"How dare you stop me from inspecting the examination room!" Inspector Geng said sternly.
"No, I'm afraid that the two students' rough hands and feet may annoy you, the Imperial Academy. After all, your son died at the hands of our Jing people, and we in Jing cannot let you down again! I will go down in person to check on behalf of the two students, and you will supervise from the side!"
After Feng Zimo finished speaking seriously, he took Fang Yun's bookcase, slowly took out the things, and placed them on the desk for Geng Xun to see.
Fang Yun said nothing, but he knew in his heart that Inspector Geng wanted to use the two students to destroy his four treasures of the study.
"If I get angry, I will definitely fail this provincial examination. This is probably just the beginning. In these three days, he will continue to harm me in this way! I must find a way to prevent him from acting rashly!" Fang Yun kept thinking in his heart.
After Feng Zimo laid out all of Fang Yun's things, he smiled and said, "Master Geng, do you think there is anything missing?"
"Hmph!" Inspector Geng stared at Fang Yun, not knowing what he was thinking.
Fang Yun suddenly said to Feng Zimo: "Master Feng, I don't tolerate any injustice. This exam is very important to me. If anyone dares to ruin my future, I will definitely ask the Holy Lord to judge! Please ask the Holy Lord to administer justice."
Feng Zimo immediately said: "In the imperial examination, if you encounter something unfair or unjust, everyone can ask for a judgement, and you are no exception!"
"You guys..." Inspector Geng was so angry at Fang Yun and Feng Zimo's singing the same tune that he was speechless. Once he asked for the Holy Judgment, things would get out of control, which was not the result he wanted to see.
Others don't dare to ask for the Holy Judgement casually, but Fang Yun has asked for the Holy Judgement once, so he is not afraid at all.
"Hmph!" Inspector Geng snorted coldly and left in a huff.
Feng Zimo glanced at Fang Yun, then left, untying the two officers.
Fang Yun knew that Inspector Geng would not embarrass him in the exam. He smiled slightly, sat back in his chair, and began to organize the four treasures of the study on the desk to prepare for the next exam.
The provincial examination has three subjects, among which the sacred words and poetry are exactly the same as those in the county examination. The third subject is the meaning of classics, which is not tested in the county examination.
The petition for the emperor in the county exam had 30 pages, while the petition for the emperor in the prefectural exam had 100 pages, especially the last 10 pages, which basically required large sections or even the entire essay to be written down. It often took nearly 100 blank pages to complete the petition, which meant that the petition for the emperor in the prefectural exam had to take up nearly 200 pages.
Generally speaking, it takes nearly two days to complete the provincial examination on the sacred words, after which the examination will be followed by tests on poetry and scriptures.
Soon, the oxcart carrying the examination papers arrived and the examiner placed two stacks of papers on Fang Yun's desk.
One stack contains test papers, and the other stack contains white paper for dictation.
Fang Yun looked at the two thick stacks of papers and was speechless for a long while. He thought that this might be the last madness. Once he passed the examination, he would no longer have to face the boring and tricky words of the emperor.
Fang Yun habitually flipped through the 100-chapter test paper of Asking the Holy Word, and finally took the first page and began to answer the questions.
The first question in this Holy Word test is a very simple fill-in-the-blank question, and it is the opening chapter of The Analects of Confucius.
"The Master said: 'To learn is to practise it from time to time. Is it not a joy?'" There was a blank after it, and Fang Yun immediately filled it in: 'To have friends come from afar is a joy. To not be angry when people do not know you is not a gentleman.'
During the process of answering the questions, Qishu Tiandi did not move, and Fang Yun did not use the power of Qishu Tiandi. He answered the questions purely based on his own memory and understanding.
Fang Yun has memorized all the original works of the saints.
Soon, Fang Yun encountered an extremely tricky and strange question, which tested when He Yunxiang, the half-saint of Wu Kingdom, had visited Mingnan Mountain.
Fang Yun racked his brains and found out that He Yunxiang had been to Mingnanshan four times. There were clear records of three of them, so he just had to write them down directly. However, there was no record of the time for the second time he went to Mingnanshan.
Fang Yun thought carefully and looked for all works related to He Yunxiang's second trip to Mingnanshan. In the end, he only found a long ancient poem and a recollection of He Yunxiang.
The long ancient poem is titled "Moon over Nanshan Mountain". It was written by He Yunxiang when he was 19 years old and climbed Nanshan Mountain. At that time, He Yunxiang was not well-known as a literary figure and was unknown.
“This poem must be the key.”
Fang Yun recalled He Yunxiang's long poem and soon found a very interesting line.
The strong wind cut off half of the moon.
Fang Yun thought: "A very important premise of poetry is 'real scenery'. Although He Yunxiang was young at the time, he would not write randomly. The phases of the moon change with time, such as new moon, full moon, waning moon, etc. When the moon phase is waxing or waning, only half of the moon is left, as if it was split in half by a knife, which conforms to the sentence 'a strong wind cuts off half of the moon'. No other moon phases will work. The seventh and eighth days of each month are waxing moons, and the twenty-second and twenty-third days are waning moons."
"That is to say, we cannot be sure at the moment what month He Yunxiang will go to Mingnan Mountain, but it must be on one of the 7th, 8th, 22nd, and 23rd days of a certain month."
"There is another line in this ancient poem, 'Ice wheel appeared at midnight last night'. Ice wheel is another name for the moon. Midnight is between 11pm and 1am. If the moon rises at this time, it should be the second half of the month. Because the moon rises very early in the first half of the month, it is impossible that 'Ice wheel appeared at midnight last night', so the seventh or eighth day can be ruled out."
