Fifty-ninth
Although the meals prepared by Qingzhu Academy were quite good, they were more sumptuous than what Shen Cui had at home.
It was precisely because of this richness that Shen Cui ate half a steamed bun more than usual under the identity of Zhang Sheng.
Even though more than an hour had passed, she was still very full.
But Mu Erpang looked at her with eyes full of concern. She didn't know whether to eat or not, so she had to say, "I... I just felt sick in my stomach. If I eat now, I'm afraid I'll have trouble later."
"I know, so I took out all the oily meat dishes."
Mu Erpang didn't try to persuade him anymore, but the expression on his face clearly said, "See, I knew you weren't well yet."
It seemed that in the next moment, he would force Shen Cui to see a doctor again.
The fat son in front of her was ignorant, like a blank sheet of paper, and Shen Cui was afraid that she would not be able to teach him well.
Now that he has grown up and become a little housekeeper, Shen Cui quickly surrendered and said, "Eat, can't I eat it?"
Under Mu Erpang's unblinking gaze, Shen Cui forced herself to eat a steamed bun.
The weather was still hot, and it was normal for people to have a smaller appetite after running around outside, so Mu Erpang didn't say anything more.
The group returned to Shuiyun Village before dark.
Chen Cui had originally invited Zhou to go with her for this preliminary exam.
Although Zhou couldn't help much, it would be a shame to miss this literary gathering that happens once every three years.
Zhou said that she had trouble putting down her current work, so she didn't go with them, but in fact, as a great admirer of literature, she was full of curiosity and anticipation for such a grand event.
When everyone came back, she had almost prepared dinner. She carefully checked everyone's expressions first, and when she saw that everyone had a smile on their face, she began to inquire about the details.
Mu Erpang told her everything. Of course, he only attributed his win to good luck, but he was generous in praising Wei Xi and Zhang Sheng for the two wins.
"That little brother is amazing. He is only fourteen years old. He closed his eyes, opened them again, and finished many questions in one breath. Not only was he the fastest, he also got all the answers right!"
In Mu Erpang's eyes, or in the eyes of everyone except Chen Cui, Zhang Sheng, who could finish nine mental calculations in a quarter of an hour without using any draft paper, was a mathematical genius.
Zhou always regarded Mu Yunchuan as the smartest person, but she never thought there was such a genius in the world. She said with regret, "It's a pity that I haven't met this young master Zhang. But why didn't you invite him to your house for dinner? He is a stranger here, and I don't know if he has eaten yet."
Lao Buyu glanced at the still bright sky outside and said hesitantly, "How about I go pick him up now?"
Shen Cui quickly told them to stop. Although there was still a lot of time left for the first disguise pill, she really couldn't eat two meals, and it was not convenient to change back and forth at home.
"Mr. Zhang is staying at the home of distant relatives. It is inconvenient to disturb them. Next time, next time we have a chance, please invite him over."
So everyone stopped dwelling on this topic and sat down to eat dinner.
Shen Cui now felt that the lunch and afternoon meals were all stuck in her throat, so she just ate some of them casually.
After dinner, Lao Buyu began to explain the key points of tomorrow's re-examination to everyone.
Although the subjects for the re-examination are still the same, each academy can only send one person to each small competition, and can no longer use the advantage of having more people to raise the average score.
And the difficulty will be greatly increased. For example, taking the game of throwing pots as an example, in the initial test today, the distance between people and the pot is more than ten or twenty steps. In the retest, the distance will be even farther.
Moreover, during the re-examination, the judging power will become even greater. They are qualified to select a student who performs extremely well but is not from their own college and allow this student's college to directly enter the next round.
"Of course, this power..." Lao Buyu said with some embarrassment, "I heard that there was a previous college competition, several judges colluded together and used this power to ensure that the other college advanced... Later, it was exposed, and not only was their college permanently excluded from such competitions, but it also became a laughing stock. So nowadays, generally few judges would do such things, it is always easy to be criticized and suspected of harboring selfish motives. Let's just be down-to-earth and compete with our own."
This is actually good news for small academies like Cuiwei Academy that have no background.
Mu Erpang then went to practice pitching pots. Although it was dark, the two candles he and Wei Xi lit in the main room only made the visibility slightly worse than during the day.
Wei Xi naturally practiced the piano.
Chen Cui found a corner in the academy and went through all the examples in the mathematics books from beginning to end.
Everyone practiced diligently and the night passed quickly.
When she woke up early the next day, Chen Cui really couldn't eat breakfast - she ate too much yesterday and had heartburn all night.
Mu Erpang knew that she didn't want to see a doctor or take medicine, so he asked tentatively: "Then why don't you stay at home and rest today?"
This was perfect, as it saved her from having to run back and forth in disguise today. She could just turn around and follow them, and stay in the examination room for the whole day using Zhang Sheng's identity.
She agreed readily, "Okay, anyway, my presence won't change the results, so just relax and play freely."
After explaining, Shen Cui looked at Zhou again. She missed the preliminary exam the day before and was feeling regretful. Today she wanted to go to the re-examination, but when she heard that Shen Cui was going to stay at home to recuperate, she swallowed the words that were about to come out of her mouth.
