Whoever can strike me hard will be rewarded handsomely.

With two formidable figures gone from the study at once, Shen Jiangliu finally felt the air begin to move.

He knew very well that once his teacher had settled the emperor, he would probably turn around and punish him.

With his legs feeling weak, Shen Jiangliu closed the study door and glanced at the bench and bamboo whip that were already there.

He uncontrollably imagined the scene before he came in, shuddered, and banished the terrifying image from his mind.

Shouldn't we enshrine these two things?

Shen Jiangliu thought somewhat nonsensically.

He walked straight to the display shelf, pulled out a rattan cane from a vase he knew all too well, and knelt down upright in the center of the study, holding the cane.

He grumbled about the dangerous relationship between his teacher and His Majesty while mourning his current predicament.

Serving a ruler is like serving a tiger; the teacher's situation is very dangerous. How can we ensure the teacher's safe departure without angering His Majesty?

Of course, he's in the most danger right now. The teacher is furious; I wonder if he'll even be able to walk out of the study upright today...

His mind was filled with jumbled thoughts until his arms ached so much he could barely lift them, and his knees throbbed with pain.

Shen Jiangliu withdrew from his inner world.

He glanced up and saw Jiang Jibai close the door, walk past him, and slowly walk to the bench. He bent down to pick up the bamboo whip on the ground and sneered, "You can take the head of the Ning'an Provincial Governor so easily, Lord Shen. The rattan in your hand is probably not good enough for you."

Shen Jiangliu: "..."

Having been taught by Jiang Jibai for many years, Shen Jiangliu naturally knew that the things he had done would be severely punished by his teacher, and that a "mere" cane was not worth his teacher's attention.

The problem is... the bamboo whip in the teacher's hand is no ordinary bamboo whip, it's a dragon-slaying whip!

He's slapped the dragon's rump.

Does he deserve it? He doesn't.

Wait a minute... Shen Jiangliu looked at the rattan cane in his hand.

According to the timeline given in the teacher's letter, His Majesty has been a student of the teacher for approximately four months. Four months...

Your Majesty's generation of honeycomb briquettes won't be so easy for the teacher to find fault with.

This must be the first time today... right?

Shen Jiangliu's hands, which were holding the rattan cane, trembled even more violently, and his voice carried a calm sense of "death."

"Teacher, using physical punishment as a form of discipline is not the way of a benevolent person. I urge you to turn back before it's too late."

Jiang Jibai knew Shen Jiangliu wouldn't say anything nice, so his expression turned cold, and his voice was neither warm nor cold, "Then why are you kneeling here holding a rattan cane?"

She hasn't dared to see him since returning to Beijing so many days ago, simply because she knows she'll get a beating for what she's done.

"If you don't accept it, then get up. You are now a favorite of His Majesty, while I am just a commoner. I am not worthy of your kneeling."

They've started using sarcastic and sarcastic remarks, which shows just how fiercely Jiang Jibai's anger is burning.

Shen Jiangliu looked into his teacher's eyes, which were devoid of any smile. His lips moved slightly, as if he wanted to say, "Good advice is hard to persuade a damned ghost," but he swallowed the words back down.

Should we tell His Majesty the truth and discuss countermeasures with our teacher, or should we remain calm and hold His Majesty in order to prevent the situation from getting out of control?

Shen Jiangliu hesitated for a second, but ultimately chose the latter.

Would the teacher be willing to cooperate with his acting in order to distance himself from the Emperor and feign compliance?

One wrong move and it could be a catastrophic disaster, a catastrophe.

Shen Jiangliu dared not gamble.

He pursed his lips, sighed inwardly, looked into Jiang Jibai's eyes, and said, "Wrong, where should I lie?"

His words were concise and pragmatic, clearly showing a willingness to accept punishment, yet they inexplicably ignited a nameless anger within people.

Having not seen each other for a year, Jiang Jibai felt a familiar sense of unease as he once again experienced his eldest disciple's instigation skills. He swept his bamboo whip across Shen Jiangliu's leg and said calmly, "Lord Shen, I think you don't need to lie down anymore, just kneel."

Caught off guard, Shen Jiangliu was struck on the leg, and the rattan cane he was holding fell to the ground. He groaned and instinctively clutched his leg.

Immediately afterwards, places that hadn't been visited for a year suddenly became scorching hot, as if they had been scalded by flames.

