February 15th.
clear.
It is advisable to take the exam.
Wei Ruyi knew about Wei Chen's county exam. A few days before the exam, she made a special trip to consult an old scholar who lived in the alley. Based on the experience of the old scholar, she prepared a test basket for Wei Chen in advance.
For example, there are roll bags for papers, bamboo boxes to hold the four treasures of the study room, small items such as armrests, paperweights, copper character grids, and a small bench that can be folded in half to facilitate sitting and waiting outside the examination room.
The night before the exam, except for Wei Chen who slept peacefully, the three members of the Zhang family stayed awake all night.
Wei Ruyi got up in the middle of the night and steamed steamed cakes and cakes, along with steamed sausages and prunes cut into small pieces, and put them in a food box.
Zhang Xu stopped staying in bed and climbed out of bed when he heard the sound of bangs. He went upstairs to shake Wei Chen awake and urged him to get up and wash up quickly.
Zhang Ming spent a lot of money to hire a bullock cart and personally drove Wei Chen to the county school to ensure that Wei Chen could enter before the fifth shift.
After Wei Chen washed up and had breakfast, he carried the examination basket and boarded Zhang Ming's bullock cart.
The car bumped all the way, turned around the alley, and headed towards the county school.
Wei Chen opened the car curtain and saw that there were already cars and horses on the street. Each car had a lantern in front of it. The orange-red lights were dotted on the street, winding like a long dragon.
When we arrived at the county school, many people were already gathered in the square at the entrance.
Wei Chen jumped off the bullock cart and looked around. There was a bustle in front of the examination booth. They were all candidates taking the exam. The majority were teenagers aged fourteen or fifteen, and there were also children as childish as Wei Chen.
Wei Chen even saw an old man with gray hair on his temples standing tremblingly in the cold wind waiting, and he couldn't help but feel sad in his heart.
At the gate of the county school, four officials were lined up on both sides like door gods, with scrutiny and indifference in their eyes.
For them, county examinations are already commonplace. There is a county examination every year, and nearly a hundred students will be on the list every time. There is really nothing to make a fuss about.
There are not many three-legged toads in Youyang County, but there are two-legged scholars everywhere.
Notwithstanding the nearly a thousand students now who are all very ambitious and high-spirited, how many of them can pass three county examinations in a row and obtain the title of scholar?
As for the promotion of people and Jinshi?
Not to mention that.
These officials, who were accustomed to seeing big scenes, scanned the huge crowd without any fluctuation in their eyes, and had no intention of letting them enter the examination room in advance.
Wei Chen groped around in the square for a while and finally found Sheng Changbai and Chen Jun who had come here early to wait.
Seeing that both of them had serious expressions, Wei Chen was also quite emotional. He met with the two of them and said with a faint smile: "Brother Sheng, Brother Chen, you are really early."
Chen Jun smiled bitterly and said: "I've been preparing for this for so long, it's just for this one show. If I wait for the show earlier, I will feel more confident."
He is the least educated among the three. If he fails to pass the county examination, everything will be lost.
Wei Chen patted him on the shoulder and said, "Brother Chen, don't be too nervous. You have a solid foundation and it should be no problem to cope with the county examination."
Sheng Changbai nodded and said: "My dear brother, I am still open-minded. The imperial examination is a major event in life, but my dear brother can take it so lightly. Why worry about not being able to write a good article before the exam?"
In fact, Sheng Changbai didn't feel relaxed either. He came from a scholarly family, and his parents, relatives and friends had high hopes for him. If he couldn't even pass the county examination, it would be a disgrace to the family if word spread.
Now that the county examination is coming, he is no less nervous than Chen Jun, but he doesn't have the emotions written on his face like Chen Jun.
Therefore, when he saw Wei Chen being so calm and calm when facing the county examination, he admired him from the bottom of his heart.
Wei Chen looked at the dark examination room not far away, his eyes far away, and he smiled casually and said: "Brother, you are so complimentary. I just don't want to mess up my position."
