Chapter 51 The Chizuka Exam
Shao Yanzhe sat down in a daze, then suddenly jolted awake as if he had been immersed in ice water.
Only then did he realize that he was sitting in the same spot he had been in during the day, with an exam paper in front of him.
Judging from the title, it should be an examination paper used for the imperial examinations.
He glanced at it subconsciously and immediately got some ideas on how to solve the problem.
etc!
Why is he here now, when it's not time to answer questions?
If he remembers correctly, he should be lying in bed sleeping right now.
Shao Yanzhe carefully recalled and finally remembered a very vague memory: he seemed to have come here with Liu Mingyuan.
He glanced around and quickly spotted five people in the crowd who also looked surprised and uncertain.
It seems that it wasn't just him; everyone had inexplicably ended up here.
He looked around carefully and found that some of the people were people he had seen during the day, while most of the rest were complete strangers.
Just as he was about to ask the scholar beside him a question, he saw a figure suddenly appear in front of him.
He recognized the figure; it was Mr. Liu, whom he had just met during the day.
However, unlike Mr. Liu during the day, this Mr. Liu now has willow-twig hair, his feet have turned into tree roots, and even his skin looks similar to the bark of a willow tree.
He stood in front, his expression stiff, his eyes, which looked gentle in the daytime, like cloudy glass beads, devoid of any lively spirit.
"The exam is now starting!"
After he finished speaking, Shao Yanzhe's eyes widened. He saw countless twisted brown tree roots emerging from the ground, quickly winding and coiling around everyone, weaving a square frame. Then, willow branches with willow leaves hung down, blocking the view behind and to the left and right.
This looks exactly like a prison cell!
Shao Yanzhe wanted to stand up to see what was going on, but found that the futon beneath him was gripped by countless hands, making it impossible for him to move an inch.
He had no choice but to give up. He glanced at the exam paper in front of him and decided to finish writing the questions on the paper as Mr. Liu had asked.
One of the questions on the test paper was something Mr. Liu had discussed earlier that day, so he wrote down the answer to that question before looking at the other questions.
In fact, the questions on these test papers are not too difficult. As long as you can memorize and understand the content in the book, you can basically answer them.
Shao Yanzhe, who was writing down his answer, was unaware that achieving this was not easy. In his previous life, he lived in the modern world of knowledge explosion and had a good memory, so he could remember everything he had ever seen.
I once read a novel about the imperial examinations and became very curious about the books, such as the Four Books and Five Classics, described in it. So I made a special effort to find it and read it, and even looked up information online to understand what it meant.
After traveling to ancient times, he inherited the knowledge that the original owner had acquired over a decade, making him superior to most scholars.
If he could see the other students taking the exam, he would find that nearly four-fifths of them didn't know how to begin writing after seeing the exam paper in front of them.
Even if I see a familiar question, and remember that Mr. Liu explained it during the day, I have no idea how to connect the words I still remember into a coherent sentence.
After an unknown amount of time, Shao Yanzhe finally finished writing the entire exam paper. As soon as he put down his brush, the willow branches and roots that were blocking his view slowly receded. Before the last willow branch disappeared, it wrapped around the exam paper he had placed on the table and headed towards Mr. Liu.
He watched as Mr. Liu took the exam paper and began to carefully read it.
He wasn't sure if it was just his imagination, but he felt that Mr. Liu was reading much slower.
He looked away and realized that it wasn't as bright as he had imagined.
He looked up at the sky and found that it was still pitch black above him, dotted with a few stars, no different from what he had seen at the beginning.
Judging from the time it took him to finish the exam, it must have been dawn by now.
"This is utterly hopeless! Didn't we just cover this question yesterday? How come it's blank?"
"Even if you don't remember it or don't know it, why not just write something vague or ambiguous about not knowing it? Why leave it blank?"
"You blockhead! I want to see if you even have a brain!"
Suddenly, Mr. Liu, who was looking at the exam paper, went berserk.
He tossed the stack of exam papers in his hand, the light Xuan paper fluttering in the air.
He suddenly reached out in one direction, grabbed someone from the seat, and pulled them over.
"Ah! No!"
"Please, sir, have mercy on me! I really don't know what to write!"
"I was wrong! I was wrong! I will never sleep in class again!"
"Aaaaaah! Help!"
The scholar flailed his arms and legs wildly, trying to break free from the grip that held him, but faced with a superhuman ghost like Mr. Liu, he was like a little chick, unable to break free no matter how hard he struggled.
Then Shao Yanzhe watched helplessly as the scholar was pinned to the ground, and Mr. Liu stretched out five fingers and directly opened the scholar's head.
Strangely, the scholar's head did not bleed when it was opened; it was like the head of a plastic doll that had been opened, revealing the pulsating brain matter inside.
Mr. Liu bent down to take a closer look, his eyes filled with coldness.
"Your brain isn't made of wood!"
