"How is Lei Qingyin?" A Jingguo Hanlin bowed and spoke with thunderous words.
Veins appeared on Lei Yuanding's forehead. What annoyed him most was that the voice was too feminine.
"If you dare to fight me with words, come here. If you don't dare to fight me with words, get out of here. You are a disgrace to the Hanlin Academy for only being good at talking!"
"Only dogs can bark, but people are not allowed to open their mouths?" The Hanlin scholar smiled. Fang Yun took a look and found that he was Gong Yilan who worked in the cabinet. The cabinet Yilan was a second-rank official, higher than the vice minister and lower than the minister. He was responsible for handling various matters of the cabinet and was considered the chief steward of the cabinet. It would be difficult for someone with a bad temper to hold this position.
This person was promoted by Zuo Xiang, but at this moment he stood up and took the initiative to help even though he knew Fang Yun was going to die, which made many people admire him.
Lei Yuanding raised his chin towards the Holy Temple and asked, "Have you ever been to the Sea of Learning?"
The whole place was silent, and Gong Yilan's smile froze on his face.
Gong Yilan was a fellow Jinshi. To put it bluntly, some people who were originally not ranked were admitted because Jingguo or the human race had a need.
Regular Jinshi are divided into three grades according to their scores, which are called Kejia. Those who are Kejia are eligible to enter Xuehai from the Holy Temple. However, Tong Jinshi in Shengyuan Continent is not among the three grades, but is a Jinshi outside the Jia. Not only can they not enter Xuehai, but unless they can become a great scholar, their identity will always be a stain, and they can't hold their heads up in front of people who are Kejia.
Lei Yuanding humiliated "people outside the A class" in front of tens of thousands of people, and also included many people who were also Jinshi graduates.
Fang Yun smiled and said with thunder: "Even the highest person in the holy temple has never been to the ocean of learning." In other words, Confucius was not from a scholarly background. After all, the imperial examination came into being after Confucius was canonized.
This time it was Lei Yuanding's turn to freeze up and be speechless. If he dared to continue, it would be tantamount to humiliating Confucius. Even if he was a hundred times more arrogant, he would not dare to refute. Once someone found a loophole, his reputation would be ruined.
The fellow Jinshi present secretly breathed a sigh of relief and looked at Fang Yun with gratitude.
"I've seen you, Fang Yun, who indirectly killed my Lei Jiu!" Lei Yuanding narrowed his eyes and looked at Fang Yun. Suddenly, wind blew around him, and traces of sharp aura shot in all directions. But the next moment, the power of the Holy Temple descended and sealed all his power.
"I just couldn't save him in time." Fang Yun said calmly.
"If you hadn't snatched his dragon energy, he might have escaped!" Lei Yuanding's voice became even sharper.
"Not to mention that I didn't take the initiative to steal the dragon energy. I just want to ask you. Is Denglongtai a dangerous place or a school for children? It is a place where everyone competes for dragon energy based on their own abilities, not a place to play house in open-crotch pants! Lei Jiu was poisoned to death by the evil king. Instead of going to the Meng family to find out the real culprit, you come here to look for irrelevant people. How disgraceful!" Fang Yun accused bluntly.
"The evil king was controlled by the evil spirit at that time, how could I find him!"
Fang Yun smiled calmly and said, "Do you dare to swear to Wen Dan?" After that, Fang Yun turned around and ignored Lei Yuanding.
Lei Yuanding stood there in shock. Even a fool would know that the evil king might not be completely controlled by the evil dragon. But this matter could not be said.
Many Jing people looked at Lei Yuanding with a smile.
"The examination has begun, all irrelevant people must step back!" Tang Shoude, the national examiner of the Holy Academy, waved his hand, and tremendous power emerged, slowly pushing the non-candidates and examiners back.
Lei Yuanding shouted, "Then I will wait outside the academy for three days to see you off!"