"You go too, all of you go. I'll have a good, quiet sleep at home, and I'll be fine when you come back."
She now has more and more authority as the head of the family. Once she makes an arrangement, no one will go against her wishes.
After "driving" them out of the house, Shen Cui locked the door from the inside, went back to the house and locked the bedroom, then waited for about two quarters of an hour, first climbed through the window, then climbed over the earthen wall, and followed them into the city.
After finding a secluded corner where no one was around to change her clothes, Shen Cui checked the system to see how much time was left for the transformation - there were still two or three hours left.
I don’t know the order of the re-examination today. If mathematics is tested in the later rounds, then this amount of time will definitely not be enough.
She hesitated for a long time, and the system was speechless. It said: [Host, put the "Disguise Pill" into the shopping cart. When the transformation time is less than 25 minutes, I will remind you. The host uses it directly in the brain to prolong the transformation time. 】
With his help, Shen Cui no longer worried about it, nor did she care about the trap he had set for her. She chatted with him for a few words while rushing to the academy.
The preliminary examination the day before eliminated about half of the academies, but there were still twenty or thirty academies that entered the re-examination.
The required venue is still not small, so the retest will still be held at the location of the previous day.
The stands were not demolished either. Even if a college was eliminated in the initial exam, it could still lead its students to watch the re-examination in the stands.
Chen Cui arrived a little later than Lao Buyu and the others, and when she saw 'him' again, Lao Buyu waved to her from a distance.
After Chen Cui went over, Lao Buyu didn't ask any questions to start a conversation because he couldn't speak, so as to save Chen Cui from having to make up stories on the spot.
When the sky brightened, the first competition began.
The order was reversed from yesterday, and the first round was a competition of "etiquette".
Everyone in the academy watched the preliminary competition yesterday. The movements of the people in that competition were so graceful and standard that it would be impossible without years of hard practice. Shen Cui was about to give up, but when she opened her mouth, she found that she had no tongue.
Since the dean was not there, Lao Buyu was naturally the first person to make decisions. He was the one who reported his relinquishment and was glared at by Ling Qingming for no reason.
After the competition started, Shen Cui held his chin with one hand and watched the students leave the field quietly. Suddenly, he felt Mu Erpang touch him.
In a blink of an eye, I saw Mu Erpang took out a cloth bag from his arms. After opening it, there was a big steamed bun inside.
Needless to say, this was specially brought for 'him'.
Shen Cui felt a little nauseous when she saw the food, but she suppressed the discomfort and patted her stomach to show that she had eaten. She then bowed to Mu Erpang to express her gratitude.
None of them were well versed in etiquette, so they didn't understand where the difficulty of the re-examination came from.
Soon it was time for the second round, a competition of music.
Just as Chen Cui had expected the day before, the first test was about music and dance, and this one was about musical instruments.
Wei Xi left the stage holding his guqin. Students from other academies held flutes, some held xiao, but of course the majority held the same guqin as his.
With their own people going down, Shen Cui and the others naturally paid more attention to the movements in the field, and finally saw what the difficulty increased -
Unlike the day before when the questions were given, everyone performed together.
In the second round of interview, the judges will randomly assign a piece of music, and then stand in front of several students, and they will start playing.
When the judge leaves and stands in front of other students, the student in front can stop, and the student behind must continue immediately.
After a piece of music is finished, a new judge will ask another question, and then a new round of drum-passing performance will begin.
This not only tests skills, but also tests students' reaction ability and their familiarity with various music scores.
Because the most students played the piano, the judges started with questions about popular piano pieces such as "Yangchun Baixue" and "Gao Shan Liu Shui". But considering that several students used flutes, dongxiao and the like, the judges later asked students to play a flute piece called "Partridge Flying" and finally a piano and flute duet piece called "Plum Blossoms Falling" to test whether these students, who had never met before, could cooperate with each other.
You can see the difficulty from this!
As expected, Wei Xi had been practicing piano since he was young, and he had only barely touched it during the first few months when he came to the county. His basic skills were very solid, and he had dabbled in various music scores since he was young, and he could also play the flute music that was released.
Moreover, he was a little nervous when competing in calligraphy yesterday, but today he was immersed in the music of the piano, which made him relax and perform even better than usual!
He didn't make a single mistake in the entire game!
Before the results were announced, people from other academies had already noticed him.
"This boy showed his talent in the calligraphy competition yesterday. I didn't expect that he is also quite accomplished in playing musical instruments."
"He looks familiar, as if I've seen him somewhere before... I remember he represented Qingzhu Academy and won the archery competition last time."
"No, the one you are talking about is Wei Shu. He is standing over at Qingzhu Academy."
"Who is this then? Wei Shu's brother? That doesn't make sense. His brother is in Qingzhu Academy, so how can he represent another academy to participate in the competition?"
Amid everyone's gazes and discussions, Wei Xi raised his chest slightly, revealing the emblem of Cuiwei Academy, and walked off the stage at a leisurely pace, holding his zither.
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