Top Scholar

Chapter 180 I'm not targeting anyone
The next morning, the two brothers walked to Bijia Mountain in the south of the city.

"Oh, Su is also going to school, what a coincidence!" A magnificent two-horse carriage caught up with the two, and She Yunluo, dressed in the same clothes as Su Tai, jumped off the carriage.

Su Tai thought to himself, "I'm not in school at this hour, am I going to get on the kang (heated brick bed)?"
"Good morning..." he mumbled a reply, then turned his attention to Su Lu and ignored She Yunluo.

"Huh?" She Yunluo noticed that he had become distant again after spending the night, which puzzled her. Then, she glanced at Xiao Su, who was staring straight ahead, and began to guess what was going on.

It must have been this kid's doing.

Why would he cause trouble? Hmm, he's probably afraid I'll steal his brother away and leave him all alone...

Hmph, what a childish temper. I'll find you one too, so you won't have time to care about your brother...

Feeling her ill-intentioned gaze, Su Lu felt a chill run down his spine, wondering what this older sister was up to.

Upon arriving at the entrance of the martial arts academy, Su Lu had no choice but to bid farewell to his elder brother. Watching She Yunluo and Xia Ge'er enter side-by-side, he shook his head helplessly. He couldn't control his second brother; he would have to rely on himself…

Su Lu composed himself, quickened his pace, went up the mountain and entered the academy, passing through the front courtyard paved with bluestone bricks and entering the ceremonial gate.

Inside the ceremonial gate, a large crowd of students were gathered in front of the notice board, looking at their grades.

This moment is just like that moment...

Su Lu was naturally curious about his own level at the academy, so he went over to take a look.

At first, he stood on the outermost circle, but luckily he was tall enough to barely see the top ten. He thought, "That should be enough, right?"

The result was unexpected; his name wasn't even in the top ten...

Su Lu couldn't help but feel a little embarrassed. Heshan Academy was indeed living up to its reputation, with many experts.

He had no choice but to burrow deeper into the crowd, crane his neck, and look down ten more names, but still, his name wasn't among them.

Sigh, I was too arrogant. There are always mountains beyond mountains and people beyond people...

Squeeze forward a little further, and now you can see the top 30, but still nothing!

Su Lu was shocked to find that he couldn't even get into the first half of the list. It seemed that our town's key high school really couldn't compare to the city's key high school!

There was indeed a reason why Headmaster Zhou assigned himself to Zhengyi Zhai...

Although he was heartbroken, he still had to see just how badly he had done on the exam. He could always try again and pull off another incredible comeback! Su Lu secretly vowed.
Mountain people are never afraid of setbacks. He was filled with enthusiasm and unconsciously pushed harder when he squeezed in...

"Why are you squeezing in?" A familiar voice rang out; it was none other than that annoying Li Zongsheng.

Li Zongsheng also turned around and saw Su Lu, and immediately chuckled gloatingly, "Look who's here, it's our prodigy Su!"

"I thought he was so amazing, but he's not even as good as our last place!" Li Zongsheng's brother, Li Zongwei, chimed in loudly, "What a pity, the imperial examinations didn't test riddle-solving!"

"Watch your mouths!" Deng Dengying said angrily. "It's only their first day here after transferring schools. They need time to adjust!"

“Oh right, right, right, you people from Zhengyi Zhai love to make excuses the most.” Li Zongsheng immediately retorted, “True strength never makes excuses, understand?”

"What kind of strongman are you, ranked 30th..." the Zhengyizhai members retorted sarcastically.

"As long as I'm at Chengxinzhai, I'm the strongest in your eyes!" Li Zongsheng's face tightened, and he stubbornly retorted, "Go ahead and try to push me out!"

“It’s a disgrace to be in the same room as someone like that…” Two young men standing far away on the outer circle shook their heads and sighed as they saw Li Zongsheng gesticulating wildly.

"It's better to have virtue but no talent than to have talent but no virtue," the kind-looking, red-faced young man said softly.

"He has no talent whatsoever; he relies entirely on cheating and memorizing Cheng Wen's text!" The pale-faced boy was handsome, his eyes darting around, exuding a cleverness. "The exams are all long-answer questions now, so he still has plenty to memorize! But once they start the cross-reference questions, his true colors will be revealed!"

"I hope that day comes soon." The red-faced young man sighed, then smiled and said, "I haven't congratulated Brother Bai on winning the championship yet."

"It's just an ordinary exam, nothing to mention." So he was none other than Bai Yunshan, the Third Young Master Bai. "I'd rather switch places with that classmate Su."

As the two were talking, Zhu Zihe arrived.

They had known each other since childhood, and the two greeted him.

Zhu Zihe, however, entered battle mode and, ignoring the two of them, plunged headlong into the crowd!

He had just entered the ceremonial gate when he heard that damned Li Zongsheng shoving his way into Su Lu's face.

Zhu, basking in the loving glow of her adoptive father every day, couldn't stand it! She immediately parted the crowd and rushed in, launching a tirade:
"Impossible, absolutely impossible! There must be some mistake! You think you can outsmart me and Brother Su? The sun will rise in the west!"

"Aren't you being too hurtful to them by saying that?" Zhu Zigong, who had come with Zhu Zihe, was eager to watch the drama unfold.

"I'm not targeting anyone in particular, I'm just stating a fact." Zhu Zihe sneered, perfectly illustrating what it means to have a foul mouth that comes from having powerful connections.

