Thirty strokes of the military cudgel meant death or permanent injury.
Chen Jingyu understood this as clearly as a mirror reflected an image.
Yet he had to strike the Grievance Drum.
A scholar could be killed, but never humiliated.
The scholars who had come for the Spring Examination had all been staying at the same scholars' lodging. Now that the results had been posted, those who had failed were packing to return home.
It was then that Chen Jingyu returned to the lodging.
Seeing him enter, several scholars who knew him well gathered around.
"Jingyu, are you really going to strike the Grievance Drum?"
Chen Jingyu nodded slightly but said nothing.
"You mustn't strike that drum! Thirty strokes of the military cudgel—with that frail body of yours, how could you possibly endure them?"
"Exactly! The examiner may not believe you, but we do. Even if you sold the flesh off your bones, you couldn't scrape together those fifty taels!"
Some, however, scoffed at such words.
"Why did the examiner seize you, and no one else?"
"You can know a man's face without knowing his heart. I thought you were an upright gentleman. Never did I imagine you were this sort of person!"
Chen Jingyu's expression shifted slightly, but he did not answer. He merely turned and hurried toward the corner where he slept.
Before he was halfway there, however, someone blocked his path.
"If I were you, I would have hanged myself from a southeast-facing branch long ago. Yet you still have the gall to come back?"
Chen Jingyu looked up. The man seemed familiar, but they seldom interacted, and he did not even know his name.
With other matters weighing on his mind, he had no intention of arguing. His lips moved. "Please let me through."
Yet the man