At the old Hanlin Academician's roar, brimming with righteous fury, many members of the Zong Family and Lei Family, along with high officials of the Qing Kingdom, shuddered.
Whether it was the Lei Family's Great Scholar Lei Tingzhen or the Zong Family's patriarch Zong Ganyu, whether the Qing Kingdom's four ministers or its ruler, even with their lofty literary ranks or the protection of national fortune, that roar struck terror into their hearts.
Lei Tingzhen, Zong Ganyu, and the other masterminds behind this affair actually felt that their literary guts were as thin as paper.
Almost as soon as the old Hanlin Academician finished roaring, a dense force of grief and indignation gathered overhead.
Earlier, a mere alliance of Qing Kingdom officials, the Lei Family, the Zong Family, and some Gu Kingdom officials had been enough to seize the primordial qi of heaven and earth. Now, however, the Ten Kingdoms grieved as one.
Moreover, when someone posted the poem on the Discourse Ranking, streams of strange power crossed the skies, converging above Baling City from every corner of every kingdom.
"It's over..."
Lei Tingzhen felt that power. He clearly wanted to flee, but his feet had gone numb, and he did not dare run.
Pair after pair of icy eyes turned toward the members of the Lei Family and Zong Family. The hatred and resentment of hundreds of thousands of scholars intertwined, forming an immense might that bore straight down like an ocean falling from the heavens.
Everyone who had helped instigate the literary contest between Zhang Longxiang and Fang Yun suddenly felt dust appear within their Literary Palaces, like motes revealed by sunlight in a room, drifting softly down onto their literary guts.
Those motes were tiny, but their surfaces shone with a light like sunlight, linking all the