"How preposterous!"
Ao Huang flew into a rage.
"Is it wrong to do good deeds for the common people?"
"If Palace Examination Metropolitan Graduates could spend money buying things for the people to raise their scores, then the Palace Examination would become a contest of whose background was deeper, whose lineage held greater status, and whose family had more money. Even the merits of my Fang Clan Library would not be counted in the Palace Examination!" Fang Yun said.
Ao Huang nodded helplessly. "I had forgotten. You humans place the greatest importance on rites and laws; some rules cannot be broken. Then what do we do? We cannot bring grain in through normal channels, the grain brought through the River-Drinking Shell cannot be sold, and we cannot give it to the people either. The Left Prime Minister Faction had calculated everything! The Left Prime Minister truly deserves his reputation as an old fox; compared with him, we are far too green."
Yet Fang Yun said, "Many high-ranking officials have left their shadows in this incident, but Liu Shan may merely have permitted them to act this way. He has not personally entered the fray. By my judgment, he has yet to make an official move."
"What do you mean?"
"This incident can at most drag my agricultural affairs and people's livelihood subjects down to third grade. For Liu Shan, that is not worth personally stepping in for. Unless..."
"Unless what?"
"For Liu Shan to step in is simple: he has thought of a way to force me out of the Palace Examination and strip me of my qualification as a Palace Examination Metropolitan Graduate!"
"Impossible. Unless he can wipe Ning'an County off the Saint Origin Continent, no force can drive you out of the Palace Examination! But the pressing matter