Sage of Ritual drank a bowl of wine at the shop, then asked, "What do you say?"
The old scholar smiled until his wrinkled old face crumpled together. "Such an opportunity is rare. Let me steal a little leisure from my busyness and drink a while longer. An emperor does not send hungry soldiers into battle, after all."
These days, the Temple of Literature and the Forest of Merit were both, in truth, under the old scholar's management, great and small matters alike. Calling it stealing leisure from busyness was not excessive.
Sage of Ritual hesitated, yet still reminded him, "Remember not to push your luck inch by inch. The Temple of Literature may not be able to do anything about you, but I can go find Chen Ping'an."
Very few people warranted such an additional "reminder" from Sage of Ritual.
After all, with them, Sage of Ritual's reasoning could always be made to work.
The old scholar complained, "That was an unnecessary thing to say."
There were outsiders present. At least give me some face.
Sage of Ritual said, "Then I must trouble Sage of Literature to give me a definite answer. I do not wish for Chen Ping'an's first time proactively pleading with the Temple of Literature at our next discussion to be for the sake of helping his own teacher clean up a mess."
Why else had Jingsheng Xiping summoned him? Was it not because he feared that, should the old scholar act on a sudden impulse, no one would be able to hold him back?
The old scholar straightened his expression. "How could I fail to understand such a principle? It should only ever be students doing things with their teacher covering for them. How could a teacher do things and make his students cover for