for Chen Duxiu, who was famous in the south, who else could they find? What made Chen Duxiu feel inappropriate was the constitution proposed by the CPPCC personnel. The entire content was nothing but speculation, with absolutely no content regarding facts.

judging from what Chen Duxiu heard, the Anhui CPPCC seemed to have transformed into storytellers. They told a story vividly, in which various characters' psychology and behaviors were imagined by this group of people from the Anhui CPPCC, and all behaviors were also their cropping and combination of various materials and events that happened in Anhui. After such creation and reasoning about it all, the Anhui CPPCC finally named the protagonist of this story Cai Yuanpei.

Even though Chen Duxiu didn't oppose the views of these CPPCC people too much and didn't agree with killing Cai Yuanpei, he still felt that doing so was a bit excessive. Because Chen Duxiu really wanted to save Cai Yuanpei, while these people in the Anhui CPPCC didn't care about Cai Yuanpei's life or death; they just wanted to express their dissatisfaction with the People's Party. This was quite different from what Chen Duxiu wanted to express.

Thinking of this, "Gentlemen, I do have some channels to publish articles in Shanghai. How about this? I will also contact Anhui. Publish articles in Shanghai on one hand, and in Anhui on the other. But let's write our own separately and communicate more. I wonder what you think?"

"If we can publish articles in Anhui and Shanghai simultaneously, that would naturally be best. But with the People's Party's style..." The CPPCC members looked troubled.

"I will go talk to the person in charge here in Anhui. As you gentlemen said, since the People's Party advocates freedom of speech, how can we not even have the right to speak?" Chen Duxiu replied.

The CPPCC members looked at each other, their eyes full of difficulty. Finally, someone spoke up, "It's not that we can't speak, it's just that after speaking, things will be made difficult for us."

"Nothing under heaven is greater than reason. if you gentlemen speak directly about interests, it is naturally easy to arouse strong conflicts. But this time we are talking reason, talking about not killing more people. If the reasoning is correct, what do we have to fear?" Chen Duxiu didn't want to blindly support the actions of the CPPCC either. Although the liberated women acted a bit excessively, there was no reason to only allow the CPPCC to curse people while others couldn't talk back.

Seeing Chen Duxiu's firm attitude, these CPPCC members talked for a while and all expressed their agreement.