798. The Plaster

798. The Condition

"I..."

Carefully peeling off the tape, Zhang Xinjuan glanced at her son again, hesitating.

She was genuinely scared now!

These days, passing the civil service exam wasn't easy. Anyone who could get through the essay portion was sharp as a tack. They had all fought their way through countless hurdles and rounds of selection. Sometimes it even came down to whether the interviewers liked them. Only then could they land that iron rice bowl paid for by public funds.

In ancient times, a newly appointed civil servant was no different from a Xiucai scholar or a Lin student. Even the lowest-ranking official had stepped into the ranks of the gentry.

Of the four classes—scholars, farmers, artisans, and merchants—scholars came first.

Especially at a government agency with good benefits and prospects, countless people were desperate to take her son's place. Plenty had even made jealous remarks behind his back.

And now, a careless remark had finally dragged her son, a public servant, into trouble.

Don't think that if you made a mistake, you could just take responsibility for it yourself. Government agencies absolutely had no rule that family members wouldn't be implicated.

Quite the opposite. If anyone in your family had a civil service position, then whether you or a family member got into trouble, you'd inevitably drag them down with you. They might be unable to get loans or attend university, and neither they nor their children might be allowed to take the civil service exam. Their social, economic, and political rights could all be stripped away. In the end, it was your own family who got hurt.

Before you took advantage of having someone in the family on the public payroll to do whatever you pleased, you should first consider the consequences.

If you went out