Frost for a Thousand Years

Chapter 6 is about to begin!

The layout of each examination room is the same.

There are about fifty cubicles in total, one on the left and one on the right.

It resembles a food stall in a street market, or a small private room at a buffet. But the difference is that it's completely open.

In front of every five examination rooms stood a court official, equivalent to an invigilator.

The only thing you can bring to the exam hall is dry food.

Before entering their examination rooms, officials in the capital would check their provisions to prevent them from smuggling anything in.

Damn, I forgot to check my baggage.

It's not that I think his mother would harm him.

I'm afraid Jiang might be trying to create some kind of entertainment effect by putting a note in each pie with a little message of maternal love and encouragement—"Go son!"

If someone is found to have brought in unauthorized materials, they will be disqualified from the exam and will be banned from participating in the imperial examinations for life—a punishment even more severe than that for the college entrance examination.

Fortunately, when the official opened the bundle and broke each cake in turn, he found nothing unusual.

Then, Song Shi'an was led into the examination room where his nameplate was displayed.

In the cramped examination room, a straw mat was laid out, upon which sat a standard desk. On the desk were uniform pens, ink, blank draft paper, and, as emphasized, exam papers that had not been replaced.

Yes, the scratch paper used during the exam must also be collected and filed; it's quite important.

Next to the desk was a bucket with a long wooden ladle inside, which was for drinking water during the exam.

Almost the entire day, the candidates eat, drink, and rest here until the exam ends.

If you need to use the restroom, you must report to the invigilator, and a guard will personally escort you to the restroom.

I'll watch you pee.

After decades of development, the imperial examination system has become extremely rigorous and professional.

Although aristocratic families control the most educational resources and the ruling class of Dayu is still the Celestial Dragons, this is definitely an opportunity for the vast number of students from poor families to change their fate.

As long as one passes the imperial examination, even if one is not guaranteed an official position, the policy will grant certain special privileges, such as a tax-free quota of up to two thousand mu of farmland.

Then those local gentry and wealthy people simply register their land under your name, and they'll basically be set for life.

Similarly, for a illegitimate son of a powerful family like Song Shi'an, it was also an opportunity to "rebel against his superiors".

A son born out of wedlock must always defer to the son born out of wedlock and must not overstep his bounds.

Only at this time can the status of the legitimate heir be reasonably challenged.

So what if I did better than you on the test?

Of course, Song Shi'an's opponent was not Song Ce, that fifteen-year-old boy.

Even if one passed the imperial examination as a regular scholar, one could only become a minor official, and the chances of staying in the capital were slim.

His goal is to become a candidate for the Asian Yuan.

Or, to put it another way, a candidate who is appointed directly without waiting for a replacement.

Otherwise, you'd have to rely on family connections.

Only those with independent personalities have the right to speak.

One by one, the candidates took their seats and entered the examination room.

Song Shi'an could see the row of examinees opposite him, but they were too far away to see what they were writing.

At 8:45 a.m., the Imperial Guards arrived at the examination hall carrying sealed examination papers.

The chief examiner, seated in the center, rose and bowed respectfully. Then, he accepted the exam paper with both hands.

In previous imperial examinations, due to the imperfect rules, leaks of exam questions were common.

But after several waves of executions and with the entire process basically supervised by the Embroidered Uniform Guard, no more leaks occurred.

Furthermore, those top examiners from the Imperial Academy who set the exam questions are still "locked up" inside and are being fed by special personnel.

The atmosphere in the examination room was quite oppressive.

Perhaps it was the appearance of the Imperial Guards that made the candidates opposite them tremble.

The Embroidered Uniform Guards were indeed idiots.

Imagine you tell a political joke, and then the Imperial Guards on the roof beams laugh.

After a moment's wait, at the beginning of the morning, the bronze bell in the examination hall suddenly rang out.

The exam has begun!

The chief examiner in the examination hall stood up, picked up the sealed bag of examination papers, and four officials from the capital surrounded him. After showing the four officials the intact seal and indicating that there were no problems, the chief examiner slowly opened the seal.

He took out the exam paper.

Then, he loudly proclaimed: "The examination for the rhymed prose is now open. Candidates are to compose a rhymed prose piece on the topic of 'book,' requiring fluent writing and profound ideas."

Not long after, the examiner loudly reiterated:

"The examination for the 'Rhapsody' subject is about to begin. Candidates are required to compose a rhapsody on the topic of 'book,' requiring fluent writing and profound ideas."

After a few seconds of pause, he repeated it a third time.

This is part of the procedure. People are very nervous during scientific expeditions, so the second and third times are to prevent candidates from missing or mishearing the questions.

However, after he said it the first time, Song Shi'an wrote it down on the draft, word for word.

Then, I started to analyze the question.

Asking him to compose a poem is a bit too much to ask.

But for Song Shi'an, a liberal arts graduate student from a 985 university, retrieving an article from his mind was no problem.

When it comes to books, the saying naturally comes to mind: "Books are the ladder of human progress."

Yes, it was quite ahead of its time to say something like that.

Song Shi'an had learned about the examination and evaluation system of Dayu.

It can be said that it is very broad.

As long as it is related to the question, or can be extended to other related ideas, it is not considered off-topic.

The topic of 'books' can be expanded upon in so many ways.

First, books.

Ancient sages created books.

Books summarize the essence of that era.

You can write an essay on the significance of a good book and its moral enlightenment.

Then, it's time to read books.

This era had many books, and even vernacular novels emerged due to advancements in productivity and the rise of the urban middle class.

Of course, you can't write that you like reading this type of book.

This is like taking the college entrance exam, where the question is about books, and you write: "I usually like to read some online novels."

While there are some good novels in the online novel genre, such as "I Super", we must take into account the circumstances of the examiners and the seriousness of the exam.

The examiners of the imperial examinations were mostly old scholars.

Needless to say, they absolutely loathe vernacular novels, a product that has emerged in recent years.

But to praise the books of sages in such a way, regardless of the writing style, is indeed a low-minded approach.

By the way, there's a great way to elevate your theme—dialectics.

It is better to believe in books than to have no books.

If you write from this angle, you can definitely make it stand out.

but…

There is a risk of offense.

Finally, after some thought, Song Shi'an gradually confirmed his idea.

What is a book?
It's for reading.

What is reading?
Learn.

So, when it comes to learning, the most classic and eloquent saying is self-evident, isn't it?

At this moment, Song Shi'an, who had read extensively from the books of ancient sages and absorbed the essence of a thousand years, dipped his brush in ink.

He learned calligraphy in college and even won fourth place in the district's amateur calligraphy competition.

The handwriting is not bad.

But after this article was published, the word count issue became negligible!

With pen in hand on the paper, Song Shi'an directly invoked the spirits, and with a flourish of his brush, wrote two large characters:

Encouraging learning.

(End of this chapter)