This was clearly an attempt to harm the two children of the eldest brother, Lin Zeguang, wasn't it? Lin Minju and Lin Minjin are scholars now, after all.
It is said that Madam Zhao spent a small fortune in the county town, pulling strings to get her two grandsons registered for the upcoming imperial examinations to qualify as scholars. Isn't Lin Zeyao effectively blackening those two boys' reputations? If this gets out, all that money Madam Zhao spent will have gone down the drain. What on earth is Lin Zeyao thinking? Is he using the fourth son of the Lin family as a scapegoat to ruin his own nephews? To my eyes, Lin Zeyao is just blinded by jealousy and spite because the two boys in the eldest branch of the Lin family are such excellent students.
At first, it was only two or three women whispering together. But in less than half a day, the rumors had spread throughout the entire Linjiang Village. Even more bizarrely, when members of the Lin clan visited relatives in Dashui Village and Heba Village, they were cornered by locals and pelted with questions. Suddenly, rumors were flying everywhere: Lin Zeyao, consumed by jealousy over the academic success of Lin Zeguang's two children, had used the family's fourth son as a pretext to frame them. The gossip claimed he wasn't just trying to destroy the Lin family's reputation, but was also plotting to seize the property left behind by the old patriarch. The rumors, true and false alike, spread like wildfire.
Chapter 61