Fang Yun sighed softly.
The previous Fang Yun had a very average memory. In addition, he only went to private school in the morning and started working as a waiter in a restaurant at noon. He learned very little and memorized it. If nothing unexpected happened, it would have been difficult for Fang Yun to pass the examination to become a student.
Fang Yun learned a lot on Earth, but he didn't learn these at all.
Fang Yun was thinking about his worries, hoping that those extra memories could help him, and then he put the pen, ink, paper, inkstone and other things on the table.
Everything else was standard except for the two paperweights used to weigh paper, which were rather crude. Other people's paperweights were made of specially carved jade, metal, or exotic wood, but his paperweight was just a stone that Yang Yuhuan picked up from the river, which she then slowly polished into a green stone tool that was two fingers wide and as long as a chopstick.
Fang Yun felt embarrassed and ashamed every time he used a paperweight, but he really liked this simple paperweight because it was a gift from Yang Yuhuan.
Fang Yun spread out the first test paper, pressed down the top of the page with a paperweight, glanced at the first question, then poured water into the inkstone and slowly ground the long ink stick in his hand.
Fang Yun was thinking while grinding ink, but he had no idea about the first question.
"Where was Confucius in the 27th year of King Zhao? How would I know? This is the first question, and it should be the easiest based on my experience in my previous life." Fang Yun complained in his heart, but he couldn't figure it out no matter how hard he tried.
After the ink was ground, Fang Yun selected a small calligraphy goat-hair brush, dipped it in thick ink, put the brush back, and placed a piece of wool felt under the test paper. With the wool felt absorbing the ink, the ink would not seep down and affect the surface of the paper.
Fang Yun picked up the pen and glanced at the first question unwillingly. He was sure that he didn't know the answer. When he was about to look at the second question, the cover of an ancient book suddenly appeared in his mind.
"Records of the Grand Historian".
Afterwards, the "Records of the Grand Historian" automatically turned to "The Family of Confucius Chapter 17". Fang Yun was overjoyed, but the whole page suddenly became blurred.
Fang Yun's heart skipped a beat, feeling that something was going to happen. Suddenly, some memory fragments appeared in his mind and flew into "Records of the Grand Historian". He saw that "The Genealogy of Confucius, Chapter 17" quickly changed into "The Biography of Confucius, Chapter 5". The content of The Biography of Confucius was much more than that of The Genealogy of Confucius.
Fang Yun was stunned, but he quickly figured it out.
"Records of the Grand Historian" contains twelve basic annals, eight books, ten tables, thirty family histories and seventy biographies, each with different contents.
Among them, "Benji" is ranked first, which is the outline of the whole book, recording the most important emperors and dynasties, such as Benji of Xia and Benji of Qin.
The "Shijia" records the deeds of kings and princes and particularly important figures, and its status is second only to the "Benji".
In the "Records of the Grand Historian" on Earth, Confucius is only listed among the aristocratic families.
However, the Confucius of Shengyuan Continent is not the Confucius of Earth. His status and actual role exceed those of any emperor in the "Benji". Therefore, there is no "Family of Confucius" in the "Records of the Grand Historian" here, only "Benji of Confucius", which is ranked between "Benji of Zhou" and "Benji of Qin" in chronological order.
In the Shengyuan Continent, Sima Qian, the author of "Records of the Grand Historian", is a semi-saint and is named "Saint of History". He is a representative figure of historians and the words written in his book are considered to be the words of a saint.
The text of the fifth chapter of the Biography of Confucius became clear, with densely packed black text on it. In the blink of an eye, part of the text turned from black to gold.
After reading these golden words, Fang Yun breathed a sigh of relief. The golden words were sentences related to the topic.
Fang Yun read it carefully again and thought that the person who set the questions was really tricky. There was a small trap in the first question. The question asked where Confucius was that year. In fact, Confucius returned to Lu from Qi that year and was not in the same place.
