Chapter 509 - 192: Provincial Examination (Part 1)
Chapter 509: Chapter 192: Provincial Examination (Part 1)
"Wait! We haven’t gone in yet."
Too late!
Once the gates of the examination hall were closed, they would not open again for two days.
Two students were driven away by the constables outside the examination hall, who stopped them from shouting and disturbing the scholars inside.
But how could the two men possibly leave?
They had been framed, drugged with a sleeping powder, and had woken up to find it was already broad daylight.
It was only when a waiter at the inn, thinking they had already entered the examination hall, went to clean their room that he found them sleeping like logs and woke them up.
They didn’t even have time to put on their shoes. They just threw their clothes on, grabbed their exam baskets, and ran.
They fell on the road, their baskets overturning and spilling their contents, but they had no time to pick anything up. Yet even after running with all their might, they were still a step too late.
They were late. They couldn’t get into the examination hall!
The two middle-aged men wailed, "How am I supposed to go back and face my parents, my wife, and my children!"
"The villain who did this to me deserves a terrible death!"
The townspeople who hadn’t left yet couldn’t help but sigh with pity at the scene.
"How could they be so careless?"
"It’s easy to know a person’s face, but not their heart. The Provincial Examination is a competitive test; if you get in, someone else might get pushed out. Everyone is a rival, so you have to be on your guard."
"Crying is useless. Just go home, prepare well, and try again in two years."
The two men collapsed on the ground, crying until they were on the verge of fainting.
They no longer had the luxury of caring about their dignity, something they had once valued as much as their own lives.
They begged the constables for mercy, pleading to be let in, but rules were rules. How could an exception be made for one or two people?
Chen Wanqing had no desire to watch any longer and turned to go home.
The weather today was still scorchingly hot and unbearable.
Although autumn had officially begun two days ago, the temperature hadn’t dropped at all.
Outside, the sun hung high in the sky, silently baking the earth as if trying to scorch deep, dry cracks into its surface.
The walk home was only a few hundred meters, but by the time they arrived, everyone was drenched in sweat, their clothes half-soaked.
Having no other choice, they all returned to their rooms to wash up and change.
While bathing, Chen Wanqing couldn’t help but worry about Jing.
’He runs hot, and there are no ice basins in the examination hall to ward off the heat. I wonder if Jing will get heatstroke and faint.’
「Meanwhile, inside the examination hall.」
The Prefecture’s examination hall had five gates. A curtain hung in the middle, at the Hall of Supreme Justice.
This curtain served as a boundary. The chief examiner, deputy examiners, and associate examiners supervised from within and were not allowed to take a single step beyond the curtain. They were known as the Inner Curtain Officials.
The officials responsible for proctoring and patrolling stayed outside the curtain and were forbidden from entering. They were known as the Outer Curtain Officials.
Only the governor-general in charge of several provinces and the provincial governor could move freely in and out of the curtained area to oversee the entire examination.
In total, several hundred officials of various ranks were present in the examination hall, each with their own duties. Everything was in perfect order.
Despite the number of people, the examination hall was quiet. Especially after all the candidates had found their cells and settled in, the entire place was so silent you could hear a pin drop.
There were no trees here, no chirping of cicadas or insects. The silence was like that of stagnant water.
Everyone lay in their cells, resting and waiting for the exam papers that would be distributed at dawn the next day.
The weather was sweltering, and the cells were only six feet high, four feet deep, and three feet wide. With no circulating air and no ice to cool off, the heat made sweat pour down everyone’s bodies.
It wasn’t comfortable for sleeping, either.
Zhao Jing had a lean build, but he was very tall.
The examination hall’s cell was too small for him.
He was so tall that when he lay down in the cell, a large part of his body hung off the end of the sleeping plank.
He had been here a year ago for the prefectural and college exams, and he didn’t remember the bed plank being this short.
It just went to show that with proper nutrition over the past year, he had shot up too quickly.
After lying on the plank bed for a while, Zhao Jing’s restless mood slowly calmed, and he gradually began to feel sleepy.
But just as he was drifting off to sleep, he suddenly heard a student in the next cell stomp his foot in frustration.
That single stomp had disastrous consequences; it knocked over the jar of water in the cell.
He scrambled to save his exam basket, then hurriedly cleaned up the broken porcelain.
The man probably felt that having such a demoralizing incident before the exam even started was a bad omen for his chances in the Provincial Examination. After lying back down on his plank bed, he began to sigh again and again. Even through the wall, Zhao Jing could imagine his distressed expression.
It was just a minor interruption, and the moment quickly passed.
A short while later, Zhao Jing fell asleep and slept for a full two hours before waking up.
Waking up with nothing to do, he started a fire and began cooking some mung beans in a small pot.
The weather was too hot. Once the fire was lit, the tiny space became even hotter, leaving him drenched in sweat and with no appetite at all.
But he couldn’t go a whole day without eating or drinking; there was a tough battle ahead.
After drinking the mung bean soup, he ate the salt-and-pepper flatbread he had brought, finishing all the braised meat as well. Zhao Jing paced a few circles in his cell to aid his digestion, then wet a handkerchief and wiped himself down to cool off.
After wiping himself down, he lay on the bed plank and, with his eyes closed, mentally recited the Four Books and Five Classics.
By the time he finished his recitation, the sky had already darkened. He ate the remaining mung bean soup and flatbread, then forced himself to sleep.