"Zhu Zihe, the results are already posted, and you're still acting arrogant!" Li Zongsheng pointed at the report card on the wall and sneered, "Others won't shed a tear until they see the coffin, but you won't shed a tear even after seeing the coffin!"

"I might underestimate others, but between you two, who doesn't know who the other is?" Zhu Zihe said with a disdainful smile, "I could write better with my feet than you two!"

"Hahaha!" Now Deng Dengying and the others looked at Zhu Zihe much better.

"Hmph, say what you want, the results speak for themselves." Li Zongsheng was actually feeling guilty facing Zhu Zihe, so he could only cling to the report card on the wall. "If you're really not convinced, recite your essays and let everyone critique them!" Li Zongwei also said coldly, "Let's see if the teachers are mistaken, or if you're just frogs in a well!"

"Great idea!" Everyone was also curious whether Zhu Zihe was blindly arrogant or truly capable.

Just then, someone shouted, "The headmaster is here!"

The students immediately quieted down and hurriedly bowed in the direction from which Dean Zhou was coming.

Headmaster Zhou nodded slightly and said, "No need for formalities."

After glancing at the two young men following behind, the two men painted over the notice board and posted the sample essays for this exam.

The first one is Su Lu's!

A buzzing sound came from in front of the notice board, and the students were completely thrown into a frenzy.

"What's going on?!" The students were dumbfounded. If it weren't for Headmaster Zhou keeping things in check, they would have been shouting themselves hoarse.

"Could there be a mistake?" So they all crowded forward to see what was going on.

Li Zongsheng's head was buzzing even more. He stared blankly as his teacher posted another article, this time by Zhu Zihe...

The students were initially indignant, wondering why the articles by two outsiders had been posted. But after seeing the true nature of the articles, all that remained was a collective gasp of astonishment…

"Wow, that's incredible! It's overwhelming and deafening!"

"Is this an article that a student could write?"

"Is Taiping Academy in the heavens? How could it produce such monsters?!"

Many students even felt that there weren't enough articles by the "strongest duo" to read...

"I feel that Bai Yunshan's and Lei Jun's articles are not as good as these two..."

"Once they're posted and compared, the difference will be immediately obvious!"

To everyone's surprise, the academy only posted the model essays by Su Lu and Zhu Zihe, but not those by Bai Yunshan and Lei Jun...

"Why don't you post it so we can read it?!" a student protested.

"..." Headmaster Zhou frowned slightly upon hearing this, wondering if this was meant to save face for them. He coughed and said sternly:
"I'm only posting the articles by the two new students so you can read them carefully and see where the gap lies! Wake up, all of you, stop being so arrogant!"

"Yes..." The students hurriedly bowed their heads in response, none daring to raise their heads. These two articles had indeed dealt them a significant blow...

"Su Lu and Zhu Zihe, come with me. The headmaster invites you," Headmaster Zhou said in a low voice to Su Lu and Zhu Zihe.

"Yes," the two replied, and then followed Headmaster Zhou.

As soon as the division commanders left, a loud bang echoed in front of the notice board, and it started again...

"Hahaha!" Deng Dengying pointed at Li Zongsheng and laughed loudly, "You're celebrating too soon, aren't you? You're definitely going to be squeezed out!"

Only the top thirty can enter Chengxinzhai. Now that two strong people have joined, Li Zongsheng will naturally lose his place in the top thirty!
"They might be carrying out a raid!" Li Zongsheng exclaimed anxiously. "The questions this time aren't difficult; they were on the same topic in the imperial examination six years ago!"

"Oh..." The group of colleagues looked enlightened, but it wasn't directed at Su Lu and his companion.

"People always seem to judge others by their own standards!" Bai Yunshan finally couldn't help but complain.

"Hahaha!" His peers burst into laughter, naturally understanding what Bai Sanshao meant.

In those days, there was a way to cheat in the imperial examinations: to take advantage of the formulaic nature of the eight-legged essay and memorize a large number of examination essays to use as templates during the exam.

With specialized training, one doesn't even need a perfect match for the question; just a close match is enough.

It can also break down and recombine paragraphs from multiple essays. For example, it can combine the opening paragraph of essay A, the middle paragraph of essay B, and the concluding paragraph of essay C into a new essay, thus avoiding being detected by the examiner for plagiarism.

In short, there are many intricacies involved, and it's not something you can just memorize blindly. But delving into this leads you astray, which is naturally looked down upon by students who study diligently and write honestly.

Li Zongsheng was the kind of person who was good at taking shortcuts. In his first year of school, the exam consisted of common, challenging questions, so he was able to cheat on them repeatedly.

Since he was the fourth young master of the Li family, his classmates dared not speak out against him. Even if the teacher found out, at most they would lower his ranking, but they wouldn't publicly humiliate him. As a result, he has remained smug to this day...

Now, Bai Yunshan had finally seen through him. Li Zongsheng's face turned red, and after a long while, he managed to utter a sentence.

"Some people have even passed the imperial examinations by suppressing bandits, why don't you go and bite them!"

"There are people who rise to power by selling hooks, why don't you go do that!" Bai Yunshan snorted, his mouth was just as sharp as Zhu Ziming's.

"Hahaha!" His colleagues burst into laughter, while Li Zongsheng was so angry that his face turned as red as a pig's liver. He turned and left.

"Baiyun Mountain, we'll see!" He naturally didn't forget to throw out a harsh remark.

P.S. I only finished writing this at 11:30 PM, and I haven't checked the last two chapters yet...

(End of this chapter)