Chapter 9: Spring Breeze into the Chun Exam

The sun gradually rose, dispersed the coldness of the examination courtyard, those nervous students finally had the opportunity to warm their bodies. They kept rubbing their hands to ensure that the handwriting on the paper would not look too hard, this paper calligraphy is also one of the grading criteria, so although the examination has already begun for a long time, but most people are still only in the draft, and did not rush to write, it seems that most of the scholars in the examination center, most of the poor people who have had painful experiences.

Fan Xian walked through the examination center with a smile on his face, his feet trying not to make a sound so as not to disturb these students’. Strangely enough, the students were often most afraid of the examiner passing by or surveying their papers when they were breaking questions, but when the students realized that the one standing beside them and stopping to watch was the famous young Lord Fan at the entrance to the examination center, each one of them couldn’t help but feel a little more confident.

Because Fan Xian was not as solemn as the two seated teachers and the coordinator, but instead wore a smile like light sunshine, any student who dared to look up at Fan Xian’s face would always feel that the smile on Little Lord Fan’s face was encouraging him or her.

After walking through every part of the examination center, Fan Xian returned to the corner gate, where Mu Tie had already brewed tea and was waiting, and watched him sit down on a chair before he lowered his voice and laughed, “It’s quite stuffy, and it’s most appropriate for Lord Fan to choose this place to rest his feet, as the corner gate here has to be used for transportation with the outside world, so it’s not too uncomfortable.”

Fan Xian smiled, thinking that if he really went back to the main hall to sit with Minister Guo Shangshu, he was afraid that if the other party was unhappy, he would be uncomfortable as well. While sipping his tea, he was reminded of something very strange, the list given by the Crown Prince’s side only had six people on it, but not He Zongwei’s name. After he entered the capital, he knew that He Zongwei was a student of the Grand Maester, and was a submerged minister of the Eastern Palace, so by all rights, he should be participating in the spring exams this morning.

He put this down for the time being, will look through several small doors, and then threw to the innermost part of the examination center, the heart gave birth to a sense of absurdity, he was only playing Li Taibai through drunken madness, published a book of poems, actually can sit here to supervise the examination, this life is really very unfair things.

Those students who are still in the pen, if they know that the results of the hall test, has already been the court in the palace of those big shots like a watermelon divided, their hearts will have how to think?

Time seemed to pass so slowly that Fan Xian was about to fall asleep on the chair at the corner door before realizing that the sun had just moved into the middle of the day. The relevant yamen had already sent someone to send the lunch over, and naturally, someone at the corner gate took over, and after carefully inspecting the food utensils, he found that there were no abnormalities before carrying six of the food trays to the center hall.

Fan Xian went to the center hall to have lunch with the adults and listened to them talk about the situation in the morning, and in the southeast corner, a student was caught cheating by the governor, who shook his head and sighed: “I’ve seen students cheating, but I’ve never seen such a cheating student, who actually put the whole book of question-begging strategies underneath the case to copy, thinking that no one would find out if there was a curtain around it, but how did I know that the eyes of the inspecting officials were very sharp? The eyes of the officials patrolling around are sharp.”

Guo Youzhi, the president of the Ministry of Rites, suddenly frowned and said, “How was this book brought in?”

Fan Xian knew that this was his own mistake and smiled as he responded, “Earlier, the inspection was too slow, and the officials over at the Supervisory Court pushed for it, so my humble servant was a bit anxious, fearing that I might miss the hour set by His Holiness, and so I made a mistake, so I ask for your forgiveness.” His words asked for pardon, but pushed half of the responsibility to the side of the Supervisory Yuan, it was oily.

Guo Youzhi glanced at him and let out a hmmm, but didn’t make things difficult for him, after all, this kind of small matter couldn’t be eliminated from the imperial examinations in all the dynasties, and he couldn’t use it to attack Fan Xian, he just said in a harmonious voice: “Little Lord Fan is inexperienced in this matter for the first time, you several adults need to help out a bit more.”

Fan Xian smiled and bowed his hand to the surrounding adults, especially to his immediate superior, Tai Xuezheng, and said, “Lord Xuezheng, my humble servant is not well versed in this matter, so please look after him more.”

The head of the Imperial College is the scholar Shu who was pointed out by His Majesty’s eyes in the temple that day, he was originally Zhuang Mo Han’s student, but after all, he was deeply proud of being a member of the Qing Dynasty, so he didn’t really hold a grudge against the fact that before the temple, Fan Xian had provoked Zhuang Mo Han to vomit blood, but instead laughed as he pointed to Fan Xian and said, “Mr. Fengzheng, if you’re not very talented and shallow in learning, how would anyone in and out of the Qing Dynasty dare to claim to have talent? ”

The other master and the coordinator also laughed and chimed in, making fun of Fan Xian: “The first genius of Qing, if not for his amazing knowledge, little Lord Fan should be in the middle of the room writing hard and gnawing on two dry buns when he’s hungry, so he can’t just sit here and have a meal.”

