The Hanlin Officials listened with rapt interest. Candidate Hou even thoughtfully brought over a chair for the Hanlin Academician, who was over seventy, so he could sit while listening.
It was lunchtime, and some of the Hanlin Officials were hungry, but they could not bear to leave for a meal. They pulled flatbreads from inside their robes and ate them with the gossip as seasoning.
[The pig butcher is willing to pay to grease the wheels for Top Scorer Fu. The two families have officially begun marriage negotiations.]
[The final investigation confirmed that the traveling merchant they framed didn't die-he escaped. Madam Fu was released after twenty strokes of the heavy paddle!]
[Madam Fu wanted to put on airs as the top scholar's mother, but the butcher's daughter called her over to help wash pig innards. Madam Fu refused, so her future daughter-in-law gave her a whopping slap and sent her sprawling face-first into the dirt!]
[Hahahaha! Serves her right!]
The Hanlin Officials thought, She deserved it! It takes one villain to grind another down!
Top Scorer Fu's suffering was still ahead of him!
[Madam Fu went crying to her son, and Top Scorer Fu told her to bear with it and it would pass.]
[Madam Fu misses her former daughter-in-law terribly now. She's secretly getting people to inquire about Wu Yehe's whereabouts.]
[Now she realizes how good Wu Yehe was! That rotten old hag is dreaming out of her ass!]
The Hanlin Officials thought, Ha! How shameless. She wanted to kill her before so they could climb onto a higher branch, and now she's missing how good she was!
Thank goodness Scholar-in-Waiting Jian had the foresight to take Wu Yehe in!
[Oh, hurry up and get married! I can't wait for the feathers-flying, dogs-barking chaos of the top scholar's