The candidates waited for more than half an hour before the gatekeeper opened the gate of the county school.
The four officials looked fierce and shouted as they inspected the test baskets carried by the candidates. Chen Jun was even ordered to take off his outer robe for the officials to inspect.
Chen Jun obeyed the order and took off his coat, letting the official's dog paws touch him randomly, trembling with anger.
"It's an insult to politeness! It's an insult to politeness!"
Zaoli pretended not to hear Chen Jun's muttering, with a dull and indifferent expression on his face, as if someone owed him money, and continued to move his hands.
When it was their turn to inspect Wei Chen and Sheng Changbai, the officials only symbolically checked the bamboo basket and then let them go.
The officials had long remembered the appearance of Wei Chen, a few students who were favored by the county magistrates, so they would not ask for trouble.
Wei Chen successfully entered the county school. He looked around and saw that the temporary examination shed in the yard was made of bricks and stones and had a thick thatch roof. He was relieved.
At least shelter from the wind and rain is no problem.
Wei Chen secretly felt lucky that he was born in the richest country in the south of the Yangtze River. It would have been so miserable for those remote counties.
I heard that there were not even the basic desks and chairs, and the candidates had to carry benches across the mountains and ridges to take the exams in the county. Sometimes they would find a door panel or a stack of two bricks to use as an exam table. The bitterness of this was really hard to describe.
After all the candidates passed the inspection, Feng Zhixian, the chief examiner of the county examination, made a grand appearance.
I saw Feng Zhixian wearing the Erliang Dynasty crown, Qingyuan red robe, a silver leather belt around the waist, a glazed jade pendant hanging on the belt, a hood covering the knees, and black-faced and white-soled official boots, standing quite majestically. On the stone steps.
The whole place was silent for a while, everyone was eagerly waiting to welcome the county magistrate to deliver an important speech before the exam.
Um..., the content of the speech was, of course, basically nonsense. It was nothing more than preaching the way of a saint, then praising the emperor who was far away in the capital, and then announcing the rules of the examination room and so on.
Wei Chen felt drowsy after listening to it, and only remembered the most useful exam time and venue in his mind.
After the county magistrate finished speaking, the clerks in the fifth room began to roll the name. Whoever was called came forward to identify themselves, and then handed out a test paper. The location of the test room and the seat were written on the seal of the paper.
As the person favored by the county magistrate, Wei Chen naturally did not have to wait too long. After about seven or eight candidates entered, it was his turn.
The clerk in charge of distributing the papers smiled kindly at Wei Chen and gave him a test paper: "Go in and take the test."
What Wei Chen was assigned was "Xuan Er Gui You". Gui You ranked tenth in the sixty-digit system based on the heavenly stems and earthly branches. Er Gui You was sixty plus ten, which was the exam room No. 70 of Xuan Zi.
Wei Chen took the exam basket to find his exam room, and found that it was close to the side hall of the county school. There was a corner door through which the breeze would occasionally blow.
"This is a nice place. If you encounter difficulties in solving the problem, there will be a breeze blowing to help your mood."
Wei Chen nodded with satisfaction, then walked into the examination room, looked around, and found that there was nothing but a removable desk and a small stool.
Wei Chen took out the items in the examination basket one by one, placed pens, inks, paper and inkstones on several desks, and then began to close his eyes and meditate.
There is still some time before the exam starts. Use this time to take a nap to help calm your mind.
This is the exam technique Lin Yan taught Wei Chen, but only candidates who enter the exam room early can use it.
For those candidates who came late, some of them didn't even sit down to warm up, and the test questions were handed out, so naturally they had to rush around and faint.
After waiting for about half a stick of incense, all the candidates finally entered the venue. The gate of the county school was closed, the sound of batting was loud in the hall, and the examination room was silent.
The first step that determines the fate of countless scholars, the county examination, has officially begun.