Upon discovering that his head had been opened, the scholar felt no pain and, as if relieved of his ordeal, cried out, "Sir, my head is truly not made of wood! I will definitely study diligently from now on!"
Mr. Liu stared at the scholar with his inorganic eyes, as if pondering whether what he said was true.
Stared at like that, the scholar trembled, a sense of immense fear rising within him.
Suddenly, Mr. Liu leaned closer to the scholar, a stiff smile slowly curving his lips: "In that case, I'll help you turn your head into a block of wood!"
The scholar panicked and hurriedly refused, "No! No need!"
But Mr. Liu acted as if he hadn't heard the scholar's words. He reached his root-like fingers into the scholar's head, dug out his brain, and put in an elm root that looked very much like a brain.
After placing it in place, he used a flexible willow branch to sew up the scholar's opened head.
"Alright, your brain's completely blocked now, that's more like how your exam paper is supposed to be!"
Mr. Liu patted the scholar's shoulder gently, clearly pleased with his actions.
The scholar who was patted on the shoulder trembled, but slowly, the expression on his face disappeared, and his eyes became dull, like a stupid person.
"Alright, let's go back!"
The scholar slowly stood up from the ground and stiffly walked towards his seat.
Mr. Liu reached out again and randomly selected one of the middle school entrance exam papers that were still floating in mid-air. He then placed it in front of him and examined it carefully.
Upon first glance, my previously calmed emotions erupted once again.
"Why is your handwriting so ugly!"
"How could someone who writes like that possibly pass the imperial examination!"
"How could I possibly pass the imperial examination!"
"no!"
"no!"
"You must pass the imperial examination!"
"You must pass the imperial examination!"
"If you fail the imperial examination, you shall die!"
"If you fail the imperial examination, you shall die!"
"If you fail the imperial examination, you shall die!"
Mr. Liu roared, as if something had touched a nerve, making him even more irritable than before. Countless willow branches exploded upwards, whipping wildly.
But the exam papers were not destroyed; they remained floating peacefully.
Mr. Liu, looking furious, once again stretched out his large, root-like hand and dragged over a scholar from the other side.
"Sir! Let me go!"
"I will definitely practice my calligraphy diligently!"
"I will never be lazy again!"
"Waaaaah! Someone please save me!"
The scholar was so frightened that his face turned pale, tears streamed down his face, and his face was full of regret.
Mr. Liu ignored him and dragged the scholar in front of him. His cold eyes stared at the scholar's right hand, scrutinizing it carefully, as if trying to see what kind of hand could write such ugly characters.
After a long silence, he sighed and said, "This hand looks quite good."
"Is that so? Thank you for the compliment, sir!"
The scholar was overjoyed, thinking he could escape a calamity.
Unexpectedly, Mr. Liu continued, "However, it's such a mismatch that such beautiful hands can write such ugly characters."
He glanced at the scholar and concluded, "So, just behead him!"
The scholar's face froze in surprise, then he broke down and cried out, "No! Don't!"
Mr. Liu ignored him and simply raised his hand to chop off the scholar's hand. He then threw it to the base of a willow tree not far away. A root suddenly emerged, wrapped around the hand, and burrowed back into the ground.
He looked at the arm missing a hand and shook his head with dissatisfaction: "Without a hand, you can't write."
"No, this is not good."
He muttered to himself, stretched out his finger, and a twisting tree root grew out, then tangled and twisted into the shape of a hand.
He looked at the hand, nodded in satisfaction, and placed the tree root hand on the scholar's missing wrist, carefully sewing it together with slender and flexible willow branches, the stitches fine and dense, like a bracelet.
Next, a scholar who had solved a problem incorrectly had his eyes gouged out and replaced with a pair of willow-leaf eyes amidst Mr. Liu's roar of "Since your eyes are useless, gouge them out!"
Thus, Mr. Liu replaced the brains of four scholars, the hands of six scholars, and the eyes of ten scholars before he stopped.
Shao Yanzhe and his six friends were very lucky. They had already passed the imperial examination and become scholars, so the exam was not difficult for them.
As for Zhou Jiming, although he didn't have to take the imperial examination, he wasn't stupid. Although this test paper was somewhat difficult for him, he was able to finish it with difficulty.
"Go back now! Remember to come to class on time tomorrow!"
Mr. Liu addressed the crowd.
The next moment, Shao Yanzhe felt a blur before his eyes, and his whole body floated up into the air. In an instant, there was nothing beneath him.
He suddenly opened his eyes and found himself lying in bed, covered with a blanket.
He turned to look at Xuan Yao and saw it nestled beside the pillow, fast asleep.
Was what he just experienced a dream?
Shao Yanzhe lifted the covers, tiptoed out of bed, walked to the door, opened it, and glanced at the sky.
It is now midnight, and it has been only an hour since he fell asleep.
Seeing this, he couldn't help but feel a little dazed. Could it be that what he had just experienced was really a dream?
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