This is not the end. One book after another emerged in Fang Yun's mind. The first one was "Zuo Zhuan". Turning to the 27th year of King Zhao, it was written in golden font that a man from Wu named Ji Li was sent as an envoy to Jin.
The second book is "Book of Rites". When I turned to "Tan Gong Xia", it was written that when Ji Li was in Qi, his eldest son died and was buried in Yingbo, Wu, and Confucius attended the funeral. But this book of "Book of Rites" did not mention the time of the funeral.
Fang Yun was dizzy. Since these two books popped up one after another, they must be related to this question. However, it was impossible to determine from the surface whether the funeral took place in the 27th year of King Zhao, nor was it possible to determine whether Confucius went to the State of Wu that year.
Just when Fang Yun was hesitating, various books such as "Xiangdang Tukao", "Zhusi Kaoxinlu", "Confucius's Return from Qi to Lu", and "Confucius Family Sayings" appeared one by one, with golden fonts appearing.
Fang Yun read these books carefully. The golden characters on them proved that this man named Ji Li went on a diplomatic mission to the State of Jin and returned later. His eldest son died when he passed through the State of Qi on his way back. In this way, the time of his eldest son's death was determined.
Since Confucius attended this funeral, it means that in the 27th year of Duke Zhao, he was not only in Qi and Lu, but also went to Wu.
Even with various books for reference, Fang Yun was almost confused. He initially felt that this question had no practical significance. But when he thought about it carefully, this question was a comprehensive liberal arts question, including history, geography and other classics. Not to mention ordinary people, even extremely talented people would find it difficult to answer it correctly.
Fang Yun picked up his pen and wrote down the contents of the golden words.
"Lu was in chaos, and Confucius went to Qi. In the 27th year of King Zhao, the officials of Qi wanted to kill Confucius, so Confucius left and returned to Lu. Yanling Jizi went to Qi, and his eldest son died and was buried between Yingbo and Bo. Confucius said: Yanling Jizi is a person in Wu who is familiar with etiquette. Go and see his burial."
Qi, Lu and Wu have it.
After answering the first question, Fang Yun looked at the handwriting that was not particularly neat and wiped the sweat from his forehead.
"This Tongsheng exam is too difficult!"
After Fang Yun finished complaining in his mind, he found that the books in his mind had disappeared, and he couldn't help but guess the origins of these books.
"I vaguely remember that when the library caught fire and I jumped off the building, the dragon-shaped jade pendant I was wearing broke, and then I couldn't remember anything. These books couldn't have entered my mind out of thin air, they must have been from the Dongjiang Library. My mother said that this jade pendant was left by my father and that I had to wear it, saying that it would protect me. Could it be that my rebirth was really due to the jade pendant?"
Fang Yun thought for a moment, then immediately collected his thoughts and answered the second question carefully.
The second question asked when King Xuan of Qi said the sentence "I am very ashamed of Mencius". This time a book appeared immediately, and Fang Yun quickly wrote down: The third year of King Nan of Zhou.
Fang Yong used his pen to answer several questions in succession. He found that except for the first question, the questions were not difficult, so he felt relieved.
Fang Yun adjusted his mood, slowed down, and began to write slowly, stroke by stroke. He knew that there would be "paper score" at this time. If the handwriting was too bad, he would be downgraded even if the answer was correct.
The calligraphy of both Fang Yuns is not very good, but it is too late to practice calligraphy now, so they can only pass the Tongsheng exam first.
When answering the fourteenth question, Fang Yun looked at the test paper and did not start writing immediately. The thing he was most worried about happened!
After all, this is the Shengyuan Continent, not the Earth.
In addition to the saints with the same name as the Earth, there are also semi-saints who have never appeared in ancient China. It is impossible for the Dongjiang Library to have the works of these people.
There is an unwritten rule for the Tongsheng Examination and the Xiucai Examination.
The examination for the scholar involves a lot of test papers on the words of the saints, which can ensure that the works of every saint are tested, but the examination for the student is different.
