This meant that many officials even had to watch their step while walking.
If the officials had treated the gifting of poultry and livestock as a joke, then they were utterly wary of this fourteenth rite.
After all, no official could guarantee that they could maintain such meticulous movements on formal occasions. Once they failed to do so, it meant violating ritual. Even if the censors did not impeach them, other officials had the right to do so, leaving them in someone else's grasp.
Over these past days, the Censorate and certain officials had already reported many officials. Quite a few low- and mid-ranking officials who supported the royal family had been judged by the Ministry of Personnel to have violated ritual.
Thus, during the court session discussing this fourteenth rite, the officials' words were particularly fierce, and they openly accused Fang Yun.
"Left Prime Minister Fang's actions are nothing less than holding office while consuming the public's grain! As Left Prime Minister, he actually uses backward ancient rites to shackle officials. He is even worse than Zhao Gao calling a deer a horse!"
"This rite exists only in the Book of Rites. History has never recorded an entire court of officials being able to do such a thing."
"If officials must focus their attention on the sounds of their pendants, how can they have the mind to serve the nation and its people? You, Void Sage Fang, possess Dual-Mindedness, but we do not! This is simply, 'Why not eat meat porridge?'"
"Void Sage Fang, I never imagined you were such a stubborn fossil, clinging to the old and guarding the broken. If you insist on having your way, I shall fight to the death!"
"Left Prime Minister Fang, you are even worse than Liu Shan!"
The moment a censor