Chapter 48: Shocking Change
Hearing this, Gu Mingda and the other four were all shocked.
Coincidentally, the commotion over there also came to an end at this time. Several soldiers rushed forward and held down the candidate who was still making noise.
The candidate was still struggling to explain himself, but the soldiers dragged him and his examination basket into a small hut nearby.
"Do you think he was wronged?" Zheng Qi asked in a low voice.
As the first person among the five to find the cheat sheet in the exam basket, Zheng Qi couldn't help but feel sympathetic when he saw this situation.
"He might have been framed because he was careless," said his companion kindly.
Gu Mingda looked at them. The oldest of his companions was only 25 years old. They were still young and would not make malicious assumptions about others.
Unlike him, who has been taking exams for many years and has seen all kinds of people, every year there are young men who are just starting out and there are also white-haired old students who are still determined to gain fame.
There are gentlemen who are open and honest, and there are also villains who are worried and timid.
Gu Mingda had actually determined in his heart that it was Zhang Guangzong or Wang Yaozu who did the harm, but now, looking at the cheating scholar being dragged away, he was not so sure anymore.
After all, there are too many people in the scientific examination field who fail repeatedly because of years of examinations, and no one can guarantee how many water ghosts who like to drag others into the water will appear.
"Whether it is real cheating or being wrongly accused, the superiors will judge it. This is not something we can comment on casually. If we talk too much, it will attract the attention of the officers. Let's take care of ourselves first." Gu Mingda reminded his companions softly.
"Brother Gu is right."
"We all listen to Brother Gu."
Unconsciously, his companions all changed the way they addressed Gu Mingda. This security team originally had a tendency to regard Gu Mingda as their big brother. After investigating the incident with the test basket, they really regarded Gu Mingda as their big brother and believed everything he said.
They waited for a while and finally it was their turn to undergo the initial examination.
Perhaps because a cheating scholar had just appeared, the inspections after this person were extremely strict. Gu Mingda and the other four were checked over and over again, and even their hair was checked several times, for fear that anything might be missed.
Fortunately, the five people had done self-examination in advance, so this stage was safe.
After the initial examination, the next step is to write the guarantee. The clerks in the yamen will compare the contents of the guarantee letter one by one to confirm that the appearance of the five people is consistent with the description in the guarantee letter and that there has been no impersonation.
After singing the guarantee, the five people can finally enter the examination room. They will not be assigned to the same place, but their seat numbers will be determined by drawing lots.
"God bless me, God bless me, please don't let it be a toilet number! Please don't let it be a toilet number!" Zheng Qi muttered in a low voice.
The so-called toilet number refers to the number near the toilet.
There were thousands of candidates in the examination room, but there were only a dozen or so toilets. All the toilets were placed in one place, and there was a mixture of feces and urine in them. You can imagine the smell.
During every college entrance examination, there were always some unlucky souls who got toilet numbers close to toilet bowls, and there were also always some candidates who could not stand the strong stench and passed out in the examination room.
Under such circumstances, it is naturally very difficult to achieve good results.
"Zheng Qi, No. 22."
After hearing the clerk announce his seat number in the examination room, Zheng Qi immediately looked for help at Gu Mingda, who was very familiar with this examination room.
Gu Mingda nodded and said, "Don't worry, it's not a toilet number."
Zheng Qi cheered and followed the officer into the examination room.
Gu Mingda thought about the difficulty of walking to the examination room today. He felt that his ordeal was far from over. Maybe he would be assigned a toilet number during the exam.
"Gu Mingda, C41..."
Listening to the clerk reading out the seat numbers, Gu Mingda had a feeling that it was as he expected. The toilet was located in Area C of the examination room, so he would most likely get a toilet number.
But the next second, the clerk suddenly said, "You got the wrong one. Number C has been released. Gu Mingda, you are number D 51."
Gu Mingda was stunned when he heard this, and followed the officer to District D. He felt as if the sky above his head had suddenly cleared up after years of gloom. District D had nothing to do with toilet numbers.
The examination room is still as narrow and dilapidated as ever.
Gu Mingda carried the examination basket containing pens, ink, paper and inkstone and walked in.
The first thing he did was to check the furnishings inside.
The table is good and the benches are not bad.
There is no wind or rain leaking above your head.
Such an examination room with everything intact and not being a toilet was almost unique in his nearly twenty years of taking examinations.
When he passed the examination and became a student, it was a rare occasion that there was no accident before the test. However, it rained during the exam and the examination tent was leaking. He struggled to finish the test paper and fell seriously ill after coming out.
Gu Mingda quietly told himself in his heart that now that he had a normal examination room, he was afraid that the candidates around him were not normal.
He once encountered a situation where he was doing well on his test paper, but the candidate next to him broke down while answering the questions. He suddenly went crazy and randomly splashed ink on the test papers of the candidates around him.
He was picked by the crazy examinee and ruined the test paper.
Gu Mingda sat in the examination room for about an incense stick of time when he heard the sound of the cloud board coming from afar.
Immediately afterwards, the heavy door of the examination room was closed.
"Close the door, lock it, sit quietly and wait for the paper." This sentence was shouted several times to ensure that nearly a thousand candidates in the examination room could hear it.
Not long after, officers came to distribute red-grid rice paper for writing answer sheets, and Gu Mingda checked them carefully.
The rice paper is smooth and seamless, without any missing corners or stains.
He had just picked up the pen and wrote his name and other information when he saw several officers patrolling the room with wooden boards holding them. Pasted on the boards were the test questions for this exam.
The experience of failing the imperial examinations for many years has made Gu Mingda an extremely cautious person.
He read the test paper several times, carefully reading every word to make sure he had not missed or read it wrong, and then he began to think about how to solve the problem.
The regular examination lasts one day, starting at the beginning of Chen and closing the papers at the beginning of You (5pm).
At noon, Gu Mingda picked up the rice cakes that Zhang Yunniang had prepared in the morning from the eating basket and swallowed them bite by bite.
He has almost finished answering the test questions, so he can copy them onto the answer sheet in the afternoon and hand in the paper early.
Yes, submit the paper early.
Gu Mingda did not plan to stay in the examination room for long. According to his luck, he felt that the longer he stayed, the more likely an accident would happen.
Before I finished eating the pancakes, an accident happened.
"You can't pass the exam! You can't pass the exam! None of you can pass the exam!"
Gu Mingda watched helplessly as a middle-aged man in his forties rushed out from the examination room next to his.
He immediately put down the pancake, grabbed the pile of papers in front of him and hid them behind him to prevent the madman from destroying his answer sheet.
The middle-aged man rushed into Gu Mingda's examination room and stretched out his hand as if to grab the paper.
He looked at the pile of miscellaneous items on Gu Mingda's desk, but there was no paper. His eyes widened and a question mark slowly appeared on his forehead.
"Test paper! Where's your test paper? Where is your test paper?"
(End of this chapter)
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