History of Women in the Wei Dynasty

Chapter 180 Preparing for the Annual Exam

Various pigments were tossed and turned in his hands, and his wrist holding the brush moved nimbly between dipping in ink and outlining lines, causing the onlookers near the desk to tilt their heads left and right.

Hmm... Is this a painting style unique to Dunhuang Town?

I don't understand.

Hmm... the more I look at it, the less I understand.

The people began to whisper among themselves. "Isn't the painting depicting the three rows of students in the back?"

"That sounds right. Maybe we need to sketch out the street scene first? Perhaps it's some rare paint, so these circles might fade in a while."

"wrong!"

"wrong!"

The whispers grew even quieter.

"Did these dozen or so students take advantage of their power to force a sale? That's why the artist painted them looking like ladybugs and praying mantises?"

"I think we should leave; a fight is bound to break out soon."

"Let's go, let's hurry up. From a distance, this painting looks like three piles of sheep droppings. Let's not include us in it."

Qiu Ruizhi drew the outlines of the figures, then matched the colors of their clothes, trousers, and boots to each person correctly. After examining the overall picture, he was very satisfied.

It's time to add facial features!

He was very skilled at this step; he drew everyone's nose the same way, just two dots. The eyes were easy too, just two thick dots above the nose. The difficult part was the smiles. He called out to Wei Yao and the others, "Smile more joyfully!"

"Joyful?!" Yuan Heng's smile froze, and he swallowed several times, maintaining the fake smile that tugged at the corners of his mouth as he asked, "How much longer?"

Qiu Ruizhi: "Bear with it, it'll be over soon."

Wei Mao was in the second row, and from his position he could clearly see the layout of the painting. He became increasingly suspicious, quickly stepped out of the line, and asked, "Why are we painted so crowded together..."

He stared at the familiar painting style on the paper, turned around to look at his companions, and then looked back at the "Dunhuang painter" whose eyes were darting around.

"Qiu Ruizhi?"

“I think he looks like Qiu Ruizhi!” Yuan Zizhi recognized him too.

Erzhu Rong jumped to the desk and shouted to Wei Yao, "Senior Sister, come quick! Look, can you find which one is you?"

What kind of person is the ugliest? Someone who looks like an animal.

What kind of animal is the ugliest? One that looks like a human.

The painting combines the two ugliest types into one: the boys are all big and burly ladybugs, and the girls are all slender and narrow-waisted mantises. To make matters worse, the insect-like figures representing them all have their faces tilted back and their mouths agape, as if they are collectively rinsing their mouths.

Based on her position and the color of her dress, Wei Yao found herself, who resembled a praying mantis.

Yuan Langxi and Guo Yun both laughed until their stomachs hurt.

At this moment, Qiu Ruizhi's woolen hat and face towel were ripped off by his friend, and the fake hunchback cushion was also pulled out from his collar.

"Don't hit me, don't hit me, don't hit me!" he cried, covering his face. "Didn't we agree beforehand that it would be a free gift?"

Despite his initial disdain, Wei Mao was too slow to snatch the painting, and Xi Jiao managed to grab it first. That night, after reviewing her lessons, Xi Jiao opened the scroll and, following her memory, found herself, Zhou Tai, Yuan Zizhi, Yuan Heng, and also Wei Yao.

In fact, Ruizhi painted everyone's spirit and energy very vividly. If Wei Mao hadn't seen through the disguise, Xi Jiao thought that Qiu Ruizhi might have painted wings on every ladybug and mantis person.

Xi Jiao's fingers unconsciously touched Wei Yao.

What you think about at night, you dream about in your sleep.

That night, Xi Jiao dreamed again that he was sitting in a carriage traveling through a bustling city. The carriage swayed gently, and the double deer knot on his bracelet swayed along with it. Could dreams be a wondrous realm beyond the boundaries of Yin and Yang? In his dream, he recalled the details of his previous dream. The double deer knot in his last dream was bright red, but this time it was brownish-yellow.

