Song Chen's face bore righteous indignation, his eyes clear and brimming with lofty conviction.
Everyone exchanged glances.
Everyone present had passed the provincial examinations; none of them were fools. If Fei Yuanzhong had tried to frame Zhao Feng, Song Chen was even more ruthless, branding him a traitor whose very intentions deserved death.
"Exactly, his intentions deserve death! This is treason of the highest order!" Fei Yuanzhong immediately repeated. A trace of smug malice flashed across his face.
Senior Brother Song really knows how it's done.
Zhao Feng, aren't you so good at debating? Didn't you humiliate me? Didn't you make me the laughingstock of the academy for over a year?
Now you won't be able to defend yourself even with a hundred mouths. Then, with a little fanning of the flames, the academy can turn scholars throughout the realm against you. You'll be beyond redemption.
"You must be joking, fellow scholar," Zhao Feng sneered.
"Do I look as though I'm joking?" Song Chen asked calmly.
"His Majesty just issued an imperial decree appointing me General Huaihua of the upper Principal Third Rank for my great achievements. Are you suggesting that His Majesty knowingly rewarded a treasonous man whose very intentions deserve death?"
As soon as Zhao Feng finished, everyone around him gasped in astonishment.
They were all civil examination graduates. They had heard that Zhao Feng had led a hundred thousand civilians across the river, but they knew nothing of his imperial reward, much less his appointment as a general of the upper Principal Third Rank.
Great Yan now valued the martial Dao more highly than literary pursuits. A general of the upper Principal Third Rank was therefore far beyond comparison with civil examination graduates who held only seventh-rank official status.
Fei Yuanzhong and Song Chen were stunned as