"Ah? Are we really going to live in this desolate mountain for a month?" Zhao Shouzheng followed his son into the courtyard in shock. "Son, I will become a country bumpkin."

"It's quiet here, you can concentrate on preparing for the exam." Zhao Hao filtered out his father's nonsense, responded casually, and led him into the inner courtyard.

The yard was not big, divided into two parts by a brick wall. The ground was paved with blue bricks, and the two rows of tiled houses were also newly built. Various flowers were planted in the inner yard, and there was also a small pavilion for the owner to rest.

After Zhao Hao got the land deed, he first dispatched hundreds of strong men from Caijia Lane, holding sticks as thick as bowls, to help the Qian family servants living in the area move out for free.

Of course, there were bound to be some bumps and groans in the process, but the men and sticks of Caijia Lane were experts in dealing with all kinds of dissatisfaction, so everything soon calmed down.

After selecting this place as the retreat place, Zhao Hao instructed Old Man Gao to bring the bricklayers from Caijia Lane to rebuild the place, and he also planted two osmanthus trees in front of the main hall with his own hands.

"We will go down the mountain when the osmanthus flowers bloom." After Zhao Hao said this, he unlocked the door of the main house and invited his father in.

As soon as Zhao Shouzheng entered the room, he saw a portrait of a fat man with a black face wearing a red round collar and a right-angled hat hanging on the white central hall. He could not help but stand in awe and said, "It turns out that my great ancestor of the Zhao family is here..."

"Father, please burn some incense for Grandpa Taizu." Zhao Hao lit the candlestick and lit the incense.

Zhao Shouzheng took the incense, held it above his head, and kowtowed four times to Emperor Taizu of Song respectfully.

The gate had been locked by Gao Wu at some point, and only Zhao Hao and his son were left in the inner courtyard.

Zhao Shouzheng was about to stand up, but his son held his shoulders and made him continue kneeling in front of Zhao Kuangyin's portrait.

"Father, do you know why we have to worship Taizu?"

"We should ask for blessings from our ancestors..."

"It's to thank our ancestors for their blessings." Zhao Hao corrected seriously.

"oh?"

"Grandpa Taizu appeared." Zhao Hao said faintly.

"Ah?" Zhao Shouzheng was immediately horrified. He first looked at the fat black man in the portrait, then at his son who was talking in a weird voice, and stammered, "When did it happen?"

"Father, do you still remember what I told you when we first moved to Caijia Lane? You will definitely pass the exam, right?" Zhao Hao didn't even look at Zhao Shouzheng, but stared at the portrait of Taizu.

"Yes." Zhao Shouzheng nodded. He remembered it clearly.

"Father, do you know why I said that?" Then Zhao Hao said, "It's because I dreamed of going to heaven the night before. In a magnificent palace, there was a black-faced old man wearing a long-winged hat and a round-necked yellow robe, looking at me kindly..."

"Ah, that must be my great-grandfather of the Zhao family." Zhao Shouzheng looked at the portrait and said in amazement, "Why did he call you over? What did he want to tell you?"

Seeing that Zhao Shouzheng believed it so easily, Zhao Hao no longer needed to exaggerate the mystery, and said concisely: "He said that our literary fortune is not extinct, and there will be another Jinshi after my grandfather, your father, and that person is you, father."

"Ah, Grandpa Taizu actually knew about this unworthy descendant of mine?" Zhao Shouzheng was immediately filled with shame, and kowtowed to Zhao Kuangyin, saying, "I have brought shame to our ancestors. I am afraid I will disappoint them."

"No, Grandpa Taizu said that our family is destined to have great fortune in literature. He has already obtained the examination questions for this autumn's exam from Wenquxingjun." Zhao Hao said as he took out a folded yellow paper from his sleeve, bowed three times to Grandpa Taizu with both hands, and then handed it to Zhao Shouzheng, and solemnly warned: "Grandpa Taizu has said in advance that only you can see this. If someone else knows about it before the exam, not only will the examination questions be inaccurate, but it will also bring disaster to my Zhao family!"

"I know, I know." Zhao Shouzheng took the yellow paper tremblingly, kowtowed to his ancestors and thanked them. Then he opened it tremblingly and saw a line of ghostly handwriting on it. It could vaguely be seen as a sentence from the Analects:

'Zi Gong asked about government. Confucius said: "If there is enough food and enough soldiers, the people will trust you."

"So simple..." Zhao Shouzheng couldn't help but exclaimed. He didn't expect that it was not a connecting question, but a big question that hadn't been asked in many years!