Then he noticed that the patterns around the felt mat inside the carriage were all of two running deer, their fur imitating real deer. Xi Jiao looked out the window again and saw a sachet hanging at the front of the carriage, also embroidered with two brown deer.

Soon, he noticed that the light inside the car was changing very strangely, shifting between bright light, twilight, and darkness.

This carriage seems to carry him through the years.

Amidst the creaking of wheels, Xi Jiao awoke, the dream he had before waking long since vanished from his sleep. He quickly washed up and began reviewing his lessons. Although he wasn't qualified to take the annual exam, he had been selected to serve as an invigilator. Invigilators were responsible for maintaining order in the exam hall and assisting the examiners in the first round of grading, ensuring they could distinguish the merits of each answer.

October 20th.

The various primary schools opened, and new students enrolled. Wei Yao and her classmates became senior students. Wei Yao was the only student in the entire Wei School to participate in the annual examination on the Book of Poetry. After the first class, Master Song thought for a moment, then went to the headmaster and persuaded him to allow Wei Yao to go to Cui School the next day for a final review and intensive study.

Since the annual exam will only test the "Airs of the States" section, if Wei Yao spends these days studying the "Minor Odes" section with other students, it will be a waste of time.

When school was over, Master Song told Wei Yao that the headmaster had agreed to let her go to Cui Academy the next day. There was another advantage to going there: the annual examination venue for students in Pingcheng County was Cui Academy.

Wei Yao bowed to the Master in thanks.

Wei Mao dawdled and left the school later than Wei Yao. He wanted to catch up with her and pretend to talk to her on the way, but little did he know that his mother was waiting outside the school.

Lu Luo, carrying a bow and arrows, said cheerfully, "Your mother has come to pick you up! Aren't you happy? Come on, let's go hunting outside the city with your mother!"

As Wei Mao mounted his horse, he stared intently at Wei Yao's back, wishing his gaze could turn into hooks so he could always keep her within his sight.

Starting the next day, Wei Yao studied new poems in the morning and went to her mentor's study in the afternoon with her two senior brothers, Kong Mi and Cui Zhi, to review the "Guofeng" (Airs of the States). Starting with the first poem, "Guanju," Kong Wenzhong used the most concise language to analyze the essence of each poem.

Although Wei Yao and the other two had grasped these poetic ideas, listening to the entire "Wind" chapter still brought new insights.

"Remember, the verses of ancient poems are fixed. How you understand them depends entirely on your mastery of the words, your understanding of the meaning of the verses, your insight into the world, and your experience. This is what it means for modern people to read ancient poems! When your aspirations collide with the strong aspirations in the poems, the richer your intellectual accumulation, the broader the thoughts that will be stirred up."

On the afternoon of October 28th, Kong Wenzhong gave the concluding remarks for the poems in the "Feng" section.

On the 29th, after school at noon, Wei Yao, Guo Yun, and Liu Zhenzhu went to check out the examination venue together.

According to the annual examination rules, only the top nine students in each quarterly examination are eligible to participate. In Pingcheng County, the top nine students in the spring, summer and autumn quarterly examinations always overlapped, always being Wei Yao, Cui Zhi, Kong Mi, Cui Yuan, Guo Yun, Liu Zhenzhu, Zheng Xiangdao, Wang Bin and Cui Shang. However, this was not the case for candidates from other counties in Hengzhou.

Therefore, there must have been quite a few test takers, which is why two exam venues were set up, with the other venue located at the state capital elementary school.

The examination hall of Cui Academy was in the Poetry Society. Upon entering the Guchang Bird Forest, Wei Yao learned that the forest guardian bear, Black Whirlwind, had been taken away.

She asked in surprise, "Where did you take it? You didn't put it back in Baideng Mountain, did you?"

The big hunt is coming soon; if we release them back to Baideng Mountain, they'll just be waiting to be shot!

(End of this chapter)