History of Women in the Wei Dynasty

Chapter 39 Three People Reading
Time was tight, so Wei Yao didn't waste any words: "Ever since you told me that Young Master Yuan Heng saw the joint examination questions, I've been thinking about how to test everything in a way that would make it as difficult as possible for us. How can we let us know the test questions in advance so that we still can't pass easily? After the martial arts battle, I actually figured out a test method, and I didn't expect that I had the same idea as Senior Brother Cui Zhi."

Wei Mao immediately understood: "You mean... the way Cui Zhi quickly reads out the questions and asks you to quickly recite the next line of poetry, is likely to be repeated in this month's joint exam?"

"Yes."

"Hiccup—" Wei Jing was so surprised that he hiccuped. "That's it! Hiccup, when Cui Zhi was setting the questions, hiccup, I tried to do the questions, hiccup, all of them came at once, hiccup, I didn't have time to figure them out."

Wei Yao: "My idea is that since there are no other directions for guessing questions, we might as well take this exam this month, practice and memorize it repeatedly, there's no harm in it."

Wei Jing cried out in anguish, "Repeatedly reciting?! Even the most enjoyable poem will become boring if recited repeatedly. Ah—isn't there a shortcut?"

Wei Yao shook her head. Reading can be a shortcut to many things, but there is no shortcut to reading itself. She was just telling herself this.

Wei Mao, however, grasped the key point in Wei Yao's words. He asked, "Even hard training requires methods. Do you have any good ideas?"

“Yes.” Wei Yao’s method was based on her own experience from repeated “tests on all”. She would cut open old bamboo slips with ancient poems written on them, each line cut into a piece, mix them together and carry them with her. Whenever she had free time, she would take out a piece and memorize the next line based on the poem on it. “Or the previous line.”

In the past life, the "All Tests" included both questions about completing the next line of a poem and questions about completing the previous line. However, the question about completing the next line was always "reading both lines together" from the very beginning, which was much more difficult than the questions in today's set of questions. Otherwise, how could Wei Yao answer so easily in other people's eyes? It was because she had practiced it for a long time.

Besides the two types mentioned above, there are also two truncated lines in the same poem, one of which connects to the previous line and the other to the next. Later, this evolved further, with two different poems where one line contains the poem's preface and the other connects to the previous or next line and includes annotations for both lines...

In short, this examination method truly "tests everything," and it has become increasingly diverse and varied as it has developed. Sometimes, the students are so anxious after the exams that they develop eye sores and mouth sores.

Of course, Wei Yao couldn't mention the various examination methods that followed, otherwise Jing Tongmen would definitely get tired of studying and run home.

Every month, Yingju Bookstore has books to be destroyed, either because they are moldy and infested with insects, or because their contents contain errors. The three of them quickly got to work, picking out the "Guofeng" chapters they had studied from the two boxes of moldy bamboo slips. Wei Mao and Wei Jing were responsible for cutting out the truncated sentences with large scissors, while Wei Yao was responsible for removing the special repeated sentences that were unlikely to appear on the test.

What kinds of repeated phrases are considered special? One type is the "肃肃兔罝" (sù sù tù jù) and "蔽芾甘棠" (bì fēi gān táng) type, where the ancient poems are short and each stanza repeats the exact same sentence. Another type is the "不谅人只" (bù liàng rén zhī) type, which is repeated twice in a poem, with the second repetition occurring at the end of the poem. Therefore, if "不谅人只" is used in an exam question, it cannot be followed by a second line, but only by the first line. However, if it is followed by a first line, the preceding line for both instances of "不谅人只" is "母也天只" (mǔ yě tiān zhī).

Soon, the small bamboo slips were piled up. Wei Yao took out a section from the bottom, making sure her two fellow disciples couldn't see it. She first reminded them to "prepare for the next line of this poem," and then quickly recited: "East of the Mo River."

Wei Mao... his mind was in a mess.

Wei Jing was even more confused and asked, "Which one?"

She pointed out: "Mo is the name of a city in the State of Wei. It is related to the word 'mei' (妹), and the city is also called 'Meibang' (妹邦)."