"Hush." ​​Zhao Hao made a gesture to silence him, then picked up the candlestick and said, "Father, remember to burn it. Remember, this method cannot be passed on to anyone else."

"I understand." Zhao Shouzheng took another look at the original text of "The Analects of Confucius" and burned the yellow paper to ashes.

"From today on, father will think over this question over and over again." Zhao Hao blew out the candlestick, and he felt a lot more relaxed.

"Okay, we can't let Taizu and my son down!" Zhao Shouzheng mustered up his energy. Since Taizu had shown his power, what else was there to say? Just roll up your sleeves and get to work!

The study is right next door, and Zhao Hao has already moved all of Zhao Shouzheng's books here in advance.

He set up a seat in the hall and guarded the door for Zhao Shouzheng together with Grandpa Taizu.

During this month, no one is allowed to set foot in the inner courtyard.

To be on the safe side, Gao Wu stood guard at the gate of the inner courtyard, and another thirty strong men from Caijia Lane were on duty outside the courtyard in shifts, patrolling day and night.

Qiaoqiao and her daughter were responsible for cooking for them. Every day, Old Man Gao drove over to deliver fresh ingredients. After the mother and daughter cooked, Qiaoqiao would deliver them to the gate of the inner courtyard. Zhao Hao would take them in and eat with his father, and then bring the tableware out...

Zhao Hao's meticulous arrangements clearly conveyed to everyone how much he valued this matter. From Gao Wu to Qiaoqiao, and to all the guards, they were all on high alert, fearing that any mistakes would affect Mr. Zhao's preparations for the exam.

~~

As the person involved, Zhao Shouzheng dared not slack off. From the day he entered the hospital, he plunged into the study, thinking about the article day and night, forgetting to eat and sleep.

You should know that eight-part essays are different from ordinary essays. The examination of the writer's literary literacy is secondary. It focuses more on the writer's proficiency in the classics, and has many restrictions on the content of the writing. First of all, the viewpoint must be the same as Zhu Xi's; secondly, each paragraph of the article must stick to a fixed format, and there are strict restrictions on the number of words. In particular, the beginning, middle, end, and end parts require strict parallelism, which is similar to parallel prose, but has more stringent requirements on the complexity of words and the height of the tone.

Such an essay is like "building a temple in a snail shell", which is naturally very difficult. Without the guidance of a famous teacher and more than ten years of repeated practice, it is impossible to write a decent essay. But for the examiner, the more points are required, the easier it is to judge. Because almost all candidates will make more or less mistakes in their essays due to various reasons such as time constraints and lack of academic strength.

The examiner only needs to find these errors and rank the essay according to the number of errors. If a candidate can make no mistakes at all, he will definitely be selected; if he can write a little bit of originality, he will definitely be the top scorer.

If we have to make an analogy, ordinary essays are subjective questions that are influenced by the examiner's personal likes and dislikes, while eight-part essays are basically objective questions with clear answers and evaluation criteria.

Therefore, as long as Zhao Shouzheng is given enough time and can easily look up information, how could he not be able to write an eight-part essay that can get a high score?

He first spent a few days calming down and thinking about the topic, then he read various high-sounding sermons and looked for inspiration from other people's experiences. It was not until the tenth day that he conceived an article.

Then I considered it over and over again, made constant revisions, and started over several times before finally completing the draft on the twentieth day.

Zhao Shouzheng spent the next ten days checking and revising the article word by word, not leaving out any mistakes, until he thought the entire article was flawless. Only then did he breathe a sigh of relief.

At this moment, as long as Zhao Shouzheng closed his eyes, the whole article would pop out of his mind and appear before his eyes like a kaleidoscope.

Zhao Shouzheng felt that he was working so hard that he couldn't help but smile bitterly and said to Zhao Hao, "It's really not that easy to be a member of the Kuyin Sect..."

Zhao Hao smiled and nodded, then burned all the manuscripts he had written. He then carefully checked the study and found no more words or papers left. Then he smiled and said to Zhao Shouzheng, "There are still a few days left. Father, take a good rest and recuperate. I will pick you up down the mountain when the time comes."

ps. It’s the last day of the public version, and it will be available at midnight. I’m so nervous. Please recommend, collect, and encourage me…

ps2. Before the release, let's have another quiz with prizes. Please guess the rankings of the three candidates. The first person who guesses correctly will receive a signed book (probably sent after the epidemic). The rest of the people who guess correctly will also receive prizes~~~