In the examination room, students continued to do their exams.
Among them, Chen Zhiyuan had a smile on his face and was full of fighting spirit, determined to win the first place in the imperial examination.
In the pavilion beside the holy temple, a group of officials looked at Zhao Jingkong with envy.
Fang Yun appeared outside the examination room carrying a green bamboo book box on his back and a wicker basket in his hand.
It was dark, and the area near the State College of Arts was brightly lit. Many of the students' relatives and friends lived in the open space in front of the examination hall. Some lived in carriages, some set up tents, and some just spread bedding on the ground.
Officials from the prefectural and county governments stood guard to protect the relatives and friends of the examinees.
The lights further away were the oil lamps of the small vendors. The aroma of various snacks wafted around, reminding Fang Yun of the scene after school back then, so distant and yet so beautiful.
Fang Yun walked quickly towards the food stalls. He had been eating dry food for the past two days, which did not taste good. He was going to find some delicious food to replenish his stomach.
Fang Yun took a few steps and heard someone crying.
"Wow... my child is not doing well..."
Fang Yun looked in the direction of the voice and saw a young scholar kneeling and crying in front of a middle-aged man in his early forties.
"Why are you crying? You are so useless! This is your first time taking the imperial examination. You will be in trouble if you pass! If you fail this year, take it again next year! Get up, or I will beat you up if you don't get up!"
"Yeah." The young scholar stood up, wiping his tears.
Not far from that man, several scholars carrying book boxes were talking in low voices.
"Oh, how can I explain this to my family? I wrote well at the beginning, but the more I wrote, the more uneasy I became. I knew I was off, but I didn't know where I was wrong. I kept writing and writing, and finally I was so panicked that I had to give up the exam."
"Me too. The meaning of the classics really kills me. Although the Book of Songs was revised by Confucius himself, he rarely uses it as a subject. When I saw the subject, I panicked. It took me a long time to remember it. The more I wrote, the more vague it became."
"We are just scholars. We cannot have a photographic memory like Jinshi. If the questions are slightly off, we have to rack our brains to think. I thought about this article "Wei Min Suo Zhi" for five hours before I dared to write it, for fear of making a mistake. I did finish it, but I don't know why, I was always afraid of making mistakes. In the process of writing the policy paper, I kept looking through "Wei Min Suo Zhi". My mind was too unsteady. With this lesson, I will definitely make further progress next year!"
"We are all ordinary scholars. We can't compare with those geniuses. It's a blessing to pass the exam after ten years. It's normal to give up the exam a few times. Look, there's another person who gave up the exam. Let's discuss it together... This person seems familiar."
One of them smiled and said, "Oh? Could it be a classmate? Isn't this... isn't this Fang... Fang Wenhou? Did Fang Wenhou give up the exam?"
The man almost shouted the last sentence.
Everyone around looked at Fang Yun, and everyone was shocked by the shout of "Fang Wenhou gave up the exam." People in the distance didn't hear clearly, so they asked the people in front of them, and the news of Fang Yun giving up the exam spread in all directions.
First, the relatives of the examinees and the surrounding yamen runners knew about it, then the surrounding vendors and passers-by. Finally, everyone in Wenyuan Street knew about it.
This is Jiangzhou, Dayuan Prefecture, Fang Yun's hometown. Everyone is paying unimaginable attention to Fang Yun. Such important news spread at a very fast speed.
Many people did not believe it and walked quickly towards the entrance of the examination room.
Fang Yun knew that he couldn't eat the snacks, but he couldn't talk about things like the Holy Pen Review. He could only sigh helplessly and walked out quickly.
"That can't be! Even if Fang Zhenguo's grades are not good, he should not come out until the early morning of the fourth day of the New Year. Could it be that this person just looks like Fang Yun?"
"I'm not mistaken. I saw him yesterday when he entered the examination room. Even the bookcase and basket are exactly the same. If he came out in the third year of junior high school, I would have believed that he would have finished answering the questions ahead of time and easily won the title of Jieyuan. But today is the second year of junior high school, and the actual time is only a day and a half. The time spent on thinking and revising the three exam questions cannot be less than a day and a half!"
"The exam started early in the morning on the first day of the new year, and he left in the evening on the second day. It has been almost seventeen hours now. It is less than a day and a half. Even if he wrote as fast as he could, he would not be able to finish the exam. He is a genius, not a semi-saint!"
"well… "
Amid everyone's discussions, Fang Yun had to quicken his pace, but in the eyes of others this became evidence of his failure in the imperial examination.
Normally, everyone could stop Fang Yun, but now everyone guessed that he might be in a bad mood and it was not easy for them to step forward.
One person couldn't help but ask loudly: "Master Wenhou, have you finished answering the test paper?"
Fang Yun breathed a sigh of relief, thinking that someone had finally asked this substantive question, and immediately said, "I've answered it." Then he smiled slightly and walked away.
"I told you, Fang Zhenguo has finished answering, stop talking nonsense!"
"Then let's calculate carefully. Three policy essays plus one classic and poem, a total of five essays. Even if he wrote furiously, his speed was limited. After all, there was still a draft. Even if he wrote for two hours, he spent at least three hours thinking, checking and revising each essay. This is already beyond the candidates of previous generations, which is fifteen hours. Just by calculating this, it is already seventeen hours! Don't forget, this is an imperial examination, not a practice. Where did he eat? It takes a lot of energy to finish each essay. Where did he rest and sleep? You just came out like me, tell me how you spent last night?"
