Early the next morning, Zhu Pingan woke up from his sleep, lifted the rabbit fur blanket and opened his eyes, there was only one feeling – cold.
Looking outside, he saw that the earth was silver and white, and snowflakes were still falling in the sky. At the beginning of the snow is not big, not dense, like willow flakes with the wind, with the north wind whistling, snowflakes are getting bigger and bigger, the sky is like a white giant net, rustling dense up, the number of houses like suddenly more than a white curtain.
I am a wolf in the north, but in Nanjing frozen into a dog.
This sentence is not to say, although Yingtian is located in the south, but who let Yingtian three sides of the hills and one side of the Yangtze River, the cold air to the south, directly is the cloudy wind gusts.
Of course, this kind of heavy snow is not common for Yingtian.
Zhu Pingan woke up, picked up another rabbit skin jacket from his travelling bag and put it on, which made him feel warm. After washing his face and having a breakfast on the charcoal fire bowl, Zhu Pingan cleaned up the number house and restored it to the appearance of a table and chairs, and then he plunged back into his question answering career.
Zhu Pingan’s only remaining next-door brother had all his clothes on his body, and was still freezing and shivering, writing a few words, he couldn’t help but put his hand on the fire bowl to roast it, and he had to be careful not to let his frozen runny nose run down on the test paper. At this time, this brother was incredibly envious of the naive boy next door who came in with a huge bag on his back!
The snow drifted for a whole day, and on this day Zhu Pingan finished writing all the four remaining eight-legged essays. The last one was written at dusk, and a small candle was used.
These four pieces of eight-legged essays were all Pentateuchal eight-legged essays, none of which were difficult, but one of the questions was very interesting: “I am not sure what I am thinking about. This phrase comes from the “Oath of Qin in Shangshu”, which means darkly “昧昧而思”, that is, to dive deep and meditate (that is, to think secretly in my heart).
This topic in modern times, there is a joke, said the late Qing Dynasty, there is a year of examination, the title of the article is this “I think of obscurity”, may be based on the countryside examination of the question. But a candidate has not read the “Shangshu Qin Oath”, will be “obscurantist” mistaken for “sister”, so the whole article on the call brother called sister, very much in love with the language of the examiner looked at the tears and laughter, but also a ghost of his silence, on the sidelines of the annotations:” brother you are wrong”. Brother you are wrong,” into a joke.
I don’t know if there will make the same mistake in this exam.
This evening, the snow stopped.
But on the third day, the weather was even colder, and it is an obvious truth that snow is not cold to turn snow cold.
On the third day, at around five o’clock in the afternoon. Zhu Pingan had already neatly copied all the seven eight-legged essays onto the test paper, and after checking them several times, he was waiting to hand in the paper.
This was the first exam of the countryside examination, and also the most important one. Like reading is based on the first seven eight-legged essays, read and then combined with the second and third, read each other to discuss, to determine the amount.
This day is the date of delivery, this day in three batches of delivery. A batch before noon, a batch in the afternoon, a batch in the evening. Collector of each volume issued a sign, signing the volume in line. Examination paper paste name, before the assessment of the scribe with a copy of the work with a Zhu pen transcription, the assessment officer on the Zhu paper review, with a blue pen review.
Zhu Pingan rushed to hand in the evening, packed up things, followed by the crowd together out of the Jiangnan Tribute Academy.
When Zhu Pingan went out, there were still candidates in the Tribute Courtyard who were scrambling for time, and the countryside examination stipulated that the field should be cleared at the eleventh hour, that is, around seven to nine o’clock in the evening. By then, if they hadn’t finished, they would have to fall off the list.
I wish you all good luck.
Zhu Pingan said wordlessly as he exited the examination room.
Just like the modern day after the exam, when you leave the exam room you can see people gathering in twos and threes, talking about the exam, of course the main thing is to discuss the exam questions, you say one thing and I say another, arguing to the point of being red in the face, and then there are people who feel that something is wrong, and in the end, their faces turn pale.
Why bother. Mental quality is not enough, why discuss the examination questions at this time. Zhu Pingan shook his head slightly, hooked his lips and walked towards the inn in large strides.
“Zhu. Brother Zhu wait for me.”
Fatty’s voice came from behind, so Zhu Pingan stopped his steps and turned around to see Fatty shivering and running over, while walking, he also washed his runny nose, freezing into a dog all.
Fatty walked to Zhu Pingan’s side. Seeing the two layers of rabbit skin coat on Zhu Ping An, his eyes glowing, he jumped up to take off one down to wear, the most inside also yelled, godmother bias and so on.
“There’s another one in the bag, I’ll give it to you.” Zhu Pingan staggered away, then threw the bag he was carrying into the fatty’s hands.
Then Fatty busily found out the rabbit skin jacket from the bag, and then couldn’t wait to put on this rabbit skin. Instantly, the long-lost warmth came back, and Fatty’s happy eyes squinted so much that he couldn’t even find it.
Because of the exam tomorrow, Zhu Pingan and Fatty simply ate a sumptuous dinner at the inn, and then returned to their rooms to rest.
In the early hours of the next day, Zhu Pingan and the other candidates were once again lining up in front of the Jiangnan Tribute Academy waiting to enter. This time everyone had brought more things with them, clothes and so on.
At around three o’clock the Tribute Academy started checking for admission, and at around six o’clock Zhu Pingan arrived at yesterday’s numbered house.
This one belongs to the second session of the countryside examination, the test of a theory, the judgment of five, the imperial edicts, grants, table inside a subject.
This test is not very difficult, almost all of the official application essay, Zhu Pingan mixed time like this test will be completed, the quality of the answer is also very good, in the afternoon of the third day to hand in the paper.
And then lined up in the early hours of the morning to usher in the third examination.
This exam is much more difficult, the test of the history and history of the five curricula. The first curatorial question is nothing, see the second question, eighty per cent of the candidates are about to collapse.
“Confucius seventy-two sages, Xian Xian what can?”
Nima, I can’t even say all seventy-two disciples of Confucius, and I’m still asked to say what they are capable of! So many of the candidates broke down.
When he saw this question Zhu Pingan was a bit happy, for himself who had a super strong memory, this question was not difficult. He had intentionally looked up information about Confucius’ seventy-two disciples on the Internet before, including the Confucius Family, Spring and Autumn Annals, and so on, all of which were recorded in bits and pieces, such as the Historical Records of the Confucius Family, which recorded: “Confucius taught poetry, calligraphy, etiquette, and music, and his disciples numbered three thousand, and seventy of them were proficient in all the six arts,” so the question was not difficult for Zhu Pingan. Ping An was hardly the slightest bit difficult.
Yan Hui was Confucius’ favourite disciple, a learned and benevolent man; Min Lian was known for his virtues; Ran Qiu was multi-talented and famous for his political work; Zai Yu was good at rhetoric; Duanmu Zhi was excellent in politics and diplomacy, and had a high level of ability in financial management and business.
In addition to this one curatorial question, there was another interesting curatorial question that asked about the policy of ruling the Japanese.
Zhu Pingan almost didn’t even need to think about it, and then directly copied the Japanese policy he had made onto the draft paper after he had touched it up.
At dusk on the third day, the creaking sound of the door of the Jiangnan Tribute Academy shattered the loneliness of the street.
A young man wearing a rabbit skin coat, walked out from the door, and walked and stopped, looked back at the Jiangnan Tribute Academy door, confidently hooked up the corner of his lips, showing a simple smile, and then disappeared in a blanket of wind and snow.
