Idle courtiers

Chapter 399 Four Words

Zhou Nan's mood at this moment can be summed up in four words: Doubt, Fear, Regret, and Joy.

What is suspicious is that the topic Chen Ju bought turned out to be true, and who did he buy it from?
It has to be said that Gu Yan's secrecy work is quite good, and he is quite scheming.Before the township examination, in order to avoid the entanglement of people who came to intercede and ask questions, he deliberately made a gesture of writing a question in "The Analects of Confucius", and let everyone guess wildly.As a result, all the students in the capital believed it to be true, so that false questions were flying all over the sky.

In the end, Grandmaster Gu did not take the usual path, and only one of the three questions was an Analects question, which severely put all the candidates and the so-called related households together.

It is conceivable that there are countless candidates wailing in the examination room at this moment.

Since Gu Yan's affairs are so secretive, where did Chen Ju get the exam questions?He is just a little eunuch, where did he get such great energy?

Zhou Nan thought again, this Chen Ju was the governor of the East Factory later on, and he must have an extraordinary talent in spying on news. Nothing is difficult in the world, as long as there is a heart. 1000 taels of silver is enough to make ordinary people irresistible in this era.

What I fear is that cheating in the examination room is a felony, if it happens, my life will be over.

Zhou Nan thought again, he was a god in Chen Ju's mind.Even if it happened, he probably wouldn't confess himself. This father-in-law is a man of firm will.Moreover, it was him who came forward to buy the questions, but it had nothing to do with him.Even if something happens in the future, he won't be able to find him, Mr. Zhou.

Regrettably, when Chen Ju gave the question to himself that day, I thought he was cheated and bought a fake one.Make a righteous gesture and tear the topic to pieces.

If I had known this earlier, I should have accepted it happily.In this way, wouldn't the fame of Juren be properly obtained?

Fortunately, Chen Ju didn't give up at the time, so he read two questions.

……

Ever since Chen Ju left Zhou Nan's house that day, although our Master Zhou was so busy, he still raised his mind to brush up the questions.

Not only did he do all the papers he got, but he even did the two questions given to him by Chen Ju, and handed them over to Wang Shizhen for revision.

Now that the realization already knows the topic, I will do it again.With the ability of the teacher's test machine, can the revised two questions be worse?

Because one question is missing, the top three may not be obtained.But there shouldn't be any problem in trying to squeeze into the list. Thinking of this, Zhou Nan was so excited that he couldn't do anything.

After sitting for a long time with his complexion fluctuating, Zhou Nan calmed down.Xindao: It was three days ago that I did these two questions. It has been a long time, and the memory of some places has been blurred. I have to hurry up and transcribe them.If you delay any longer, if you forget, wouldn't Chen Ju's hard work be wasted?

At that moment, Zhou Nan did not delay, and immediately polished the ink, and quickly wrote the paper.

The human mind is an amazing machine with endless potential.After more than a year of hard study, Zhou Nan has amazing memory. He can memorize everything he has read just by reading it once. He feels that he has returned to the state of his third year in high school.

Although I don't remember the two articles clearly, I still remember the basic structure, and only need to make some embellishments on the details.

This writing, entered the state.After finishing the first article "The Way of a Gentleman Fei Eryin", I felt a little hungry in my stomach, and I was about to go to the test basket to get pancakes to satisfy my hunger.Then I saw two soldiers coming over with baskets and shouting: "Everyone, you have eaten, you have eaten."

It turned out that it was noon.

Zhou Nan hurriedly found a large bowl that had been prepared in the test room and stretched it out.

The soldiers scooped up three or four taels of rice for him, and another spoonful of fried vermicelli, and said, "Eat well, eat well, and go on the road when you are full."

Today is a cloudy day, with dark clouds billowing in the sky, and the soldier smiled strangely, Zhou Nan suddenly had an indescribable feeling in his heart, as if he had entered a ghost movie scene in a trance.

After a while, there was a "rustling" sound of eating in the examination room, as if a spring silkworm was gnawing on a mulberry leaf, with occasional hiccups.The Tribute Academy has controlled administrative expenses to an outrageous degree. The brown rice served to candidates tastes extremely bad, and if you are not careful, you can even bite into the sand.

After lunch, those three or four taels of carbohydrates are quickly converted into sugar.When the blood sugar concentration is high, people feel sleepy.Many candidates began to take a nap, so the sounds of chewing and hiccups were replaced by snoring.

Zhou Nan didn't dare to delay, and while his memory was still fresh, he transcribed "Jinfushan" again.

So far, in a sense, Lao Zhou's rural examination this year has come to an end.His ranking depends entirely on these two questions. As for the rest of the questions, they don't have a high score value. As long as there is no problem with the format, most of them can pass.

After a rough estimate, based on the total score of [-] points, the three "Four Books" questions are worth [-] points.

The first two questions should be able to get [-] points, and the last one "It's So Stupid" can get [-] points if you do it on your own.It is considered to have passed the [-]-point pass line, and it is no problem to be listed.

With the remaining [-] points, there are five topics in the "Five Classics", one essay, and current affairs policy. The total score of [-] points can be worth [-] points, and it should not affect the overall situation.

