"As for you..."
Lin Ke looked at Libationer Liu:
"If, just now, you had acted fairly and impartially instead of taking measures solely to protect your official position, if you had refrained from forming cliques, perhaps I would have said nothing. But now, you are no longer suited to the post."
Libationer Liu's expression shifted several times before finally resolving into a sigh. "If both the Minister of Rites and the Minister of Personnel believe this old man should return home, then I... shall obey."
His voice held six parts sorrow, two parts helplessness, and ninety-two parts grievance.
"How pitiful!"
"Libationer Liu must have served as libationer his whole life, yet this is how he ends up."
"Yes, an elderly man like him. It really brings tears to your eyes."
The crowd immediately reacted, pointing at Libationer Liu and discussing him.
"You have some nerve!"
"How dare you!"
Yet at that very moment, Minister Xun and Lin Ke rebuked him in unison.
A scroll of bamboo slips appeared in Minister Xun's hand, and rows of characters flew off it, all written in Small Seal Script.
The bamboo slips bore the words: "Rites of Qin."
"As the Imperial Academy's libationer, how could you use Subtle Words and Profound Meaning on ordinary citizens?!" Minister Xun snapped coldly. The Small Seal Script characters all flew toward Libationer Liu, swirling up and down around him.
Lin Ke frowned as well. "What on earth were you thinking, doing something like this in full public view?"
Just moments earlier, Libationer Liu had actually imbued those few sentences with the power of a Great Confucian-and with the particularly formidable "Subtle Words and Profound Meaning," at that.
A single word could destroy an enemy!
Yet Libationer Liu had just used Subtle Words and Profound Meaning on the citizens