Chapter 149

During the special training at the academy, Wei Xi’s questions were about intercepting while Mei Ruochu’s questions were deliberately leading people to think in the wrong direction.

Mu Er Pang felt that this question was a lot like the way his big brother Mei posed questions.

So, he definitely had to eliminate the option of Yan Pingzhong first. Can’t think of Pingzhong as a person.

Inertia thinking is hard to break.

Mu Er Pang closed his eyes and began to recall poems and articles he had read that had nothing to do with people.

After racking his brains for a while, suddenly there was a loud thunder outside.

Last year during the exam, there were several heavy rainstorms in Qingzhou Prefecture, and this year the rain had started again.

After the thunder, there was no wind outside, nor did it rain, just a complete gloominess.

Inside the examination room, it suddenly became as dark as night, and the soldiers immediately came forward to maintain order and lit candles around the examination room.

As soon as the candles were lit, it became even hotter inside, like being in a steamer.

Scholars were physically weak, and coupled with the difficult poetry topic, many of them still hadn’t recovered.

In this situation, many felt uncomfortable.

Mu Er Pang, who had a strong physique, soon felt very stuffy and quickly loosened his collar and rolled up his sleeves.

Although there were still two or three hours left before the exam, in such weather conditions, people’s sense of time would also become confused.

After a while, some candidates who wrote quickly but didn’t feel well in their bodies started to hand in their papers one after another.

And once people started handing in their papers frequently, it added a lot of pressure to the other candidates in the same room.

As a result, more and more people handed in their papers, but Mu Er Pang remained motionless in his seat, forcing himself to calm down and continue searching in his memory.

Finally, he really thought of a sentence— “If there are pine nuts, ancient measures, Pingzhong, and Junqian, a hundred acres of forest, and a thousand years of boat oars.”

This sentence comes from Yu Xin’s “Essay on Withered Trees” during the Southern and Northern Dynasties.

Yes, this time the source is not even from a poem but from an essay.

So Pingzhong and Junqian are not talking about Yanzi moving, but two kinds of trees!

Even if Liu Xuezheng added a sentence between these two words, or even left some space, it wouldn’t be as difficult as it is now!

And wouldn’t Liu Xuezheng himself know that Pingzhong and Junqian are likely to cause ambiguity?

No, he must know, and it’s intentional!

This question simply lists the names of two kinds of trees.

Anyone who has read related essays and can remember them will naturally recall it.

To put it bluntly, this question is even “simpler” than the previous main question!

With only a little over half of the exam time left, Mu Er Pang stopped grumbling and quickly resigned himself to composing poetry.

When writing about trees, one naturally has to use the technique of personification, borrowing the traits of trees to express the aspiration to be an upright and honest person.

Because discarding inertia thinking and rethinking the source took a lot of time, Mu Er Pang still only finished writing his paper a moment before the end of the exam, waiting for the final documents and soldiers to come and collect them.

At this point, the examination room was so stuffy that it felt like one couldn’t breathe. Mu Er Pang’s clothes were all soaked through. Before reaching the exit, he ran into Ren Shun and Zhao Xiuwen again.

This time it wasn’t a coincidence, because there weren’t many people left in this “steamer,” so naturally they met.

Ren Shun was also sweating profusely, while Zhao Xiuwen was putting on clothes as he walked—he had taken off half of his clothes earlier because it was too hot and had written with his bare torso.

After the three met, they exchanged only a few greetings and exchanged a knowing look of “hard to explain in words.”

It was the look they exchanged that made everyone aware—they had all managed to find the trap in Liu Xuezheng’s poetry question with difficulty.

Having developed a friendship, they considered themselves friends now.

They were pleased for each other for not falling into the pit, and they smiled lightly, almost simultaneously.

They walked side by side for a while, and Shen Aoshuang passed by them.

Still as indifferent as ever, Shen Aoshuang hadn’t even buttoned up his clothes properly as he walked away in disarray.

The three of them wanted to remind him, but in the end, they kept quiet—Shen Aoshuang was so proud, they didn’t want to invite trouble.

After leaving Longmen, although the weather outside was still sultry, it was much more comfortable than in the examination room.

They took a few deep breaths, regained their strength, and bid farewell, each going to find their own family.

Shen Cui came to pick someone up in a carriage. As the sky darkened completely, it became stuffy even inside the carriage. They took two umbrellas and found a tea stall outside the examination room to sit at.

By this time, she was sweating all over, so after exchanging a few words with her son, they immediately headed back to the academy.

Shortly after they entered the academy, the rain that had been brewing in the clouds for a couple of hours finally came pouring down with a pattering sound.

Actually, it started pouring down only after they returned home, which seemed like good luck.

But according to what Shen Cui said, it would have been better if it had rained earlier, so it wouldn’t have affected Mu Er Pang’s health by 2 points.

Skipping over Mu Er Pang’s bathing and resting, when Wei Shu and the others returned from the Prefectural School before evening, they gathered together again, eating watermelon and discussing the questions.

Still in oral form, Mu Er Pang first mentioned the essay question, a conventional one, and he answered it well with solid references.

So, Wei Shu and the others didn’t pay much attention.

When he moved on to the poetry question, he started with the words “Pingzhong” and then deliberately paused.