"I'm fine when I write poetry, but when I think about the meaning of the scriptures, my mind goes blank, I see stars, and my mind shakes. I have to rest for a while before I can continue thinking. I slept for three hours last night before I was barely full of energy. On weekdays, it's okay to go without sleep for two or three days."
"I have participated in the imperial examination twice, and it was the same every time. The classics and policy essays are too brain-consuming. In fact, it is not difficult to write, but it is very difficult to write well. Especially when it comes to the concepts of the holy way, if you write without thinking thoroughly, at best your literary palace will be shaken, and at worst you will vomit blood and faint. If you don't write about these important ideas, let alone A or B, you won't even get a C."
"So, Fang Yun spent at least six hours just on resting, eating and sleeping. He spent eleven hours writing five articles for the imperial examination? Ask those who have passed the imperial examination or even the Jinshi examination, if they were asked to take the imperial examination for sixteen hours, would they be able to enter the top ten in a state?"
"That makes sense. It's not difficult for a Jinshi to pass the imperial examination in such a short time, but it's impossible to be in the top ten in a state."
"But Fang Yun did say that he had answered all the questions. The great Marquis Wen would never lie to us."
"Yes, he did finish the test, but what was his level? What was his grade? That's the key! And the most important thing is his attitude. Leaving the examination room after only one and a half days is not just arrogance, it's contempt for the way of saints! Let me ask you, as a semi-saint examiner who sets the test, you give students three days to take the test, but someone only uses half the time to finish the test. Doesn't this mean that a semi-saint doesn't know how to set test questions?"
"Nonsense! The results of the imperial examination haven't been announced yet, how can you blame others like this? Every year there are scholars who guess the right essay questions in the imperial examination, and maybe he is one of them!"
"Then wait until the results are announced."
"Humph, even if he passed the imperial examination, so what? He is so arrogant and conceited, and he disrespects the Holy Lord! It's a pity that our Jing country has lost a role model of scholars!"
In the dark night, Fang Yun, dressed in a dark blue scholar's uniform, left Wenyuan Street and walked towards Fang Mansion carrying a book box and a basket.
The people at Fang's house didn't know he had left so early, and there was no carriage waiting, so he continued walking. After walking for two quarters of an hour, when he was close to Fang's house, the Wenhou gold seal on his waist kept emitting strange fluctuations. Compared with normal times, the Wenhou gold seal now was like an explosion.
Fang Yun smiled helplessly, he knew what was going on without even looking. He was now a well-known figure in the Ten Countries, and two quarters of an hour was enough for all the middle and high-level scholars in the Ten Countries to know about this.
But he had to look at it, so Fang Yun held the golden seal of Wenhou in his hand and walked slowly while reading the letter delivered by the wild geese.
"Fang Yun, what's wrong with you? Did something big happen that made you lose your composure? Did something happen in your family or something? I wanted to send a letter to Prefect Sun, but he can't receive it in the examination room! Tell me what's going on?" Cai He, the magistrate of Ji County, who was very close to Dayuan Prefecture, was the first to send the letter.
"Are you crazy? Explain yourself quickly! We sent you to the examination room yesterday and left Dayuan Prefecture. We just arrived in Qingdu today and planned to drink wine for three days before going to Kongcheng to participate in the Double Ninth Festival literary gathering! We were discussing whether you could write a national poem on the Double Ninth Festival, but we got the news that you gave up the exam! What's wrong with you?" The second letter was from his good friend Li Fanming.
"Where are you? I'll pick you up." Jiangzhou Grand Commander Lu Hongyi didn't say much, but the friendship between them was heavy.
"Let's get back to square one and take the exam again next year. It's a trivial matter and there's no need to worry about it." Fang Yun smiled knowingly after reading Li Wenying's letter. He was even more moved. The great scholar deliberately said this to comfort him. It can be said that he had good intentions.
"Fang Yun! What are you doing! Why don't you kill me with your own hands? You are a Jing countryman who is known for his literary talent. If you give up the exam, your reputation will be ruined! Others call it giving up the exam, but you are cutting yourself off from the holy way and from the saints! Where are you? Tell me what's going on!" The words of Yuhai prefect Dong Wencong were filled with anxiety.
"What happened to cause you to give up the exam? If you can trust me, Zeng Yuan, please tell me."
"You have guts! Damn it, we Jing people have guts! You dare to give up the exam? I will never beat you when we meet again after I have defeated the barbarians!" This is from Zhang Poyue.
"We in the editorial office of "The Holy Way" are all waiting for news. Half of the Holy Way is in chaos. This is a shocking event. You must not make a mistake!" warned An Daxueshi, the editor of "The Holy Way".
"We, the scholars of Qing country, are laughing like crazy and are preparing to attack you. We have teamed up with the sharpest writer in Juwen Pavilion and have already sharpened our ink, waiting to tarnish your literary reputation and hinder your path to sainthood with even the slightest ink of our pen." This is what Zong Wude said.
"I believe there are other reasons. If you have a clear conscience, you don't need to care about others." After reading it, Fang Yun thought that Yan Yukong was different. He was just a juren, but he was calmer than many jinshi.
"You! You! You! What's going on?" Zhao Hongzhuang, who was far away in the capital, sent a letter.
"You almost pissed me off to death!"
Fang Yun's hands trembled after reading it. He didn't expect that the Queen Mother would personally send him a letter. His heart was filled with waves. If the outside world knew about this, he didn't know what rumors they would make up.
The empress dowager had a special status, so even when she delivered letters to great scholars and ministers, she had to let eunuchs deliver them. She would never deliver letters to others personally because it was royal etiquette.
This is probably the first time in several years that the Queen Mother has personally sent a letter to an outsider. (To be continued...)