The crowd burst into an uproar upon hearing this.
The bookstore manager spat, "To think you're a scholar, yet you have the nerve to say such things!"
"Instead of focusing on your studies, you're thinking about bribing your way through. How's that different from buying official positions through corruption!"
He grabbed the scholar's collar and, as if seething with anger, delivered another punch to the scholar.
Painfully, the scholar's mouth corner bled with foam.
The mocking voices from those around, pointing and sneering, turned his shame into anger.
He hysterically retorted, "Without money, you can't buy connections, can't even enter the exam hall, let alone talk of the imperial exams!"
Finally, he broke down in tears.
"Years of tireless study are no match for someone else's chest of gold. How laughable, how absurd!"
The academy's manager furiously shouted, "Caught red-handed, yet you still refuse to repent, spinning words deceitfully."
