During the second round of the imperial examination, the weather was normal and there were no strong winds or heavy rains.
The wind outlet where Mei Ruochu and Wei Shu were located was still slightly colder than other places.
But they all brought three pots of ginger soup and windproof masks, and as a human being, happiness comes from comparison.
Such a small breeze nowadays is not enough to affect them.
Even Wei Xi's physique was not affected at the beginning.
After Shen Cui looked at their conditions, she went to see Mu Erpang, who was given "special care" by the rules.
On Mu Erpang's side, there was no wind at all. He didn't even take out his windproof mask, and he took off the extra spring shirt he was wearing.
There doesn't seem to be anything abnormal.
Shen Cui paid attention to his mood value again.
When it was windy and rainy ahead, everyone's mood was not high except Mei Ruochu.
Today is unusual because Mu Erpang, who is an exception, is in a pretty good mood? It seems that his mood is much higher than Mei Ruochu and the others.
This really confused Shen Cui.
She didn't even have the heart to do needlework. She just stayed with Mu Erpang, watching him eat and sleep, and everything went smoothly until the next day when the curlers were distributed.
There was no poetry or prose in the second round of the imperial examination. Instead, the test consisted of five historical essay questions and two policy essay questions.
The historical theory test involves extracting some information about historical events or deeds of historical figures and asking the candidates to express their opinions and discuss the pros and cons.
To some extent, it tests the same thing as policy essays - namely, political acumen.
Mu Erpang's only weakness is poetry and prose. He has also done a lot of historical research topics in the past few months. Lao Buyu and Mei Ruochu don't worry about him in this regard.
So after Mu Erpang finished reading the test paper, he was still in a very good mood and quickly started to prepare for the questions in his mind.
After preparing a good draft in mind, Mu Erpang started writing on the morning he received the test paper.
It was clear that there was no trace of evil spirit on his side. He didn't even use a paperweight, and there was no need to worry about the ground ink being dried up by the wind, or the ink drops on the tip of the pen being blown onto the paper. So he didn't write in an intermittent manner, but answered questions very coherently.
Therefore, his answering speed was much faster than Mei Ruochu, who was the fastest among the others.
By nightfall, he had finished three.
After dinner, he did not stay up late with candles, but went straight to bed. Apparently, he already had a clear idea of the questions that he hadn't written yet, so he didn't need to stay up late to ponder over them.
But the more smoothly he did, the more uneasy Shen Cui became. The next day, when he was writing the last two questions, she compared his paper with Mei Ruochu's.
The last question of the historical essay is "Zhou and Tang emphasized the exterior but neglected the interior, while Qin and Wei emphasized the interior but neglected the exterior, each has its merits."
Zhou Tang refers to the Zhou Dynasty and the Tang Dynasty. To emphasize the outside and neglect the inside means that the Zhou Dynasty implemented a system of enfeoffment among princes, which resulted in the princes becoming powerful and ruling independently, and the imperial power of the Zhou emperor became a mere formality. The Tang Dynasty implemented the system of feudal lords, which led to a situation of feudal separatism.
Qin and Wei refer to the Qin Dynasty and the Northern Wei Dynasty. These two dynasties were the opposite of the Zhou and Tang dynasties. They were "light on the outside and heavy on the inside" and power was concentrated in the hands of the emperor. However, the effect of centralization was not much better than the feudal system and the vassal system.
Everyone has his or her own opinions, which means that the candidates should discuss the pros and cons of the previous dynasty's system by combining the feudal system, the military governorship system, etc.
After a comparison, Chen Cui, a half-baked writer, could no longer tell who wrote better, but she was sure that the core of what they were writing was the same.
Mu Erpang did not deviate from the topic.
Before she knew it, Mu Erpang and Mei Ruochu had already finished their last history essay question and started writing policy essay questions.
The title is "On the Ultimate Theory of Punishment and Reward for Loyalty and Honesty".
This sentence made Shen Cui stunned. After all, she had been reading and learning in the academy for so long, she was very sure that this sentence was not the original text in the Four Books and Five Classics.
However, she, an outsider, was the only one who was confused. Mu Erpang and Mei Ruochu were already thinking about their plans.
Mu Erpang still retains the habit of thinking about the source first, and then writing it down on manuscript paper to remind himself.
So at this time, the following was written on the manuscript paper beside him: "The Book of Documents" by Kong Anguo: When in doubt, punish with light punishment; when in doubt, reward with the majority; this is the utmost loyalty and honesty.
It turns out that the source is not in the original text of the book, but in the annotations of other Confucian scholars on the Book of Documents.
Looking at what Mu Erpang and Mei Ruochu wrote down later, Shen Cui knew that this question was similar to whether or not one should "presume innocence until proven guilty".
Similarly, both of them first used ancient sages and wise rulers such as Yao, Shun, and Yu as examples to praise the importance of benevolent government.
He also combined the current affairs of the dynasty and expressed his agreement with the principle of "innocent until proven guilty".
They continued to move forward steadily and performed at their normal level without any omissions.
Shen Cui was getting more and more puzzled, wondering if it was because she couldn't take Mei Ruochu's test paper as the correct answer this time? Is he actually also affected by the law?
So he went to look at Wei Xi and Shen Aoshuang's papers.
Their progress was slower and they only got to the last question on history essay.
Upon closer inspection, the core of their paper is the same as what Mei Ruochu and Mu Erpang wrote before.
Chen Cui waited for a while and saw them start writing policy essays. After another comparison, she still didn't find any problems.
