Chapter 98 Three people in the college examination (Part 2)

The heavy rain was still rushing, and the dense raindrops hit the roof of the exam room and made a crackling sound. However, the storm was isolated from Li Ling's exam room, and he could not be distracted at all. Before noon, he had finished all the three official documents and began to focus on the two most important questions.

He had already figured out the five classics questions after reading them once. He picked out the composition of the "Spring and Autumn Annals" that he was most proficient in. When he looked at the four-book questions with obvious longer questions, Li Ling was a little stunned. After a moment, the corners of his mouth slightly raised and he whispered: "Do you want to cut the question? This time the examiner really has ideas and is brave enough."

Although he has only been studying for about half a year, his knowledge has exceeded many old scholars who have been working hard for ten years. After all, Li Ling has been taught by the imperial examination master during this period. The former Tanhua Wei Liang was carefully taught. In addition to teaching him how to write better articles, Wei Liang also taught him many anecdotes in the imperial examination, including interrogative questions.

The imperial examinations surrendered from the Sui and Tang Dynasties and experienced the development of the Song and Yue dynasties. The examination formats became increasingly systematic and formal, but for the court, it became increasingly difficult to set questions with one exam after another.

Over the past few hundred years, there have been thousands of exams of all sizes, but the scope of the questions is always just a few classics. Even if more new insights appear, they are far from meeting the needs of the exam. In the past ten years, many examiners have been surprised to find that they really cannot come up with novel questions. Every sentence in the Four Books and Five Classics has been used by predecessors.

At this point, some people thought of change. So in a local exam, some officials suddenly had a whim and pieced together two completely irrelevant words. This was the interrogation of the question, which stumped many candidates on the spot, causing a lot of chaos and heard about it from the court's Ministry of Rites.

The court actually did not recommend the practice of self-organized questions in such a way, but it did not explicitly issue a document that local examiners were not allowed to issue interrogation questions. However, important exams such as provincial examinations will never be used, because this is really not up to date.

As far as Li Ling knew, at least the two Huaihe River areas had never seen such interrogation questions appear in important examination rooms such as the college entrance examination for many years. I didn’t expect that they would be used today, but I wondered if this main examination was not related to the academic and political affairs of the province, but instead let go of it.

While turning on strange thoughts, Li Ling's mind did not stop at all and quickly analyzed and understood the true meaning of the three strange questions in front of him. This question is tricky, but in fact, the same is true for the general questions. It is necessary to analyze the saint's subtle meaning from the question, and then use this as an argument for explanation. However, it not only tests your familiarity with the meaning of the scriptures, but also lies in logical thinking ability.

As a time traveler, Li Ling's logical thinking is naturally far greater than that of other candidates. After thinking for a while, he already had a clue. He immediately chose the second question "Zi said to Yan Yuan, "If you use it, you will do it, and if you give it, you will hide it. Only I and you have the same meaning." Although these sentences are from "The Analects of Confucius. Shuer", they come from two paragraphs respectively. After understanding the meaning of it, he decisively started writing and wrote the first sentence of the article:

"The sage should be able to hide it, and wait for the capable to show it in detail." He then thoroughly analyzed the hidden meanings in the above sentences and also set the central idea for this article. As this sentence was written, Li Ling felt that everything had come naturally, and wrote quickly, and wrote down the subsequent opinions and explanations in a steady stream. In just one hour, a good time article had been written.

It was not until the article was written that Li Ling read it carefully again and confirmed that he had a slight breath of turbid air and a confident smile appeared on his face again. This was similar to the last question that happened to be a strange question when he was studying, but he was solved in a clever way by himself, because in his opinion, many other candidates would be stumped by these three interrogations, so the probability of being taken is naturally higher.

After finishing the most difficult four-book title, it became extremely easy to read the Five Classics titles. Without thinking too much, Li Ling devoted himself to writing a new article. With all his heart, he even ignored the sound of rain around him and stopped unknowingly. After half a day and a night of rain, it finally stopped in the afternoon.

At this time, in another exam room, Xu Cang had read three articles he wrote again, and after confirming that it was correct, he put down his writing. A happy smile was on his face, and then a few doubts appeared in his eyes: "Today's exam is much smoother than before. Even such strange questions were quickly solved by me, and the five articles were written without any hindrance..."

You should know that in the past, he would end up in a panic for various reasons almost every time. There was even an article last year that he had not had time to finish it. He had never been as calm and comfortable as today. He finished the article early and could submit the paper in advance.