Of course, in ancient times, there was no talk of counting points, it was just an analogy.

After completing these two questions, it was time for dinner again. Zhou Nan lamented how time flies.In this way, these nine days are not difficult.

It was still the two soldiers who came to share the food with their burdens, and Zhou Nan remembered that he hadn't washed the dishes yet.

Fortunately, there was no oil or meat for lunch, so he scooped water from the nearby wooden bucket and rinsed it off.

Autumn is held in hot weather. In order to prevent candidates from heatstroke or food poisoning, the examination room will put a large bucket in each examination room, which contains boiled isatid root, Xiao Bupleurum, and loquat leaves as drinking water for everyone.

After doing two questions in one day, Zhou Nan was relaxed, and he didn't burn up the lights like others, and simply curled up in the test room to sleep.

The place is too small, curled up for a long time, my whole body aches, I can't wait to go out and exercise my muscles and bones.

It has been cloudy for two days, the clouds are not raining, the air is stagnant, like a steamer, sweat comes out one after another, how can I sleep.

Looking up, thousands of oil lamps were lit in the entire Gongyuan, and the lights and shadows were shining brightly, like a sea of ​​stars.This is a rare spectacle in ancient times when curfews were strictly enforced.

On the second day of the first game, Zhou Nan also moved quickly.In the morning, I finished "It's Too Stupid" and in the afternoon, I did a question about "Five Classics".Although the subsequent exams could no longer affect the final score, Zhou Nan didn't dare to be careless. After finishing these two questions, he felt listless and slept very soundly at night.

On the third day of the first session, he finished the last three "Five Classics" questions, and it was time to hand in the papers.

Official Mi Feng came to collect the papers with his soldiers, pasted names and numbered everyone's papers one by one.

It is said that after these papers are collected, a special transcription officer will transcribe the papers, and then hand over the transcribed papers to the chief examiner.

When the final list is written, the sealed original volume will be brought out for comparison with the transcript.

Winding takes a lot of time, usually until midnight.And in the middle of the night, the question paper for the second round will be handed out.

The weather was gloomy and hot, Mi Fengguan and the soldiers were soaked in sweat, and there were white flowers of salt on their robes.

Zhou Nan couldn't stand the heat, so he took off his clothes and pressed his back against the wall, but the brick wall was hot.

When it was completely dark, suddenly, someone over there let out a shrill laugh, "I won, I won, I won the Juren, I am the master Juren!"

I saw a naked body running towards me. That person turned out to be Gao Xiucai who asked me to sue the magistrate of Miyun County before entering the examination room.

Gao Xiucai is crazy.

His family was poor, and the whole family depended on the granary rice he had learned in the county.Because he was too old and failed in repeated trials, Mazhi County deliberately kicked him out of the county school.If you can't enter the county school, you won't be eligible to take the township examination. If you fail again, this will be Gao Xiucai's last autumn.

Under the strong pressure of survival, Gao Sheng's spirit completely collapsed.

He giggled as he ran, and sang: "Walk to Wufeng by mistake, added some wandering thoughts, and hurriedly forgot the appearance of a fairy. Spring flowers and moon rest..."

Zhou Nan was taken aback: What is this singing, the mud horse is a lewd poem and a song!
A soldier threw him to the ground.

The examiner, who was panting and catching up, had a livid face: "Foul words, insulting politeness, shut up."

The soldiers took off their stinky socks and stuffed them into Gao Xiucai's mouth.

Gao Xiucai was still laughing, but tears were streaming down his face.

Zhou Nan felt sad, and said to himself: "The imperial examination is really a road of no return. If you have no money and power, don't waste your time on it. Thousands of troops cross the single-plank bridge, and the success rate is too low. Fortunately, I just crossed the bridge. When I was in the yamen because of my status, I entered the yamen and worked as a yamen servant. Later, because of a chance meeting, this is where I am today. Just imagine, if I was not a prisoner, I would also follow the protagonist in the time-traveling novel to take the imperial examination. Today's Gao Xiucai is my fate!"

Some soldiers yelled and sang: "If you have revenge, you will have revenge, if you have revenge, you will have revenge!"

Only then did Zhou Nan know what happened to the soldier's weird smile on the first day and "Eat enough, eat enough, and go on the road when you are full."

The environment of the Gongyuan examination room was extremely harsh. Every autumn, there would be examinees who did not work hard and did not distinguish between grains and grains. They died due to heat stroke, food poisoning or other reasons.

In the Hongzhi year, the Nanjing Gongyuan fire burned to death more than 300 students. It was a major tragedy in the history of the imperial examinations in the Ming Dynasty.

According to the legend, after the scholar died, because of the obsession in his heart, his soul stayed in the examination room, and he would claim several lives every time he took the examination.

A gust of cool wind blew, and the hairs on the back of Zhou Nan's neck stood on end.

The rain finally came down, and the sky was full of light amidst the sound of thunderbolts.

With a crash, the rainwater formed a pearl curtain in the light.

The examinees who had been in the heat for three days cheered bursts of cheers, and Zhou Nan simply stretched out his clothes in the exam room and washed them in the rain.

(End of this chapter)