"Speak!"
Jiang Xiaobai stared at the scholar, his gaze icy.
"I... I don't know who that person actually was."
The blue-robed scholar swallowed, his face drained of all color. "That person approached me and offered me a hundred taels of silver to lead the agitation in the Clear Pavilion."
"He told me to say you'd bought your title of Top Graduate, that the Chancellor's Residence was currying favor with the Northern Guardian Marquis's Estate for its military power, and... and that the Chancellor's Residence had used Miss Li as a bargaining chip."
"But I was only doing what I was paid to do! I really don't know who he was!"
With those few words, the Clear Pavilion fell utterly silent.
Every scholar's expression froze.
A hundred taels?
Paid to do this?!
So... they really had been used today?
For a moment, many of the scholars looked utterly mortified.
Those who had shouted the loudest just moments earlier now wished they could find a crack in the ground to crawl into.
They had prided themselves on being scholars, on coming here to seek justice for students of humble birth throughout the realm.
Yet in the end, they had been led around by the nose by a fellow who had taken someone's money?
What a tremendous loss of face!
Li Zhixing stood nearby, his expression just as dark.
Yes, he had only suspected it before.
But now that he had heard the blue-robed scholar admit it himself, Li Zhixing could no longer contain the fury in his heart.
This was not a slap in Jiang Xiaobai's face.
It was a slap in the Clear Pavilion's face-and worse, in the Chancellor's Residence's face!
Jiang Xiaobai said nothing more. He merely glanced at Li Zhixing and gave a casual wave.
Li Zhixing understood at