Shen Jiangliu was knocked forward by the blows, his hands hitting the ground, his brows furrowing in pain. Before he could even get up, a series of blows landed on the same spot through his clothes.

The accumulated amount left a gradually noticeable white mark on the clothing.

Shen Jiangliu couldn't straighten up at all; he was practically lying on the ground. He opened his mouth in a groan, sweat dripping from the tip of his nose onto the ground.

Even the hardest buttocks can't withstand the bamboo whip. After being struck seven times in the same spot, Shen Jiangliu surrendered, his face covered in cold sweat, "Wrong, wrong, wrong..."

The bamboo whip stopped abruptly, tapping Shen Jiangliu as a reminder, "Aren't you going to try and persuade me to turn back before it's too late?"

Good intentions are misunderstood.

Shen Jiangliu weighed the teacher's anger against his own somewhat diminished tolerance after a year without being beaten.

He didn't care about anything else. Looking at Jiang Jibai's face, he tentatively grabbed the leg of the "Dragon-Subduing Stool," pulled it in front of him, and braced it against his arms. He said guiltily, "Give me some leverage, I promise I won't fall over..."

Jiang Jibai was too lazy to argue with him about this kind of thing; just listening to him say a few more words would only make him angry.

A wise person acts without speaking.

Shen Jiangliu was drenched in sweat, and muffled groans escaped his lips.

Jiang Jibai's brows were frosty, his anger barely contained. "Lord Shen, you're quite the powerful imperial envoy, making enemies on all sides. You'd even sneer at a dog you saw on the street. You're not worried about having too many debts, nor about having too many lice; you're just afraid no one will assassinate you, aren't you?"

The whip is the butcher's block, the buttocks the fish on the chopping block, but the mouth still has its own thoughts: "Isn't it just that those fools are too narrow-minded and can't stand the truth..."

The result of speaking faster than thinking is always asking for trouble. Shen Jiangliu's face was contorted with pain, a few short groans escaped from his throat, and cold sweat trickled down his forearm, past the bulging veins on the back of his hand, and dripped from his fingertips.

Before the next lash of the bamboo whip could land, Shen Jiangliu quickly tried to cover up his mistake, saying, "It's not that I can't control my mouth, it's just that the more desperate they are, the more likely they are to make a mistake. If I provoke them, the more people who want to assassinate me will be gathered up, and the more evidence they will have, the better it will be for His Majesty to wipe them all out in one fell swoop."

Jiang Jibai curled his lips into a smile, but the smile didn't reach his eyes. "So you're saying you used yourself as bait, selflessly sharing His Majesty's burdens, while I, your teacher, misunderstood you and didn't recognize your good intentions?"

Shen Jiangliu swallowed hard, wanting to say yes, but experience told him that would be suicide.

"The evidence of embezzling river funds and assassinating His Majesty isn't enough to wipe them out and make them die eight hundred times over. Do you, Lord Shen, have to rely on your words to survive several more assassination attempts to make them die even more times?"

Seeing that he couldn't fool them, Shen Jiangliu could only sigh inwardly for his own backside and weakly say, "Well, not really..."

Jiang Jibai was furious at Shen Jiangliu's incorrigible and excuse-making behavior. He lashed the bamboo whip at Shen Jiangliu with speed and force, saying, "Will you only stop when you die from this foul mouth?"

You'll only realize one day that it's better not to beat your apprentices when you're overly martial-minded...

Shen Jiangliu was in so much pain that his soul seemed to leave his body; his mind was blank. Covered in cold sweat, he clung to the bench, reaching out a hand to Jiang Jibai and flailing it twice, "Teacher, please calm down..."

Jiang Jibai was about to give another lecture.

Shen Jiangliu said weakly, "We, master and disciple, are equally matched."

Jiang Jibai: "..."

The atmosphere turned completely cold. Shen Jiangliu gasped for breath until his numb brain recovered from the pain, and then he realized what he had just said. His expression gradually turned to terror.

It hurts so much I'm spitting it out.

Shen Jiangliu turned around stiffly, staring at Jiang Jibai's expressionless face, his voice trembling like a wavy line, "T-Teacher, you...you must have misheard..."

Jiang Jibai, expressionless and in a flat tone, uttered two redundant words: "Silence, shut up."