By the time the two of them finished writing the historical essay, it was already the third day. Mei Ruochu and Mu Erpang had already finished writing, checked, and even let the ink on the papers dry. They were just waiting for the time to come for the soldiers and clerks to come and collect the papers.
Although Mei Ruochu and the others were still being blown by the breeze and freezing, Wei Xi's physical condition had also dropped by 2 points, and he showed signs of having a fever.
But overall, compared to the previous miserable situation, my students, especially Mu Erpang, did very well in this exam.
The smoothness of it made her inexplicably uneasy.
Soon it was the day when the second round of the imperial examination ended, and Chen Cui and Lao Buyu went to the agreed location to pick them up.
This time when they left the examination room, Mu Erpang and the others were the first group to come out.
Except for Wei Xi who seemed a little unwell, everyone's expressions were much more relaxed than before.
Wei Shu and Mei Ruochu worked together to carry Wei Xi onto the carriage first, and then the rest of the people got on the carriage and returned to the academy.
After getting on the carriage, Wei Xi fell asleep immediately. Wei Shu lowered his voice and asked everyone: "The wind is much weaker this time, so we didn't suffer that much. I think everyone is like this?"
Mei Ruochu and Shen Aoshuang nodded, and Mu Erpang said, "I'm luckier. The test seat this time is quite far from the front, so there's not much wind. When the sun is bright during the day, it's quite hot. I was so hot that I took off a piece of clothing."
Wei Shu and the others naturally didn't envy him, so they just bumped him with their shoulders with a smile, "You're quite lucky, you little brat!"
Mu Erpang chuckled.
When they returned to the academy soon, Wei Shu rushed to carry Wei Xi into the house, and Shen Cui followed in and fed him medicine and rice soup.
When she came out, Lao Buyu had already led everyone else to dinner.
Although they suffered less this time, it was still like sitting there for three days, so not long after the meal, everyone started to feel dazed.
Chen Cui urged them to wash up, and everyone went to rest without saying anything else.
Another night passed, and Shen Cui sent them out of the academy in batches.
It was the last round, and even after making sure that Mu Erpang could eat and sleep well and answered the questions without any omissions, Shen Cui was still a little worried.
When it was light outside, the boys sat down in the cubicles again. Except for Mu Erpang, the others were still near the wind vent, suffering from the cold.
Mu Erpang was still near the examination site for the second game, which was the good area he mentioned.
Shen Cui couldn't help but mutter to the system: [Am I suffering from paranoia? The law created a lot of storms, but seeing that it couldn't affect them and couldn't do anything else, so it gave up? That's not right. Even if he has run out of tricks, he won't be so kind as to take our Fatty out of the spotlight. 】
The system's current ability level in this plane is still far from meeting the laws, so he couldn't give an answer. He could only advise: "It's only the last game, we should remain unchanged in the face of ever-changing circumstances." After the exam, we can reverse engineer its purpose. 】
This was the only way for now, and Shen Cui didn't think about anything else. She continued to pay attention to the boys' various values while accompanying them in the exam.
The third round of the imperial examination only tested two eight-part essays.
It can be seen from the previous questions that Pang Ci Fu tried his best to avoid mistakes in the first imperial examination he presided over, so in this final one, he still did not ask any tricky or difficult questions.
The first question is: If it is useful, use it; if it is useless, hide it.
This sentence comes from "The Analects of Confucius". It is what Confucius said to his disciple Yan Yuan. It means that if I can be used by the world, I will take positive action and display my talents. If I am not needed, I will hide my talents and bide my time.
It talks about the attitude of using and giving up, hiding and advancing and retreating in moderation in life.
This question was not a difficult one even for Cui Fei, whose level was slightly lower than others. After thinking about the test paper for a whole morning, he started writing.
By the time he finished, the others were already working on the last question.
This title is - and Renda Lane.
Cui Fei put down his pen and checked the question he had just finished, preparing himself for a protracted battle with this one.
Wei Shu also began to scratch his head while lighting another stick of calming incense.
Mei Ruochu, Mu Erpang, Wei Xi and Shen Aoshuang were more successful than the other two. They started writing after thinking for half a day.
Chen Cui glanced at Mu Erpang's manuscript paper and saw that he had written two sentences on it. One of them was: Zi Hanyan, Li. With destiny, with benevolence.
Another sentence is: The people of Daxiang said: "Great is Confucius! He is knowledgeable but has no fame."
She then realized that the last question of this final round was about cutting and matching.
However, this topic is quite sensible, because the sources of these two sentences are both in "The Analects of Confucius", which is relatively easy to associate.
Moreover, the former of these two sentences means that a gentleman should talk less about interests and more about benevolence and righteousness, while the latter means that people should be humble.
Both are virtues that a gentleman should possess, and when written about them in an article, they are not unrelated.
So at noon on the last day of the exam, Cui Fei, who was the slowest in answering the papers, had already finished and stopped writing.
Next, they have to wait until the time comes and then they can go on stage.
In this way, all three examinations were completed.
Chen Cui was still confused, but she did not miss the time to pick people up. She went to wait outside the examination room with Lao Buyu in advance.
When they came over, many people who were taking the exam had already arrived.
The crowd was talking about this, and someone said angrily: "Why is there so much trouble in this examination? A watchtower collapsed in front, and there were two or three days of strong winds and heavy rains, which made many candidates sick. The last one was even more... Tsk, I've never heard of a toilet exploding for no reason! If the candidates were sitting close to the toilet, how could they take the exam normally?"
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