Although there are thirty test papers for the Tongsheng examination, the calligraphy is relatively large and the actual content is less than expected. Only a limited number of questions can be tested, and many saints can be listed.
Confucius and the six sub-sages have an exclusive status and account for at least half of the test questions. The works of several semi-sages who led the Hundred Schools of Thought are also required to be tested. Otherwise, it would not be possible to reflect the Hundred Schools of Thought returning to Confucianism, which is called "united front" or "political correctness" in the words of Earth.
The works of several semi-saints with extremely high historical status must also be studied, such as Dong Zhongshu's Great Unification, Zhuge Liang's Devotion to the Country, Tao Yuanming's Poetry, etc.
This leaves very little space left, and the remaining semi-saints simply cannot be divided.
Thus, a rule was formed that the sacred words for the Tongsheng examination were divided into three parts.
The first part is about famous saints that are tested every year.
The second part is the famous essays of this year's three examiners.
The third part is to select three to five works from the remaining semi-saints every year and examine them in turn.
Fang Yun was lucky, because except for the three semi-saint examiners, all the works of the saints tested in this year's Tongsheng examination had appeared on Earth and were collected by the Dongjiang Library.
Before the Tongsheng exam, once the name of the semi-saint examiner is confirmed, candidates from all over the country will spend a lot of time memorizing the examiner's famous works.
The questions for other saints were either difficult or easy, but the questions for the semi-saint examiner were exceptionally easy.
Because the living semi-saints are all new saints, their foundations are unstable and they are in urgent need of literary fame. They must want the world to know about their masterpieces.
"In the words of my past life, this is a free question. Scholars and students are grateful, and the new sage's literary reputation can be spread. It's the best of both worlds."
Fang Yun thought about it carefully and felt relieved, because he started reciting the famous works of the three semi-saint examiners last month.
Question 14 was very simple. It was about the time and place of canonization of a semi-saint named Mi Fengdian. Although Fang Yun couldn't remember it at the moment, he felt that he must remember it.
The fact that Mi Fengdian was one of the three semi-saint examiners of this Tongsheng examination had spread throughout the world before the examination began.
Fang Yun thought for a moment, then picked up his pen and wrote: Autumn of the one hundred and forty-fifth year of the new calendar, Shu Kingdom, Shu capital.
After Fang Yun finished answering, he suddenly found a blue-gray blank ancient book emerging in his mind, and then a small piece of memory fragment flew into it.
The blank ancient book immediately turned into "Fengdian Five Classics Commentary" (Volume 1), written by Mi Fengdian, a semi-saint who was canonized for the fifty-sixth year.
Then, new blank ancient books appeared one after another, extracting Fang Yun's memory fragments to form Mi Fengdian's collections of essays and poems. There were five books in total, none of which were complete, either only one volume or incomplete.
Fang Yun showed a look of delight, he didn't expect it to turn out like this.
"I don't know what it is, but since there are so many books and it can absorb new books, let's call it 'Strange Books World'."
The next question was also about the semi-saint of Shu Kingdom, Zhuge Liang, but he had passed away by then.
Zhuge Liang's experiences in different worlds are different. Fang Yun spent some time thinking to avoid giving wrong answers.
The name of the country founded by Liu Bei was "Han", and he regarded himself as the orthodox Han Dynasty. There had never been a Shu Kingdom, but other people did not recognize it and only called it Shu Kingdom, which had a contemptuous meaning and was continued by later generations.
In Shengyuan Continent, Liu Bei also founded the country called "Han", aiming to inherit the Han Dynasty and unify Shengyuan Continent. However, he was opposed by the Eastern Wu and Wei Kingdoms. Finally, he had to change the country's name to "Shu". Finally, it relied on the semi-saint Zhuge Liang to maintain it until now, it has become one of the Ten Kingdoms.
Now that Fang Yun has the strange book "World", he has a better understanding of Zhuge Liang on Earth.