The heated discussions on the Discourse Ranking did not affect the flogging by the assembled scholars below Upside-Down Peak Mountain.
From early morning until noon, none of the Great Scholars stopped. Every one of them snapped several whips.
More than half the people in Kong Weishan's group passed out from exhaustion, pain, blood loss, and shame.
Over a hundred thousand scholars lay unconscious along the edges of the great square.
Near noon, the scholars of the Zong Family finally reached their breaking point. A young Metropolitan Graduate abruptly stood up and tore off his tattered white Metropolitan Graduate robe, revealing a body covered in whip marks.
They looked like hundreds of centipedes burrowing beneath his skin, tearing open his flesh.
He roared, "I am a descendant of the Clan of the Sage Zong! No one but the Zong Family has the right to punish me! Descendants of the Zong Family, stand up! Show them that we of the Zong Family will never submit!"
"You insolent beast!" Kong Yingshi's anger had already subsided, and his whip had slowed as he hesitated over how to bring this to an end. The Zong Family Metropolitan Graduate's words sent his fury blazing three yards high.
Kong Yingshi lunged forward with his whip, even pouring literary qi into it, and lashed the Zong Family Metropolitan Graduate wildly, cursing with every stroke.
"A Zong Family descendant? Zong Family descendants are exactly who I'm whipping!"
"Don't think I don't know! If your Zong Family and Qing Kingdom hadn't been secretly sowing discord, how would the Kong Family and Sage Fang ever have come into an all-out conflict?"
"I was going to spare the Zong Family some dignity, but you had to stick scallions up your pig's snout and pretend to be a demon elephant!"
"A Zong Family