"Fang Yun, a student from Ji County, invites you to choose me!"
Fang Yun's clear voice echoed in the academy.
Wei Yuanjun looked at Fang Yun in astonishment, unable to react for a moment, and then became furious: "How dare you, you boy!" After saying that, he glared at Liu Zicheng.
But Liu Zicheng lowered his head with a vicious smile on his face.
"Bastard!" Wei Yuanjun cursed in a low voice, not knowing whether he was cursing Fang Yun or Liu Zicheng.
Gao Minghong sighed lightly, but in his heart he admired Fang Yun's decisiveness, and couldn't help but think of the history of "asking the Holy Selection".
In the early days of the establishment of the Academy of Literature, a major event occurred.
In Yongwen Prefecture of Wuzhou, Jiaguo, a very promising scholar was disqualified from entering the Academy of Literature by the local prefectural governor because he offended the governor, and the scholar's mother was angered to death.
The scholar brought a wrongful complaint against the governor of the prefecture, but the officials protected each other and the matter was eventually suppressed by the officials of Wuzhou.
He endured humiliation and studied hard. After becoming a Jinshi, he returned to Yongwen Mansion and wiped out the entire family of 141 people of Yuanjun, leaving no one alive, and then committed suicide in public.
This incident shocked the ten countries. Some people felt sorry for the more than one hundred people, while others felt sorry for the possibility that the human race had lost a great Confucian scholar.
The Holy Court sent a team of criminals led by a half-saint of the Legalists to Wuzhou to try the case. All high-ranking officials who served in Yongwen Prefecture and Wuzhou at that time were investigated, and anyone who shielded the Lord of the Court was executed immediately, and all three clans and nine generations were banned from taking the imperial examinations.
In order to prevent such incidents from happening again, the Holy Court established the "Holy Election".
If someone thinks he has great talent but is rejected by the Academy of Literature, he can ask the Saint to select him and be personally examined by a Semi-Saint.
Since the Holy Selection appeared, a total of five people have applied for the Holy Selection, and all failed. This is because the semi-saints are too knowledgeable. Even if they deliberately give simple questions, if the answers are not good enough, they will not be determined to pass.
The literary palaces of the five failed people were all hit hard and became unknown.
It has been more than two hundred years since the last Holy Election. There is no one left who dares to force others to do so or is willing to do so.
Two hundred years of peace and tranquility made it impossible for Wei Yuanjun to connect the forcing of Fang Yun to the request for the Holy Selection.
Regardless of whether Fang Yun succeeds or fails, the court will definitely send people to investigate Wei Yuanjun. He is the left prime minister's man and is not afraid of investigation. However, if the imperial selection happens to him, his literary reputation will inevitably plummet, and the left prime minister will not be able to use him.
If Fang Yun passes the request for the Holy Selection, it will not be a question of whether Wei Yuanjun's literary reputation will be damaged, but a question of being infamous for eternity. By then, the Holy Court will definitely send people to conduct a thorough investigation, and ten left prime ministers will not be able to save him.
Wei Yuanjun's eyes were filled with hatred. He thought that if he had known Fang Yun was so bold, he would have let him enter the Academy of Literature and then used various means to harm him. But it was too late to regret now.
More than half of the students were excited. They originally admired Fang Yun's talent and thought that Fang Yun would swallow his anger. But now seeing that Fang Yun actually chose to perish together with Wei Yuanjun, they couldn't help but admire Fang Yun even more.
Some other older people shook their heads and sighed, feeling that it was not worth it for Fang Yun. If he failed in the Saint's selection, it would be equivalent to being rejected by a semi-saint, and even his natural talent would lead to the collapse of the Palace of Literature.
Liu Zicheng's accomplices smiled as if they were sure of victory and believed that they would definitely lose.
Guan Yaoyuan in the crowd laughed with a relieved tone, "You broke my and Yan Yue's palaces that day, today I will let you taste the same thing. No, if your palace is broken by the words of a semi-saint, you will be ten times more miserable than us! You will become the laughing stock of the ten countries!"
Fang Yun's voice spread in the holy courtyard and finally reached the holy temple in front.
