Zhao An had no desire to be blunt with Professor Jiang. After all, they were both officials within the educational hierarchy. Having spent their lives studying the sages and now teaching their works, they were all men of utmost decorum; there was no need to speak as crudely as commoners. It was far too damaging to their rapport.
But old Jiang was being impossible! Was he a slot machine? Did he only take coins and never pay out?
There were seventeen names on the list. Setting aside the student Zhang, who was already locked in for the second-place ranking, if each parent paid three to five hundred taels, that alone amounted to several thousand. Add in young Zhang’s cut, and the total had to be at least ten thousand taels.
Chapter 77