Every student who graduated from the Jiangnan Imperial Examination Hall covered their noses and walked around the fat man. The smell on this guy was really unbearable.
Zhu Pingan looked at the fat man crying and snotting three meters away, and couldn't bear it, so he said:
"Brother Xue, it's useless to be sad now. Let's fill our stomachs first. I'll treat you."
Just as Zhu Ping'an finished speaking, he heard the fat man with snot and tears running down his face three meters away yelling, then lying on the side of the road and vomiting again.
Uh, it seems that I shouldn’t bring up topics related to food.
Under the fat man's pleading, Zhu Ping'an finally did not leave the fat man alone, but he still kicked the fat man to the inn and asked the waiter to take him to the fat man's room and let the fat man wash himself from head to toe so as not to look like a human-shaped biological weapon.
While the fat man was washing upstairs, Zhu Ping'an was sitting by the window in his room reading. The questions for the eight-part essays in the imperial examinations were all limited to the Four Books. The more times you read the books, the more confident you will be when answering the questions.
After the fat man finished washing, changed into clean clothes and came downstairs, Zhu Ping'an put away the books and followed the fat man downstairs to the lobby of the inn to have dinner.
However, the fat man was left with a psychological trauma after all. He didn't eat a single bite of dinner, and didn't even drink a sip of soup. Zhu Ping'an was helpless about this. You can't wake up a person who pretends to be asleep, and you can't feed a person who vomits when he sees food.
Many scholars came to sit in the lobby of the inn, eating dinner in groups of three or four, and criticizing today's test questions. They mainly targeted the question "Confucius said". It seemed that many people were at a loss about this question and didn't know where to start.
The night was quiet. The moonlight was hazy, the stars were blurred, and the breeze blew the window screen. Zhu Ping'an sat by the window until the night watchman rang the third watch, then he packed up his things. He turned off the oil lamp, walked to the bed, and fell into a deep sleep.
On the second day, Zhu Ping'an got up early before dawn to prepare for the last exam of the college entrance examination - the re-examination.
As usual, the fat man got up early and asked Zhu Ping'an to go to the exam. After not seeing him for one night, the fat man had lost a lot of weight and his forehead seemed to be very blue.
“You…” Zhu Ping’an was speechless as he looked at the fat man’s severely blue forehead.
"Oh, this is what I picked, a high school door beam! Good luck!" The fat man was a little smug.
All right. You win.
When he walked to the bridge connecting the two banks of Qinhuai River, he met his uncle and others who were walking across the bridge from the other side. Zhu Ping'an really didn't know what to say.
"Zhi'er, how was the test yesterday?" Uncle Zhu Shouren asked with concern, yawning.
"Yesterday's question..." Zhu Ping'an was interrupted by his uncle before he could finish his words.
"You also felt that the questions yesterday were difficult, right? Well, it's okay, you're still young. Just take more exams and you'll be fine." Uncle Zhu Shouren stroked his beard and consoled him, "It's a pity, if the questions were more common. With your status as the first in the prefectural exam, you would have definitely passed. The questions this time were more difficult, it's a pity for you."
Well
Zhu Pingan...
Today is the second round, the re-examination.
The entry procedure is the same as last time. After being called, the officers will lead the candidates to the examination room to continue the examination.
That’s right, it’s the same room as last time.
I couldn't help but feel a little sympathy for the fat guy Xue Chi. He would probably vomit for another day.
Compared with the main test yesterday, the retest is less important. Daming has a time limit for marking the academy test, which is about ten days. Time is very tight. In order to speed up the marking and complete the marking work on time, the examiners mainly look at the first test paper of the candidates, and they can only look at the first test paper roughly. Generally speaking, if you do well in the first test and give a high score (good review) when marking, the examiners will have a preconceived idea that you are at a high level, and the score of the second test paper will basically not be low; if you fail the first test, the examiners may look at your second test paper with tinted glasses.