At first, nothing changed, but after a moment, an invisible force rushed straight into the sky from the holy temple, pushing away thousands of miles of clouds, forming an impact with the holy temple as the center, and raising strong winds in all directions.
The branches were swaying, dust was flying, and clothes were rustling. Except for Fang Yun, everyone had to squint and turn their backs to the holy temple.
"Boom!" Several houses closest to the holy temple collapsed, and several trees were uprooted.
There is a big bell on the left side of the temple. Although no one hit it, it suddenly made a loud noise.
"Boom..."
The sound of the bell spread in all directions.
When the sound reached the State Academy of Literature, the bells in the State Academy's holy temple also rang by themselves, making a louder sound that spread far away.
The speed at which the sound of the holy temple bell spread was much faster than that of ordinary sounds. With Dayuan Prefecture as the center, the holy temple bells in the surrounding counties began to ring one after another, followed by the bells of the entire Jiangzhou, and finally all the holy temple bells in the national academies of literature in Jingguo rang.
People from all over Jing State were talking about it.
"What's going on? Isn't it a demon invasion?"
"No, the bells of a barbarian invasion would be very rapid and long. This time the bells only rang once. I don't know what happened."
"It wasn't an accident, was it?"
"The temple bell cannot be rung. Only the temple's own talent can ring the bell."
"I hope it's not a bad thing."
In Jiangzhou Academy of Literature, Li Wenying stood up suddenly when he heard the bell, put his hand on the official seal, and took in everything in the academy.
"You actually forced Fang Yun to apply for the Holy Selection. How audacious! How despicable! Someone, come here!"
As Li Wenying was speaking, a piece of white paper beside him flew to the table, and words immediately appeared on it. Then Li Wenying picked up the official seal and pressed it on it.
An officer came in quickly and asked, "What do you want, Master Yuanjun?"
"Take my decree to the Prefecture Academy of Literature. Regardless of whether Fang Yun succeeds or fails in his application for the Holy Selection, you must give him this decree. From now on, he is a student of my Prefecture Academy of Literature."
When the officer heard the words "Please choose the Holy One", he was stunned for a long time, then he quickly apologized and hurriedly left with the order.
As soon as the officer left, Zhou Zhubu rushed in.
"Sir, what happened? But we need the emperor to choose someone? Who?" Zhou Zhubu asked in panic.
Li Wenying said dully: "Fang Yun."
Zhou Zhubu slammed his fist against the door frame and shouted angrily, "How could this be? How could this be! He has the talent of a great scholar! Is he Wei Yuanjun, who is a member of the Left Prime Minister's thief party? No one else can force Fang Yun to leave. Asking for the emperor's election is no joke. It is a question set by the sage. Fang Yun will definitely fail! I will write a memorial right away. As long as the traitor Wei is in power, I will report him and I will not stop until he dies! I will not stop until he dies!"
Zhou Zhubu was so angry that his eyes turned red and he almost cried. He couldn't imagine how great a loss the destruction of Fang Yunwen Palace would be for Jing Kingdom and the human race.
Li Wenying remained silent.
Zhou Zhubu suddenly gritted his teeth and cursed: "He has destroyed the great scholar of my Jing country and cut off the pillar of my human race. I will pick up my sword and kill that old villain!" After that, he turned around and ran away.
"Come back!" Li Wenying shouted, and the pressure from the Grand Secretary kept Zhou Zhubu in place.
Li Wenying sighed and said, "It's all my fault. I was afraid that Fang Yun's literary reputation would be too great, and his talent would rise suddenly, and he would be criticized, which would lead to a lack of literary talent and courage in the future, so I let him stay in the Fu Wenyuan to hone his skills. But I didn't expect that the dignified Fuyuan Master would kill the human race's great talent for his own selfish interests. If Fang Yun makes any mistakes, I will kill him to uphold the law and uproot the left prime minister's followers in Jiangzhou! He is the left prime minister of half of Jingguo, but Jiangzhou has Wenying!"
Li Wenying's last sentence was so powerful that it shook the whole house.
Zhou Zhubu said angrily: "If Fang Yunwen's palace is broken, is there any way to remedy it?"