Everyone in Jing State was furious. This was cursing Fang Yun to death in front of the people of Jing State.
"Who gave you the courage to insult my Jingguo Jinshi!" Li Wenying waved his hand and patted Lei Yuanding who was hundreds of feet away.
A crisp sound spread throughout the holy temple, and Lei Yuanding's face swelled up.
Fang Yun was silent, thinking that Li Wenying was indeed not a person who spoiled his children. He became even more domineering after becoming a great scholar.
"You are a great scholar, but you..."
"Pa!" Li Wenying slapped Lei Yuanding again with his backhand, making the other side of his face swollen.
Lei Yuanding shut his mouth.
"If you are not convinced, I will tie my own hands and feet. I won't need to speak eloquently. I will suppress my talent and other aspects to the level of a Hanlin scholar, and I will only fight you a life-and-death literary battle with the sword of words." Li Wenying looked at Lei Yuanding coldly.
Lei Yuanding took a deep breath and was about to agree. He was a member of the Lei family, and his sword-making abilities far exceeded those of Li Wenying. Not only did Li Wenying have to suppress all his powers such as verbal sparring at the Hanlin level, he also didn't need to use his famous wind and rain sword poem. With his strength, his chances of winning were more than 60%!
However, Lei Yuanding finally let out a breath slowly.
Because he suddenly woke up, theoretically he had a 60% chance of winning, but Li Wenying was in front of him. Even if the opponent suppressed his strength, his actual chance of winning was less than 10%, and it could even be said that he would definitely lose.
"I will remember today's revenge in my heart!" After saying this, Lei Yuanding glared at Fang Yun, turned around and left quickly.
"I'm ready for revenge at any time." Li Wenying said calmly.
Afterwards, the examination officially began. The examiners and candidates first offered sacrifices to the saints. Then, a large number of wooden signs were seen spraying out from the sky above the holy temple like fountains, falling accurately on each person. Each person's examination room was marked on the wooden signs.
Like everyone else, Fang Yun bowed to the holy temple to express his gratitude, then held a wooden sign and looked for the examination room.
Unlike the previous three examinations for tongsheng, xiucai and juren, the moment Fang Yun was trying to find the examination room, he seemed to have gained omniscient vision. His sight suddenly passed through countless people and examination rooms and fell on his own examination room, as if he was suddenly sucked there.
Fang Yun blinked and found himself still standing in the same place, so he went to his examination room according to the route he had seen before.
There will be no need for a body search in this examination, because no one can hide from a semi-saint, and no one dares to hide.
Most people remained silent, with only the young candidates who were taking the imperial examination for the first time occasionally muttering something.
"The questions in the Jinshi exam have always been more difficult than those in other exams. They have been held for hundreds of years. The three semi-saint examiners must have gone to great lengths to embarrass us."
"I have already predicted many questions in the academy. Considering the situation of the human race, I can predict at least one of the essays. After all, it's the same questions over and over again."
Fang Yun nodded. The policy essay consists of ten questions. Unless someone gives an A grade before the exam, everyone has to choose three questions from the ten and answer them.
The ten questions cover ten categories including military, politics, medicine, industry, agriculture, etc. Almost every year someone will guess the questions and the questions can be used as the test paper with slight modifications.
“I hope there won’t be any off-the-beaten-path questions. I hope there won’t be any off-the-beaten-path questions…”
Fang Yun heard many scholars nearby muttering in low voices and smiled.
When he reached the examination room, Fang Yun looked up at the sky.
It was winter and the sun was cold, but under the power of the holy temple, everyone felt as if they were bathed in spring sunshine and were extremely comfortable.
Fang Yun glanced at the examination room. The furnishings inside were simple, with tables, chairs, pen washers and beds, but it was much larger than previous imperial examination rooms and looked more comfortable.
Fang Yun opened the bookcase and slowly took out the four treasures of the study and other items inside. Finally, his eyes fell on two green paperweights, and tenderness emerged in his eyes.