Wei Shu raised his face from the watermelon slice and asked, “The poetry question was about Yan Pingzhong? That indeed isn’t difficult.”

Mu Er Pang glanced at Wei Xi, Wei Xi, Mei Ruochu, and Cui Fei. Except for Mei Ruochu, who didn’t express anything, the others nodded slightly in agreement.

See, when scholars mention Pingzhong, they think of Yanzi!

Mu Er Pang then said the last two words, “Junqian.”

Except for Cui Fei and Shen Cui, after hearing this, the others in the academy pondered for a while and their expressions became difficult to describe.

Shen Cui was used to hearing things she didn’t understand, so she had gotten used to it.

She just considered herself illiterate, knowing that someone would patiently explain it to her later, so she didn’t rush to ask questions.

Cui Fei naturally wanted to ask. He wondered, “The story of Yanzi moving? I’ve never heard of it.”

Mei Ruochu sighed helplessly and said, “It’s from Yu Xin’s ‘Essay on Withered Trees.’ ‘Songzi, Gudu, Pingzhong, Junqian’ are all names of trees. And in Zuo Si’s ‘Essay on Wu Capital,’ there’s also ‘Pingzhong, Zhu Lin, Song Zi, Gudu. Nanliu trees, trees of longing.'”

Mu Er Pang laughed bitterly and said, “If the poetry question had used ‘Junli’ from the ‘Essay on Wu Capital,’ I probably wouldn’t have spent so much time recalling the source.”

After all, these two words still have the character (tree) in them, making it easy for people to associate the question with trees!

But Liu Xuezheng deliberately chose the two words ‘Junqian.’

Cui Fei couldn’t help but gasp in shock. Although he, as someone who already had the title of Xiucai, was embarrassed to be misled by the examination question, fortunately, there were only people from their own academy present, so it wasn’t too bad.

He gasped because he was scared—last year’s year-end examination question was set by Liu Xuezheng.

At that time, the question before had already stumped many people.

But at least that question had no ambiguity.

As long as one was familiar with the books listed in the examination syllabus, it could be handled completely!

Now looking back, Liu Xuezheng must have been showing mercy to everyone at that time.

But what about the next two years of exams under his hand? How would they cope?!

However, after Mu Er Pang finished the academy exam and with half a year until the next year-end exam, Shen Cui advised everyone not to think too much about it for now.

After the retest ended, it was still the time for Liu Xuezheng and the other elders to review and grade the papers.

They still didn’t need to pay too much attention to the essay question.

What the elders and fellow teachers were itching to see was the poetry question.

Although Liu Xuezheng had solemnly promised them earlier that there would be no tricks and the questions would be very simple, they still couldn’t help feeling uneasy without seeing the questions themselves.

Finally, they saw it.

They were all over forty years old, having read books all their lives, so their level was naturally much higher than that of the students taking the exam.

Therefore, they quickly thought of the source, and the elders who had been teaching for a lifetime immediately thought of the ambiguity that this poetry question could lead to!

“I didn’t say it wrong, did I? The question is very simple, right?” Liu Xuezheng said with a smile, “As long as the students have read ‘Essay on Wu Capital’ or ‘Essay on Withered Trees,’ they should have no problem answering it correctly.”

It wasn’t the first time they were speechless because of him.

After digesting it for a while, someone spoke up and asked, “Then why didn’t you use the words ‘Junli’…”

The words ‘Junli’ are not commonly seen, so they wouldn’t have easily led to ambiguity like this.

Liu Xuezheng said without changing his expression, “Oh, it just happened to be like that. Anyway, this tree name has two different writings. I just randomly chose one.”

Elders and fellow teachers: …

Happened to be like that? Randomly chose one? You’re kidding us!

But indeed, this question was more normal compared to the previous main exam, focusing on reading comprehension and attention to detail.

They didn’t dwell on it any further.

As a result, among the remaining candidates in the retest, surprisingly, about thirty to forty percent of them actually wrote poetry about “Yanzi moving.”

These papers could be dismissed without further scrutiny, greatly reducing their workload.

During this scorching summer, grading papers was a tough job.

The elders and fellow teachers felt a bit relieved after this.

Finally, it was time to rank the candidates. This was Liu Xuezheng’s territory.

But surprisingly, he didn’t play any tricks this time, carefully considering the various opinions of the elders and fellow teachers.

On the day before the announcement of the examination results, the rankings of all the scholars had been determined, except for the first and second place.

Because there were two papers—one wrote better essays, displaying profound knowledge of classics, while the other wrote better poetry, captivating and irresistible.

Of course, both of them had caused a dilemma for everyone, and the slightly inferior question of the two had already surpassed the majority of the students in the same room.

In the end, most people expressed their support for the former, with just one more person supporting the latter.

Only Liu Xuezheng hadn’t made a statement yet, but ultimately, his authority was the greatest.

Since Liu Xuezheng was adept at poetry and prose, everyone tacitly agreed that the first place would definitely be awarded to the student whose poetry and prose were more exquisite.

The level of the two papers was very close, so whoever took the first place would be convincing.

However, what was unthinkable was that in the end, Liu Xuezheng chose the former as the first place!

People couldn’t help but sigh. Although Liu Xuezheng liked to play tricks with his questions, he was truly open-minded, able to consider others’ opinions instead of relying solely on his own preferences.

He was indeed a wise person!