"This is what Li Xiandi told me that as long as you keep a calm mind, can you write an essay calmly?" Xu Cang looked at the article in his hand thoughtfully. These five articles were much better than the articles he wrote in previous exams. He even felt unprecedented. He would definitely pass the scholar this time!

"Do I really have to end my hardships? With the help and teaching of Li Xiandi, I finally no longer fear the imperial examination..." His eyes shined. After a while, he exhaled a long breath of turbid air, picked up the article, got up and lifted the curtain, turned around and took his own examination basket, and then went out.

This was the first time he had submitted his paper early in his six or seven years of imperial examination career.

Just as Xu Cang walked out of the examination room with confidence, Li Ling on the other side also brought the examination basket and walked out, yelling at the military guarding the side: "This military master, the student is going to hand in the paper."

"So fast?" The soldier was listless and didn't know what he was doing. When he heard this greeting, he was shocked. Then he stepped forward to take the paper tube installed in Li Ling, and looked at the surrounding exam rooms. However, he could see through the gap that the candidates inside were still writing hard.

Li Ling bowed to him again, and then strode along the aisle. He naturally could not stay in the examination room anymore. The soldiers behind him were stunned for a moment, but they still held the paper tube and walked quickly to the examiners' hall behind, and met another comrade in front of the door who also came over with the test paper: "Do you have handed in advance?"

"Yes, what a coincidence." After answering, the man respectfully said to the official inside: "Sir, the candidate No. 13, Hongzi has already handed in the paper."

"Sir, and the candidate No. 19 of Yuzi have also handed in the paper." "Please come in." The examiner's voice came from inside. The two of them entered the door, but found that the atmosphere in the classroom was a little wrong. The examiner and the three deputy examiners' faces were a little gloomy, as if they had just had a quarrel.

The two of them dared not ask about the adults' affairs. They put the things away and quickly retreated. It was not until they went far away that the examiner hummed, "Didn't you just say that the interrogation questions I gave would inevitably make it difficult for candidates to get started? Now, some people can hand in the paper one and a half hours earlier."

"Hmph, such a crooked way shouldn't have appeared in the college examination. Lord Shi, you've done too much!"

"Yes, I'm going to tell me that these two test papers should have been submitted so much earlier by the candidates who gave up this college examination. Lord Shi, because of your whim, the two candidates have to waste another year in vain. How can you feel at ease?"

"Mr. Zheng, I haven't even opened the paper and said such words, but I don't look like you." The chief examiner, Lord Shi, looked even more gloomy, but he refused to give in. He took one of the test papers and didn't read the others, so he first read the questions of the four books.

The Lord Zheng also snorted, stepped forward to pick up another paper, and picked up the title of the Four Books and started reading. After seeing this, the faces of both of them changed, but the remaining two were even more curious: "How?"

"Okay! Who said that you can't write a good article by writing a screen? This article is extremely exquisite and the explanation is even more reasonable. Come and take a look!" Lord Shi couldn't help but slapped the case hard and said with a smile: "I can see this person's writing skills and literary talent, and I can be regarded as the leader of this examination! What's even more rare is that he can actually write such a good article in a short time, which is really terrifying for the younger generation."

"Master Shi, is it an exaggeration?" The other two immediately stepped forward, took the test paper from him with some disdain and swept it down with a glance. Then, the rebuttal words that had been supposed to be stopped.

Lord Zheng was also stunned. After a while, he sighed: "Although this article is a little lacking, it also makes sense. I didn't expect that the candidates have really eaten the meaning of the scriptures so thoroughly?"

"So I said it's nothing to do with the screenshots. It's better to use questions that others have used earlier than to take the school scholars."

"No, this matter cannot be decided hastily because of two accidents. It depends on the results of this college examination, and what is the idea of ​​the academician..." Although they are still opposing, their position is no longer as firm as before...

While several examiners were still arguing about the interrogation of the question, outside the examination room, Li Ling had already met Xu Cang. Then both of them looked at each other in surprise and said in unison: "Why are you coming out so soon?"

Then he looked at each other and laughed at each other, and Li Ling even said, "Since you have finished the exam, staying there is just a pain, so naturally you will come out earlier. Let's go, it seems that you performed well today. Let's go back and celebrate it well."

"Okay!" As he said that, Xu Cang suddenly bent down and bowed deeply, "Brother Li Xian, thank you for waking me up twice and taking a blow to me! No matter whether Xu Cang can pass the scholarship this time, I will never forget your affection!"
Chapter completed!