At that time, the family was poor and could not afford a good paperweight, so Yang Yuhuan went to the river to pick up two pieces of bluestone, grinded them into a paperweight as long as a chopstick, and used it to press the edge of the paper.
Fang Yun would bring this pair of paperweights with him every time he took the imperial examination.
After putting away the things that needed to be taken out of the bookcase, Fang Yun sat on a chair and closed his eyes to rest.
Except for the necessary examiners in the Holy Temple, all the great scholars and university scholars of Jing State unexpectedly rose to prominence and flew towards the old house of the Semi-Saint Chen family, even bringing Zhao Hongzhuang and the masked woman with them.
The masked woman held the imperial seal of the King of Jing in her hand.
Fang Yun abandoned his selfish thoughts and continued to close his eyes to rest, not even thinking about the holy scriptures. He just let his mind be blank.
Fang Yun smiled slightly. He was in a daze now. He often dazed when he was young, but since he came to Shengyuan Continent, he even forgot to daze.
A moment later, a voice roared in Fang Yun's heart.
"How can I be content until the demon race is destroyed?"
Fang Yun's expression changed several times in an instant, and finally he took a deep breath and returned to normal.
Not long after, a strange bell sounded, sometimes far away, sometimes near, and then, a solemn and majestic voice sounded in the ears of all the candidates.
“Qin!”
Fang Yun was stunned, and then he heard many people's exclamations coming from the nearby examination room, as well as the sound of messy tables and chairs. It was obvious that the question was beyond the predictions of the candidates, and then all the noise was suppressed by the power of the holy temple.
Fang Yun looked slightly bitter.
"It's actually a one-word question, using the word 'Qin' from the Qin Dynasty as the question, and asking us to write a poem, a classic, and three policy essays. It's really mind-blowing!"
Fang Yun immediately recalled the records about the "one-character question" in the imperial examination preparation books. The one-character question only appeared once every thirty or forty years, and every time it came out, it would make the examinees wail.
The imperial examination is to test students' knowledge, but students have to figure out the examiner's intention. The more words there are in the question, the more obvious the examiner's intention will be. But now there is only one word, so it is very difficult to figure out the examiner's intention.
"Qin" is not only the Qin Dynasty inherited and developed by Qin Shihuang, but also includes the Qin State.
Five hundred years before the establishment of the Qin Dynasty, King Ping of Zhou established a vassal state called "Qin", and the first vassal was Duke Xiang of Qin.
The first thing candidates have to consider is whether to write about the first dynasty of mankind founded by Qin Shihuang, or about the Qin State that lasted for more than 500 years. Whether to praise the Qin State or criticize the Qin State.
Poetry is simple, as long as it matches, but the meaning of the scriptures is difficult, because you have to find sentences or articles related to "Qin" in the classics of the saints, and then start solving the problem.
Generally speaking, the meanings of classics are selected from the Six Classics written by Confucius, namely "The Book of Songs", "The Book of History", "The Book of Rites", "The Book of Changes", "The Spring and Autumn Annals" and "The Book of Music". On the contrary, it is more cautious to choose a suitable topic from the vast ocean of books.
As for the policy essays, one has to choose three topics by oneself to elaborate on various aspects of Qin's military, politics, agriculture, industry, etiquette, etc. It seems that there is a lot of freedom, but it is more of a headache, because this kind of one-word topic can be answered in any way, but it is too difficult to write well.
A poem, a classic and three policy essays, this means "Qin" needs to be written from five different perspectives, but there must be no conflicts among them, if there are conflicts, the level will inevitably be downgraded.
Fang Yun looked up at the sky. For some reason, although the sky was clearly clear, Fang Yun felt that there were transparent dark clouds in the sky.
The dark cloud was pressing down on our heads, on Jing Country, and on the human race!
It weighed heavily on Fang Yun’s mind.
. (To be continued..)