"There's a story like that?"
Qi Shiyun's robes fluttered in the wind. Both she and Lianshan Xin looked somewhat surprised.
Yi Anle was surprised too. "I thought Your Majesty chose me as the Civil Examination Champion because both the second-place and third-place graduates came from powerful clans. Was this the real reason? Did Your Majesty intend to use me to counterbalance the Jiang Clique?"
Emperor Yongchang actually laughed at that. "Anle, I truly envy your confidence. Never mind back then-even now, what could you possibly use to counterbalance the Jiang Clique? They have two immortals holding the fort. Who else does your Yiqi Clan have? You were already its strongest fighter five years ago." Yi Anle's old face reddened again.
He truly had no backing. If he had any at all, Emperor Yongchang himself was his backing.
Since Emperor Yongchang ascended the throne, the people promoted faster than Yi Anle could be counted on one hand.
"The main reason I chose you as the Civil and Martial Examination Champion was that you beat everyone else into submission. No one dared compete with you. There weren't all those hidden calculations." Emperor Yongchang said calmly, "You took the examinations more seriously than Shiyun. At least you didn't deliberately lose to He Hongye out of sympathy." Qi Shiyun protested, "Your Majesty, is there any difference between second and third? Neither is first, anyway. Besides, the Flower-Seeking Scholar is universally acknowledged as the best-looking graduate. Of course I'd choose that."
The unspoken rule throughout the generations was that, among the top three graduates, the strongest became the top graduate, and the best-looking became the Flower-Seeking Scholar.
As for the Second-Place Graduate... that really was the easiest one to overlook.
Qi Shiyun's reluctance to place second back then had not been entirely for He Hongye's