"Should I just give up the exam?"
Under the Zhuque Gate, Xi Yangyu, who was wearing a wide-sleeved robe, raised his eyebrows in slight surprise.
At this moment, Chen Danqiu had finished reading the obscure, long and boring pre-exam declaration, and the candidates began to enter the venue one after another.
Pei Jing, Yong Hongzhong, Qiu Jinghuan...
Those students who had the impression in their minds stepped into the Suzaku Gate one by one. The team at the rear is getting smaller and smaller, and the face from Zhenzhou has not been seen for a long time.
Not coming, that’s okay.
The corners of Xi Yangyu's mouth raised slightly and he smiled faintly.
————
What a coincidence.
Pei Jing looked at the list of examination rooms posted on the wooden signs in the courtyard and raised her eyebrows in surprise.
He Fanshuang, Li Ang, Pei Jing, Qiu Jinghuan...
They are all familiar names.
only...
"The boy really didn't come?"
Qiu Jinghuan in the team looked back and forth, smacked his lips and said, "What's going on?"
"It can't be that you've given up on yourself, right?"
An aristocratic young man whispered: "Didn't Xi Siye say it seven days ago? His spiritual pulse hexagram is destined to be unable to practice, and forcing spiritual energy into his body will only kill himself.
Just don't come, it will save you the embarrassment of being carried out later. "
"That's true. After all, he ranked second in the first test and first in the retest. Even if he doesn't have spiritual talent and doesn't come to the final test, there will still be wealthy families vying to recruit him as their son-in-law."
"Hehe, that's really enviable to others. Maybe he will already be a father before our group of students graduates..."
The aristocratic young men who knew each other were whispering and joking,
Pei Jing did not join their discussion and turned to look at the corner of the team.
He Fanshuang frowned slightly, looking at the empty queue area on Zhuque Street in the distance, silent.
It's not like he's happy because Li Ang didn't come, but like... he's unhappy because he lost his opponent.
"You can enter the examination room."
An academy instructor opened the door and nodded to the candidates outside.
Finally, it begins.
Pei Jing took a deep breath, and the other students also ended their quiet conversations, stepped into the examination room with nervous faces.
The examination room was still the same as before, with tables placed one after another, with a certain distance between tables.
But what was placed on the table was not paper examination papers, but... square wooden boxes composed of several concave and convex wooden pillars.
The wooden box was unremarkable, with a wooden sword hilt on top.
"Luban lock?"
The candidates who entered the examination room were shocked.
Feng Danyun, the academy instructor on the stage, nodded lightly and said in a deep voice to the candidates: "The content of the final exam in the Academy is to open the wooden box and pull out the wooden sword on the top of the wooden box.
The time limit is six hours. "
————
at the same moment,
Southwest of Chang'an, Xia Mountain, Xuegong, an underground secret room somewhere.
Under the dim light of the oil lamp, Tantai Leshan's palms trembled as he wrote the last line of text on a book densely filled with experimental records.
"...the seventy-ninth experiment, the result is that malaria is indeed caused by mosquito bites."
Lying on the ground in front of Tantai Leshan was an ordinary corpse of a middle-aged man.
The corpse was dressed in brown clothes. He was neither tall nor short, neither fat nor thin. He had no sense of existence when he was thrown into the crowd. The only thing worth mentioning was the state of his death.
His body was covered in cold sweat, and there was a sword mark on his heart.
The sword mark that passed through the heart was so clean that not much blood flowed out at all.
Even the blood flowing on the ground was flowing back to the heart of the man's corpse bit by bit as time passed.
"Hoho——"
At the moment when all the blood flowed back and the sword marks on his heart healed inexplicably, the man suddenly opened his eyes and took a quick breath.
He leaned against the wall, shook his head, patted his forehead, and said to Tantai Leshan tiredly and lazily: "So, have you found out?"
Tantai Leshan took a deep breath and said to the man in a deep voice: "It was found out. Your symptoms before death were definitely malaria."
"Wow,"
The middle-aged man with the code name [Devil-One-Ninety-Eight] smacked his lips, not surprised at all that he had come back from the dead, "Then what are you going to do now?"
"Go to Dongjun Tower and use [Gui--1--17] to guess and preview whether malaria can be eradicated this fall if water canals are repaired in Chang'an City and mosquitoes are killed."
Tantai Leshan stood up and said in a deep voice: "I will inform the mountain chief and His Majesty of the results."
————
"Sacrifice wine,"
Under the Zhuque sect, Xi Yangyu said to Chen Danqiu: "It's almost time to close the door."
Chen Danqiu, who was offering wine in the academy, looked up at the sky, nodded, and raised his hand to ask the Jinwu guards on both sides to close the city gate.
Seeing the heavy and solid Suzaku Gate slowly closing,
The parents of the candidates who lived in Guanglufang and Xingdaofang turned back to their houses and put their palms together to pray for the memorial tablets of their ancestors.
Some of the other parents of candidates lit incense sticks, some turned prayer beads, and some knelt down to pray to Haotian.
"Let's go in and wait."
Having seen this scene many times, Xi Yangyu flicked his sleeves and walked towards the imperial city with Chen Danqiu and others.
Tap tap tap tap!
The clear sound of horse hooves comes from far and near, and a young man is riding a horse.
"Leon!"
Chai Cuiqiao, who was standing by the pavilion window, subconsciously called out Li Ang's full name, not Young Master or Da Lang.
Li Ang raised his arm, waved to Chai Cuiqiao and Li Leling at the pavilion window, turned over and dismounted,
He gave the packhorse, which he spent a lot of money to borrow from villagers who went to Chang'an to sell vegetables, and the medicine box to the excited Taozhou classmate on the street.
'Fortunately, we arrived. '
Li Ang adjusted the clothes he bought from a roadside vendor that didn't fit him (the original clothes had been cut to pieces by ink-colored silk threads).
He strode forward and handed the examination certificate to the Jinwu Guards soldier.
Then he walked into the gate and came to Chen Danqiu and others in front of everyone. He bowed his hands and said respectfully: "Disciple Li Ang, come here to take the final exam of the academy."
"you are late."
Xi Yangyu glanced at him and said calmly: "The final exam of the Academy is so serious, how can it be a joke. Now the Suzaku Gate has been closed, no matter what reason you have, come back next year."
"Wait a moment,"
Before Li Ang could speak, Chao Wenyuan, with his eyes twinkling, said to Chen Danqiu first: "Chen Jijiu, the official time of the final exam is the Chenzheng moment.
Chen Zheng's Haotian bell has not yet sounded. In theory, this student still has the opportunity to enter the examination room and participate in the final examination. "
"Is that necessary?"
Xi Yangyu squinted his eyes and glanced at Chao Wenyuan. The meaning was obvious - Li Ang was born with incomplete spiritual veins and would not be able to pass the final exam even if he took it.
Chao Wenyuan looked directly into Xi Yangyu's eyes and said solemnly: "Rules are rules."
"..."
Chen Danqiu looked serious, paused, and nodded slowly.
"call."
Li Ang gratefully bowed his hands to Chen Danqiu, Chao Wenyuan and others, stepped into the reopened Suzaku Gate, and walked towards the examination room.
Walking briskly.