"But this is not enough. We also need to determine what month it is. The poem also has a line 'A yellow dog shivers among the flowers.' He Yunxiang's work does not mention what a yellow dog is, but another semi-sage, Li Daoyuan, mentioned a yellow dog in a travelogue, saying that there is a small yellow insect in Hezhou that is called a yellow dog by the locals."
"Yellow dog bugs like gray chrysanthemums, and Hezhou's gray chrysanthemums only bloom in August and September. Now we can be sure that this poem was written in August or September. He Yunxiang wrote in his memoirs: Crossing the Xu River, the water submerged the knees. This Xu River is at the foot of Mingnan Mountain. According to Li Daoyuan's "Water Classics", the Xu River is only in the dry season from September to December each year, and the water level can drop to the knees. So it can be determined that this poem was written in September."
After a complex analysis, Fang Yun answered the question by citing classics.
"This question involves astronomy, geography, hydrology, plants, animals, poetry and so on. I can guarantee that most Jinshi scholars will not be able to answer it correctly! The person who sets the question is really weird!" Fang Yun thought to himself, shook his head and continued to answer the questions.
Fang Yun kept writing, and at noon, the servants of the Academy of Literature brought food. The provincial examination lasted for three days, and the food that the candidates brought might go bad, so the Academy of Literature provided three meals for tens of thousands of candidates.
After lunch, Fang Yun continued answering questions, and only finished the first ninety pages by dinner time. The last ten pages were all memorized questions, so Fang Yun left them alone for the time being.
After dinner, Fang Yun checked the first ninety pages of the Holy Word.
When checking the Holy Words, the strange book of heaven and earth began to move, and the correct answers in golden letters began to emerge, just like when Fang Yun took the county exam.
With the help of the Wonderful Book of Heaven and Earth, Fang Yun quickly checked the ninety pages of the Holy Words and found that he had remembered two questions incorrectly and had not answered three questions completely, and he had overlooked some details in the Holy Scriptures.
After correcting the wrong questions, Fang Yun began to copy the questions on the last ten pages from memory. He kept writing until midnight, when he lay down on the simple bed in the examination room to sleep.
At six o'clock in the morning on the second day of June, Fang Yun woke up like many other candidates, waiting for breakfast or continuing to answer questions.
At noon, Fang Yun finished answering all the questions in the Holy Scriptures. After the ink had dried, he put them together and sat down to rest while waiting for the other two subjects.
In the evening, the subject of praying to the saints ended, but the officers did not take away the test paper of praying to the saints. Instead, they directly handed out the test questions of poetry.
This year's poetry exam has three topics, and they are more specific than the county exam. They require one to write about weapons, rivers, and one of the Confucian saints. One only needs to write one poem.
Fang Yun thought for a moment, because the real focus of the provincial examination was the third subject, the interpretation of scriptures, which tested students' understanding of the holy scriptures. He couldn't waste too much time on poetry, so he wrote a poem:
The shore is wide and the masts are sparse, the waves are vast, I am alone leaning on the dangerous railing, thinking about how long it will take. Beyond the sparse forest, the trees are rustling in the distance, and half of the autumn mountain is bathed in the sunset.
The poem is finished, talent is revealed, and it is only a step away from reaching the palace.
After finishing writing, Fang Yun did not waste time, because he wanted to devote all his energy to the following sutras, so he continued to close his eyes and silently recite the scriptures of the saints.
Whether it is the ranking of scholars, juren or jinshi, the order is arranged according to the meaning of the classics.
If one person's sacred words, poems, and scriptures are ranked A, A, and B respectively, and another person's are ranked C, C, and A respectively, then the latter will inevitably win.
Poetry is the strongest aid to the holy way, but it is not the foundation of the holy way. The interpretation of the classics is the foundation of the holy way. Even Confucius’ direct disciples had to study the interpretation of the classics frequently.
Unfortunately, the meaning of scriptures cannot be used directly like the words of saints or poems. To write the meaning of scriptures, one must rely on Fang Yun himself, because the meaning of scriptures is one's own understanding of the saints' classics and the holy way. If Fang Yun cannot write a good meaning of scriptures, or the meaning of scriptures he writes is inconsistent with his own ideas, it is tantamount to destroying his own literary talent.
Fang Yun had previously spent most of his time on the meaning of scriptures, because he knew that he could learn the meaning of the scriptures in the strange book of heaven and earth, and could even quote part of it like writing papers in later generations, but he could never copy it completely.
As long as the interpretation of the classics is good, the foundation of the holy way can be permanently solid, and if the foundation of the holy way is permanently solid, there will be a chance to be canonized. Therefore, even though the great scholar Yi Zhishi is not good at poetry, he is still the leader of the four great talents of the previous generation, and the one who is most likely to be canonized among the great scholars.
On the morning of the third day of June, the Academy of Literature began the third subject, the Interpretation of Classics.
Using sentences from the holy scriptures as titles, writers expounded on the principles and meanings contained therein, which is the meaning of the scriptures.
Unlike the subjects of praying to the saints and poetry, no test papers were distributed before the test of scriptures began. All candidates stood upright behind their desks, looking in the direction of the holy temple.
Soon, the entire academy shook slightly, and everything seemed to form a strange resonance. An indescribable sound appeared. No one could describe the distance, size, or other aspects of the sound. It seemed to be a strange sound that went straight to the soul. (To be continued...)