Of course, this doesn't mean that the re-examination is not important. The examiner will still look at the quality of your answers, especially the eight-part essay, which has a fixed format and is easier to fairly judge the quality of your article.
After the cloud board was struck, the test papers were distributed, and several yamen runners held up signs with questions on them in the aisle in front of the examination rooms for the examinees to read.
Compared with yesterday, today's exam questions are less, two questions on the Four Books and Eight-legged Essay, and one less common test poem. In fact, in the Ming Dynasty, the provincial, metropolitan, and palace examinations did not require test poems, and even the boy's exam was rare because Taizu disliked it. However, after the middle period, Taizu's influence weakened, and test poems occasionally appeared in the boy's exam, but very rarely, and the grading was mainly based on the Four Books and Eight-legged Essay.
The two Four Books and Eight-part Essay topics are not as orthodox as the one about Confucius yesterday. The first question is "Do not be afraid to correct your mistakes", which is from "The Analects of Confucius". Confucius said: "A gentleman is not respected if he is not serious, and his learning is not solid. He should be loyal and trustworthy, and have no friends who are not as good as himself. Do not be afraid to correct your mistakes." The second question is a long sentence, "The good men in a township should be friends with the good men in a township, the good men in a country, the good men all over the world should be friends with the good men all over the world", which is from "Mencius".
Both of these questions are relatively orthodox and are not difficult for students who often do eight-part essays. How well you do in eight-part essays depends on your foundation.
However, the last test poem was a trap. The title was "Yellow flowers are like scattered gold."
There is a sentence in "Book of Rites" that goes like this, "In the last month of autumn, chrysanthemums have yellow flowers." It is estimated that many candidates will write test poems based on this sentence and write about autumn scenery and chrysanthemums and the like. If they write like this, they will be off topic.
When Zhu Ping'an saw this question, he felt somewhat grateful to the dark, domineering and sarcastic girl from Shanghe Village. If it weren't for her, he would have gone off topic.
Last time I went home, I went to the Li family many times to borrow books to copy, but most of them were the Four Books and Five Classics and the Eight-part Essay. That arrogant girl once mocked me as a toad nerd. After I teased her with words, the girl asked me about this poem. As a result, I said chrysanthemum, and the girl laughed at me for a long time. She threw me a collection of poems and mocked me, "Chrysanthemum and rapeseed, Ping An and stupid toad, can't tell the difference."
There are two ancient poems in the collection, "Selected Works" by Xiao Tong of the Liang Dynasty in the Southern Dynasties and "Looking Alone" by Sikong Tu of the Tang Dynasty. There are lines in the two books, "The green branches are like green, and the yellow flowers are like scattered gold" and "The green trees are dark in the village, and the yellow flowers are sparse in the wheat." Therefore, Zhu Ping'an knew that the yellow flowers did not refer to chrysanthemums, but to rape flowers in spring. This test poem was about the spring scenery. I wonder how many students who are not good at studying will fall into the trap.
Zhu Pingan dipped his pen in ink and copied all three questions onto the draft paper, and then began to conceive and make a draft.
Time passed quietly at the tip of the pen, from sunrise to sunset, and slowly the glow of the sky faded gradually, the deep red turned into dark red, and the dark red turned into light red. Finally, when all the red light disappeared, Zhu Ping'an walked out of the Jiangnan Examination Hall.
"Come, come, Brother Zhu, please appreciate my poem about the yellow flowers that look like scattered gold, and the golden wind blowing the chrysanthemum buds..."
As soon as Zhu Ping'an came out of the Imperial Examination Hall, he heard a familiar shout. He looked up and saw the fat man Xue Chi with two balls of cotton stuffed in his nose. His fat face was smiling like a chrysanthemum, and he was walking towards him from a distance with a swaying step.
Chrysanthemum core
Zhu Pingan looked at the fat man speechlessly, "Okay, fat brother, you should go home and ask your father to donate a student to you." (To be continued)
ps: Saturday weekend outbreak