Chapter 62: Seated Side by Side
Translator: Sparrow Translations Editor: Sparrow Translations
"Yan Xiu… didn’t participate in the theory examination?!" Fang Zhengzhi was slightly taken aback, and instantly felt like he was in dreamland. Indeed, Heaven’s plans supersedes our own, plans are flawed!
Were his ten silver pieces about to fly away?
No! That was ten valuable silver pieces, money that came from blood and sweat!
Fang Zhengzhi was upset. Without Yan Xiu, if he were to help two people attain a meteoric rise, this pressure was really a little too large.
Not even mentioning that the risk of throwing around two pieces of paper would increase by many times, just the writing of three completely different answer sheets and ensuring that they would all enter the top three was already stressful enough.
It was over.
Meng Yushu initially prepared to leave, but after seeing the changing expression on Fang Zhengzhi’s face and recalling Fang Zhengzhi’s previous words, his mind lit up, as brightly as a lamp.
"Looks like this kid wants to find Yan Xiu to cheat?"
Meng Yushu didn’t believe that Fang Zhengzhi would be able to pass the Law of Dao theory examinations with his abilities alone, hence, he could almost confirm that Fang Zhengzhi’s purpose in finding Yan Xiu was to sit beside him and cheat.
"Little brother, since we met, why don’t we sit together?" Meng Yushu laughed coldly inside, then asked probingly.
"Sit together?" When Fang Zhengzhi, who was still secretly distressed, heard, then looking at Meng Yushu, his eyes instantly lit up. The soul that entered dreamland instantly flew back into his body.
That feeling was like seeing money fly away, then successfully flying back, moreover, as it flew back, it even brought along a pile of money brothers along the way.
Simply invigorating.
"Sure, let’s sit together!" Fang Zhengzhi instantly laughed, and happily agreed.
Seeing this, the delight in Meng Yushu’s eyes increased even more. Indeed, he had guessed correctly. That meant, next… shouldn’t he play around with this prey on his hands?
"How about later we…"
"Brother Meng’s purpose in asking me to sit together, do you want to say… that we should exchange answers later?" Fang Zhengzhi didn’t even wait for Meng Yushu to finish his sentence before interrupting him to ask.
"Ha ha ha… that’s right! I wish to exchange answers with you, ha ha ha…" Meng Yushu couldn’t restrain himself anymore and laughed heartily.
Fang Zhengzhi also laughed, the expression on his face was as bright as the March sun.
Then after, Meng Yushu and Fang Zhengzhi, laughing together just like that, walked shoulder to shoulder towards a pair of seats beside one another.
When the other scholars witnessed this, they instantly stared at another, their faces filled with shock. They were completely unable to react.
"What’s happening?"
"After shouting about fighting and killing just now, in a blink of an eye, they even agreed to sit beside one another?"
"This change… is too fast!"
The crowd was stunned, but the two people were still laughing happily.
"Let me introduce myself, I am Meng Yushu!"
"Fang Zhengzhi!"
"Ha ha ha…"
Without much ado, all of the examinees for the theory examination had entered the venue.
A few invigilators dressed in black official robes also walked in at this moment, and one of them began to read out the rules of the theory examination.
They were all rather similar.
For example: Don’t whisper to one another, don’t walk around without permission, if one was caught cheating, they would immediately be asked to leave the examination venue and their grades would be annulled and so on…
When Meng Yushu and Fang Zhengzhi heard the official talking about cheating, they looked at one another. Both of them gave a reassuring look to each other, it was as if they were saying:
Don’t worry, I will definitely pass my answer to you!
"The first round of theory examination will last a total of two hours!" After laying down the examination rules, the invigilator announced the examination time.
Then, one by one, the theory examination papers were personally passed down by the invigilating officials. In the Law of Dao examinations, the theory examination was the first step, and was also used to test the students’ understanding of the Law of Dao’s meaning.
To put it simply, it tested their foundations.
Fang Zhengzhi received the examination paper from the invigilator. Picking it up, he took a look and realised that it was filled with densely packed words describing questions of all sorts, most of them originating from famous texts.
Finishing so many questions under two hours? To an average person, this was indeed rather difficult.
For example, the examination paper’s first question was, what were the Four Intelligent Creatures?
This was a paragraph from the Book of Rites, under the chapter "Ceremonial usages; their origins, development, and intention".
One could rather accurately guess the difficulty level of the Law of Dao theory examinations from this one question. It wasn’t too hard, because one only had to familiarise themselves with the various texts in the Law of Dao in order to explain it.
But, it wasn’t too easy either.
Because, the origin of the question wasn’t very clear. For example, the Four Intelligent Creatures appeared in many different books in similar forms, if one recalled incorrectly, a miss was as good as a mile.
As such, if one wanted to answer them correctly, what he needed was time.
Two hours was evidently a little short.
"They were the Qi-lin, the phoenix, the tortoise, and the dragon. When the dragon becomes a domestic animal, (all other) fishes and the sturgeon do not lie hidden from men (in the mud). When the phoenix becomes so, the birds do not fly from them in terror. When the Qi-lin does so, the beasts do not scamper away. When the tortoise does so, the feelings of men take no erroneous course."
Fang Zhengzhi didn’t even have to stop to think before answering the first question, then, started on the second.
Sitting by his side, Meng Yushu saw that Fang Zhengzhi had started writing.
After being slightly taken aback, he quickly laughed out coldly in his heart. How could he be so fast? Even if he himself answered the question, he would still have to carefully review and analyse the entire examination paper, before guessing what the Lead Examiner emphasized in this examination.
Then, roughly categorise which text within the Law of Dao the question would come from.
People such as Fang Zhengzhi who would pen down their answers just like that was very obviously putting on an act.
When he thought of this point, Meng Yushu instantly calmed down. Next, the other party would just have to follow every step he laid out for him.
…
The entire Law of Dao examination venue was extremely silent.
When most of the examinees received their examination paper, the first thing they did was analysing the question, guessing the direction the answer would take from the Lead Examiner’s intentions.
People such as Fang Zhengzhi were classified as rare creatures.
In reality, Fang Zhengzhi shouldn’t be blamed. Because in this world, people only knew one book, and that was the Law of Dao. This book wasn’t specifically subdivided into texts and the Four Books and Five Classics.
Fang Zhengzhi’s cognition was indeed different.
In his mind, the Law of Dao had long ago been subdivided by him into different categories.
For example, the four categories - Confucian classics, humanities, religions and beliefs, and personal works, which were then split into further subcategories - Changes, poetry, rites, history and spring and autumn…
He had even managed to classify them by dynasties.
As such, he had no need to ponder carefully over the questions like the rest of the examinees, and could identify with one look which text the question set by the Lead Examiner had originated from, then, split them by their dynasties.
Under an hour, his writing stopped and he kept his pen.
Everything was as smooth as the moving clouds and flowing water. Fang Zhengzhi was very satisfied with his own performance. Looking at his neat and proper examination paper, he gave himself full marks.
It was still early, and Fang Zhengzhi didn’t rush to submit his paper. Because, there was a rather annoying rule in the theory examinations that one couldn’t leave the examination venue early to prevent questions from being leaked.
Then, Fang Zhengzhi gazed towards Meng Yushu.
His expression seemed to say, "Come, I’ve already finished writing! Let’s cheerfully exchange our answers!"