Wei Mao shook his head dejectedly and said, "I do know that this line comes from the poem 'Sang Zhong' in the 'Yong Feng' section, but I've almost forgotten the poem and can't come up with the next line. Let's change the topic and you can come up with another one."

Wei Yao set aside “Mo Zhi Dong Yi” and reached into the pile of bamboo slips to take another one. She reminded him to “get ready” and quickly read out: “Wei Hou’s wife”.

Wei Mao pondered for two breaths and answered, "The Crown Prince's sister." The point of confusion in this question is that this excerpt is one of five consecutive lines in the poem, namely... the son of the Marquis of Qi, the wife of the Marquis of Wei, the Crown Prince's sister, the aunt of the Marquis of Xing, and the private relationship of the Duke of Tan. If you don't know it by heart, you have to start from the beginning and work your way up if you take this line out alone.

“Yes.” Wei Yao explained to Wei Jing, “This is from the poem ‘Shuoren’. The day you learned this poem was when you took Gao Lou to Cui Academy to find me.”

Wei Jingxiao: "Oh, I knew it, I didn't remember that line."

In the days leading up to Gao Lou's departure from the city, partly out of sympathy and partly to find an excuse to skip class, he dragged Gao Lou around the bustling areas of Pingcheng almost every day, even taking her to Yongning Temple to see the seven-story pagoda. Recalling those days, he couldn't help but worry: "I wonder where Gao Lou is now? Is Da Ti listening to her?"

Wei Yao: "She must have stroked her horse and looked back many times, saying goodbye to us from the bottom of her heart."

Wei Jing's eyes reddened as she spoke.

Seeing the other person like this, Wei Yao's own eyes also reddened.

Wei Maozhen couldn't stand it anymore: "Tomorrow, each of you should write a letter expressing your longing for her. I'll have someone catch up with her on horseback and have her send you a reply."

The three of them were in high spirits and decided to only tell Zhen, their fellow disciple, about the "test for all" and not to tell the other disciples, so as not to waste their good intentions and be blamed if they didn't guess the questions correctly.

The next time, they went to the warehouse where the new goods were stored. All the books brought in by Xinye County were placed here before they were sorted. They each opened a box and looked for the books that interested them.

Written texts were especially precious to Wei Yao. Although her father had the convenience of copying books, the deadlines for submitting them were very tight, making it extremely difficult to copy an extra copy for their own family. She had initially intended to only look for the "Shuowen Jiezi" (a dictionary of Chinese characters), but as she opened each volume and browsed through each column, she quickly became engrossed, her mind filled with nothing but the words before her.

She was holding a section of the first part of "Mencius: Gongsun Chou". Unfortunately, she didn't have the talent of photographic memory. After reading it twice from beginning to end, she reluctantly rolled it up, tied it with a string, put it back in its original place, and then picked up the one next to her.

This book is quite long; it contains the contents of the first volume of the *Yi Zhou Shu*. Wei Yao had just begun reading when she heard Jing Tongmen exclaim in delight, urging her and Wei Mao to look at the bamboo slips he was holding. "Look," Jing said, "it's a collection of strange tales from *Ming Xiang Ji*, written by a barbarian named Wang Yan. Wait, why is it only this short? Where's the rest? You two look at this; I'll look for the sequel. It must be in this wooden box too."

Most of the supernatural tales written by modern scholars were written in easily understandable vernacular Chinese, and Wei Yao finished reading them much faster than Wei Mao. What utter nonsense about supernatural tales! This is definitely not one of the stories in "Mingxiang Ji"! It was also definitely not written by Wang Yan, a famous scholar from Taiyuan, but rather by some Xiao Qi scholar who resented the Great Wei.

Wei Yao pretended not to understand and said, "It's not finished yet, I..." She gestured to go back to her own book.

Wei Mao stared at her flushed face with suspicion for a moment before returning to the story.

Tan Gongwei Si: The sister's husband is called "Si," so this line of poetry refers to "Tan Gong being her brother-in-law." "Tan" is the name of an ancient state.

Superstition was prevalent during the Northern and Southern Dynasties, resulting in a large number of tales of the strange and supernatural. "The Record of Mysterious Omens" is one of them, written by Wang Yan, a person from the Southern Qi Dynasty.

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(End of this chapter)