Jiapingguan Chronicle

Chapter 2801 Master Qingsong 19.0
"Not a capital offense?" Song Yaojia scoffed, a half-smile playing on his lips. "Yes, but it could also not be." He raised an eyebrow at Shen Haolin and Shen Cha. "Right?"

Shen Haolin and Shen Cha exchanged glances without speaking, but nodded to Song Yaojia.

"What are you all doing?" Jin Miaomiao looked this way and that. "What kind of riddle are you playing? What does this mean?"

"What I mean is that whether Wang and Dong's crimes are serious or minor depends not on the dean, nor on the other professors, nor on the small group of Meng, Tang, and Ao, but on Master Qingsong."

"Huh?" Jin Miaomiao was taken aback. "Why? The academy isn't run by the clerk!"

“The academy wasn’t actually founded by Master Qingsong, but he’s the real person in charge within it.” Shen Cha raised an eyebrow slightly. “Didn’t you hear your great-uncle say that the dean once asked Master Qingsong how this matter should be handled?”

Jin Miaomiao thought for a moment, then shook her head at Shen Cha with a blank expression.

"You're still the same as always. You just skip over the parts that you're not interested in or don't want to know."

"Really?" Jin Miaomiao's eyes flickered, and her expression seemed a little off. "Am I that kind of person?"

"Is not it?"

"What's going on?" Song Yaojia leaned closer and looked at her more closely. "Are you hiding something?"

"Huh?" Jin Miaomiao touched her nose, then her chin. "Nothing."

"With your guilty look on your face, you still want to tell me you're not hiding anything?" Song Yaojia patted her head gently when she saw her like this. "The story you're telling now is very incomplete. Do you think we can't tell? Besides, Xiao Cha is right here. She knows the whole story."

“Actually, just like Xiaocha said, there are many parts that I don’t quite understand or don’t understand at all, so I just ignore them and pretend they don’t exist.” Jin Miaomiao sighed. “So, I ignored a lot of the content, including the attitude of the academy’s dean and teacher towards the clerk. They were so obsequious, which seemed quite different from the impression they left on us before.”

"You think Master Qingsong's background is insufficient for the Dean and the teacher to treat him this way, right?"

"Yes!" Jin Miaomiao touched her nose. "So, I don't quite understand why they asked the clerk, who was just a child at the time, how he should have handled it. It felt like they were doing it on purpose, as if they wanted to put the clerk in a difficult position. If the clerk didn't speak up for Wang and Dong, the rumors wouldn't just be that Meng, Tang, and Ao were involved with Wang and Dong, but that the clerk had orchestrated it. The clerk was indeed known as a child prodigy when he was young. Did they want to frame him just because of that reputation?"

“It’s not so much for the name of child prodigy,” Shen Cha thought for a moment. “Perhaps there was an element of testing, but more importantly, we wanted to ask Master Qingsong’s opinion. They can’t make decisions on their own about such things.”

"This is also what I don't understand. How could the dean, as the master of the academy, do such a thing?"

“Because of my identity!” Shen Haolin raised an eyebrow at Jin Miaomiao, who was looking over. “My identity as a child prodigy, and Master Qingsong’s other identity.”

“Brother is right.” Shen Cha patted Jin Miaomiao, giving her a reassuring smile, and said, “Since you didn’t stop completely, let me tell you the whole story. There are actually two storylines in this story, one explicit and one implicit.” “Explicit and implicit?” Jin Miaomiao was a little annoyed that she had been distracted while listening to the story; she hadn’t noticed any distinction between explicit and implicit storylines. She took a sip of tea, looked at Mei Lin beside her, then at Shen Cha, “Did I miss a lot of crucial details?”

Shen Cha and Mei Lin exchanged a glance and nodded at her simultaneously.

"Ugh, I should have listened more carefully, really."

"It's alright, don't be upset. I'll tell you. I can not only tell you, but also explain it to you." Shen Cha placed her candied fruit in front of Jin Miaomiao, who looked upset, and said, "The obvious storyline is actually very simple. It's the entanglement between Meng, Tang, and Ao and Wang and Dong. This storyline is very clear: the deal fell through, and so did their goodwill. Meng and Tang demanded that Wang and Dong serve them exclusively, completely cutting off their source of income at the academy. Wang and Dong disagreed, which led to what happened later. And it is this obvious storyline that caused the other hidden storyline to slowly surface."

"The hidden thread refers to Master Qingsong, right?"

“That’s right.” Shen Cha nodded. “Miao Miao doesn’t understand why Master Qingsong would speak up for Wang and Dong, since those two aren’t exactly good people either, right?” Seeing Jin Miao Miao’s agreeing expression, she continued, “Because Master Qingsong wants to use them to establish his authority.”

"To establish authority?"

“Yes!” Shen Cha nodded. “We need to use this incident to establish our authority in the academy and make those students who once isolated him realize that they can choose not to talk to him, but they cannot cause him trouble or disturb his peace.”

"Looking for trouble?" Jin Miaomiao immediately grasped the key point. "Someone is causing trouble for the advisor?"

“A lot.” Shen Cha looked at Jin Miaomiao with a helpless expression and said, “As expected, you didn’t listen carefully. Your great-uncle said that in the first month after Master Qingsong entered the academy, he was troubled by many people because of his maverick ways, and was even killed once. You even responded to him back then, how can you not remember?”

"Ah, I remember now!" Jin Miaomiao smiled shyly. "None of these things are as shocking as the fact that Master can't participate in the imperial examination, so I remembered this immediately and forgot about the previous thing."

"Although the previous incident shocked the students of the academy, and they dared not act too recklessly, there were still some people secretly trying to trip him up. Therefore, Master Qingsong wanted to use this cheating dispute to establish his authority again and let them see his true strength."

"I see, but..." Jin Miaomiao ate a candied fruit and mumbled, "how do we establish our authority?"

"If even the dean bows to Master Qingsong's decision, do you think ordinary students wouldn't have great respect for him?" Song Yaojia smiled and looked at Shen Cha. "You should have guessed why the dean's attitude towards Master Qingsong was like that, right?" Before Shen Cha could answer, he looked at Shen Haolin. "Haolin, you guessed it too?"

Shen Haolin nodded to Song Yaojia and said, "It's pretty much true."

“Look, Miaomiao can’t understand again.”

"Boss!" Merlin popped a candied fruit into his mouth and raised his hand. "I didn't understand either."

“It’s alright, I’ll explain it to you right away. When I was listening to my uncle talk about it, I had a vague idea. Although I didn’t have time to confirm it with my uncle, I suddenly remembered it when I was dozing off just now. When I was young and still recuperating, Master Huilan talked to me about some things about Master Huilan, including his background.”