"He has great talent, and his good poems and essays can make up for some of it. He also has two things that can protect the country, poetry and essays, which can be made up by entering the Saint Tower. If he can go to the Saint Academy for another ten years to be nurtured, his literary palace may be able to return to its place."
Zhou Zhubu remained silent.
"It's too late to stop it. I can only hope that his palace is strong and won't be broken badly." Li Wenying sighed. He knew that Fang Yun was bound to fail.
After the violent storm at the Fuwen Academy, the sky became clearer, and then a strange force enveloped everyone. That force was obviously extremely oppressive, but it made people feel warm; it obviously had a kind of arrogance that looked down on the world, but it also made people feel like spring breeze.
That power is so complex that many people find it difficult to adapt to it.
"Has anyone asked for the Holy Selection?"
The sound seemed to come from the horizon. When everyone heard it, a towering mountain appeared before their eyes.
All the officials sitting on the chairs stood up and, like everyone else, bowed in the direction of the Holy Court.
Fang Yun said: "Ji County student Fang Yun believes that the Dayuan Prefecture Guard is unfair, so I ask the Holy Selection to clear my name."
"I know your reputation as a writer. You are very good at poetry and prose, so it would be unfair to test you on poetry and prose. You are just a student, so it would be unfair to test you on classics and policy essays. Then I will test you on a few couplets first. If you can't answer them in a hundred breaths, you don't have to answer the rest."
"Student respectfully asks the saint to set the questions." Fang Yun said respectfully. This "saint" does not refer to the status of a saint, but to the saint among men.
Fang Yun thought: This breath is the time it takes for a person to exhale and inhale, which is extremely close to one second. In other words, I have to answer the second line within one minute and forty seconds. This is worthy of being a semi-saint test, it's too difficult.
Gao Minghong and others were even more worried when they heard that it was a couplet. If the topic was poetry, the content could be controlled by oneself as long as it did not go off topic, but it was different for couplets.
The second line must be in antithesis to the first line, and the tone must be considered. It's fine for ordinary couplets, but if there is a first line with puns, split characters, palindromes, or embedded characters, it would be good if you can get it right in a hundred hours, let alone a hundred breaths.
It might be easy for an ordinary person to come up with a couplet, but even if a semi-saint deliberately lowers the standard, it would still be extremely difficult.
The voice said, "Listen carefully, the first line of the couplet is: The pine and bamboo leaves are all green."
Gao Minghong almost fainted when he heard this, and blurted out: "This is a reduplicated couplet, why is the first question like this? Is this a test for Tongsheng or Juren?"
"What? You dare to question the saint?" Someone next to Liu Zicheng sneered.
"Silence!" Wan Xuezheng said angrily, not wanting Fang Yun to be disturbed by others.
Everyone frowned and thought. It was too difficult to come up with the second line of the couplet within a hundred breaths. However, the people around Liu Zicheng were gloating, believing that Fang Yun couldn't even answer this couplet.
Fang Yun frowned and looked around. Generally speaking, couplets are made from local materials to give people a concrete visual experience, and then people think of the second line.
The first line of the couplet reads: "The pine leaves and bamboo leaves are all green." There are bamboos in Dayuan City, but there are only pine trees on the hills outside the city. Fang Yun couldn't help but whisper, "There are no pine trees in Dayuan Prefecture."
The semi-saint said: "For a saint, one can see the south and north of the sky."
Liu Zicheng and others were even happier.
Fang Yun lowered his head and thought.
Many students sighed. They had completely lost confidence in the opponent's luck.
Just after sixty breaths, Fang Yun suddenly raised his head and said loudly: "The pine and bamboo leaves are green, and the autumn sounds of wild geese are cold."
As soon as Fang Yun finished speaking, Wan Xuezheng couldn't help but whispered, "Well done!"
Many students nodded, this second line was extremely ingenious.
"Is there autumn in Jiangzhou of Jing State?" The voice seemed to be laughing, just in response to Fang Yun's previous doubts.
Fang Yun immediately replied: "Scholars experience spring, summer, autumn and winter."
The students cheered secretly.