Even Guo Youzhi couldn’t help but smile when he said this, Fan Xian himself didn’t have the slightest confidence in his talent, but it seemed that no matter in the official circle in Kyoto or in the world of Qing, the people’s confidence in Fan Xian was much stronger than his own.

The students in the examination center were still nervously and fearfully working on their papers, and the sky was gradually darkening. Fan Xian walked around the field a few times, looking at the papers of all the people, and really found a few people with real talent, so he couldn’t help but stop and look at them. Although he had read the scriptures of this world in Tanyu, he had not thought of entering the civil service through the imperial examinations, so if he really wanted to do this kind of article, he was afraid that it would not be as good as most of the people, but after all, he had been a man for two lifetimes, and to exaggerate, he was also a man who had read a lot of books, and he still had a vision.

He secretly write down the names of those people, and then walked to the corner door, fake yawn, a inclination of the head, found that Mu Tie is already half lying in the chair is about to fall asleep. He couldn’t help but lose his smile, thinking that this Mu Tie was also a wonderful person, the ability to do things was naturally there, otherwise Chen Pingping wouldn’t have let him take over part of the power of a place, only the ability to be a person was a bit poorer, perhaps he had just begun to learn to flatter this kind of thing, and every time he saw Fan Xian, he was immensely respectful, which for no reason at all made him a bit uncomfortable.

“Your honor’s corner door cannot be opened.” Seeing Curator Fan Xian walk to a remote place next to the corner door, a Supervisory Yuan official, with a difficult look on his face, stepped forward to stop him, saying, “Except for delivering food and water, the corner door must always be closed.”

“This official knows the rules.” Fan Xian smiled and said, “I just want to casually walk around and see if there’s anything interesting.”

This statement seemed a bit inexplicable, not according to decency, the grand ceremony of the national dynasty, the imperial examination of the spring exams, as the examiner Fan Xian wanted to look for something interesting in the examination center. But strangely enough, after that Supervisory Yuan official heard this, he responded with a slight smile, “There are quite a lot of fun things to do in the courtyard, your honor will often come in the future.”

Fan Xian calmed down, looked at the official’s ordinary face, and suddenly spoke, “It is you I am looking for.”

“Not bad, Lord Titus.” The official bowed his head.

Fan Xian looked at his eyes and knew that this Supervisory Yuan official was not a high ranking official, but was definitely a close friend of Chen Pingping’s who had been planted in one place, so he couldn’t help but smile and say, “Did Lord Chen say a specific time?”

“After the spring exam, within three days.” That official answered softly.

“Good, I have one more thing I need your help with, I need to check the origins of a few people.” Fan Xian told the official the names of the people he had memorized earlier, and said quietly, “Don’t check their family history, just check how they are as people.”

“Yes.” The official said softly, “Please show your token, Lord Titus.”

Fan Xian took out the Commander of the Supervisory Court’s Tishesha token from his waist, which had helped him for who knows how many times, and waved it in front of the official’s eyes before asking warmly, “Have you memorized it clearly?”

The official softly responded, “Remember it clearly, but this matter will be reported to the dean by my subordinate.”

“Understood.” Fan Xian smiled gently, “Before sealing the scroll, I want your return.”

“Yes.”

“Do I need to know your name?”

“No need.” The official said softly, “I’m just a low-level official in the courtyard, I dare not bother Your Excellency to take the trouble of remembering your name.”

The crown prince was going to arrange his own manpower in the court a decade or so later, the grand prince might be the same, and as for his father-in-law and the Privy Council side, it was a typical act of a traitorous official. Thinking of this, Fan Xian couldn’t help but laugh bitterly, this old father-in-law of his really refused to save himself some trouble.

However, he also understands that this is the norm in the official world, and what he is about to do is a bit perverted.

Fan Xian was a little saddened, thinking that in a few years, when he was older, shouldn’t he arrange for some of his own people to enter this playground-like officialdom? But at the moment, he was unable to do these things, and the first and foremost thing was to cooperate with the Supervisory Yuan and handle this Chun Exam perfectly, so as not to leave too much trouble for himself.

After successfully forcing the Eldest Princess out of the palace with the speech paper, he had been handling everything very smoothly. If it wasn’t for the overbearing means of pulling himself out of the Eastern Palace this time, perhaps he would have still endured it. Moreover, he didn’t think his plan was very risky, first of all, regardless of the power on the surface, behind himself in the darkness stood a great master and a terrifying courtyard, which were powers that many people had never known. He believed that as long as he didn’t touch the most fundamental interests of the royal family of Qing, in this seemingly powerful, but in reality, mutual restraint in the officialdom, he had a great place to go.

Since the rebirth to swing round to live a hand, they can not be too concessions, otherwise it is not blind to the mother left behind this more fragrant helpers? Those royals and high officials can do things, why can’t they do? One should not only do it, but also do it beautifully.

“I’m really a very mixed-up person at heart.” Fan Xian looked at those hard-working students in the examination room, his face full of smiles, and thought to himself, “If a monk can touch it, why can’t he touch it himself, and he not only wants to touch it, but also prefers not to let the monk touch it.”