There was a saying: it was easy to go from poverty to extravagance, but difficult the other way around. When it involved large possessions of gold and silver, no one would care about ‘everyone is responsible for the rise and fall of the country’.

But even if life was difficult, there was no other way. No one dared to receive gifts. Everyone knew that Yan Wang was behind the rich merchants, receiving something incorrectly would perhaps turn the gift into a life-claiming token. No one dared to dip their hands in the military expenses. The taxes after the reform were also impossible to touch, and there was no need to mention the relief funds for natural disasters, the heads of Yang Rong Gui and his party had yet to become bones.

Fortunately, this year's Autumn Examination was not at the point of attention. The whole country was busy fighting the war and earning money, no one cared about these useless scholars, thus someone immediately came up with a vile scheme.

As a result, pulling out the radish and dragging the mud with it, implicating a big fraud case involving nine provinces, shocking the whole country.

Fang Qin managed to press down many shit-stirring sticks around him with difficulty; he had yet to enjoy a few days of peace, but was already covered with papers from the two courts falling like snow.

Those pure officials were different from the Yan Wang Party: the Yan Wang party had always been pragmatic and had a purpose for all their activities, they fought for power in an orderly manner, many of their actions could be predictable; but these ‘clean’ people, who had eyes higher than the top of their heads, regarded fame and wealth as garbage, and were all ‘revealing crimes simply for the sake of revealing crimes’ — this was something they did. Their personal fame was closely related to the number of people they personally dragged down.

The young masters and nobles rarely ever entered these two courts, thus a majority of these monsters came from poor students, and what the fraud in this imperial examination touched was also the interest of poor students.

The mad dogs in the two courts who hadn't bitten anyone in a long time seemed to have their tails stepped on, barking loudly. They screamed and scolded in a variety of ways every day, forcing Li Feng to investigate strictly; it seemed like, if they were not satisfied with the investigation, they would line up and knock their heads on the column in the middle of the court to die altogether for the Emperor to see.

The brief and false peace was broken.

Nine provincial officials, there was no telling how many intricate relationships were involved in it, even including Fang Qin's good for nothing younger brother.