Finding "silver" as soon as he opened the door promised great fortune. This was hardly a bad thing-it seemed an auspicious omen.
Zhang Modong scarcely hesitated. He immediately walked over, bent down to pick up the silver ingot, and hefted it. Five taels.
Judging by its shape, it was not official silver and seemed privately cast, but its base was finely white and deeply indented, with a delicate frost along its edges. This was an ingot of exceptionally high purity.
This must be an auspicious omen! Zhang Modong thought, stroking the ingot. Five taels of silver was not much to a Provincial Graduate, but an omen was another matter entirely.
Yu Lü, Fang Xi, don't blame me. If you must blame anyone, blame yourselves for attracting someone's attention.
I'm only a small fry. Even just to protect myself, I have no choice but to do as they say.
Whatever else you might say, you're the ones who offended the powerful.
After persuading himself this way, his guilty conscience gradually faded, and Zhang Modong began to feel thoroughly justified.
He was a Provincial Graduate, so naturally he could guess a few things. Even if he could not fathom the deeper workings, he knew that implicating old acquaintances of the Imperial Grandson like Yu Lü and Fang Xi in buying examination questions and cheating in the Imperial Examinations had to be a conspiracy. The affair might drag in the Imperial Grandson and damage his reputation.
But Zhang Modong could no longer afford to care about that. Unless he took this gamble, he would never advance beyond the Provincial Examination.
As the saying went, wealth and honor were sought amid danger. To rise to prominence, he had to take this gamble!
If he won, he would have everything!
At that thought, Zhang Modong