The Happy Life of Small Officials in Northern Song Dynasty

In the early morning of the next day, Su Jin got up early and did a few sets of exercises in the house, stretching and stretching his body that was made stiff by the cramped bed last night, until he sweated a little, and then stopped.

When the hour was approaching, I heard the loud gongs outside, the invigilator led the soldiers to shout back and forth, the annoying shouting made everyone who had racked their brains last night get up one after another.

"Listen, all students, quickly gather up the test papers you answered yesterday, and paste the names with blank paper. If any leaks are found, the test papers will be invalid! Chenshi is opening the hall door to collect test papers. Both answers and unanswered questions must be handed in. Violators will lose their test paper!"

After shouting three times in a row, there was a lot of busyness in the hall. Su Jin hurriedly cut long strips out of the white paper prepared in the envelope, smeared it around the name with rice paste, covered the white paper, and blew it with his mouth. Folded and stuffed into an envelope.

Suddenly, hearing the sound of ghosts crying and howling wolves outside, someone banged on the door of the dormitory and shouted: "Master invigilator, please open the door quickly, the dormitory is on fire..."

Su Jin hurriedly approached the crack of the door and looked out, only to see thick smoke billowing in a dormitory diagonally opposite, someone coughing continuously, and a fire seemed to be shining through the crack of the door.

"My lord... what should we do?" the soldiers asked the invigilator.

The invigilator waved his hand and said, "It's not up yet, so we can't open it."

Su Jin was so angry that he almost cursed. What kind of logic is this? If it is on fire and you don’t open the door to save people, is there any humanity?

Su Jin straightened his neck and yelled out the door: "Hurry up and save people, it's a big deal if someone dies, and besides, the houses are connected together, and everyone can't run away when the fire ignites."

The invigilator might have been reminded by Su Jin's words later, so he waved his hand and said, "Open the door of that room first, and the rest cannot be opened."

The soldiers hurried forward and opened the door of the dormitory, and suddenly a fire man rolled out, yelling and threw himself on the ground; After pouring water, a puff of blue smoke rose, and the fire on the student went out; he groaned and wriggled on the ground.

"Why is it on fire?" the invigilator asked.

The student's face was covered in black and gray, and his body was dripping with tears. Fortunately, he had worn a lot of clothes, and the flesh inside was not burned, but his head, face and hands were burnt red, and his hair was also burned. He moaned and cried : "The student wanted to dry the rice paste on the oil lamp, but accidentally lit the test paper and knocked over the oil lamp... Woohoo, why did God treat me like this?"

The invigilator frowned and said, "I'm not careful, I blame God; someone, send him out of the Gongyuan, the test paper was destroyed, and his face was burnt, I think you can't pass the exam."

"Students have to take exams...students have to take exams..." The student cried loudly, how could he be reconciled to the fact that his dream was burned by a fire of love after more than ten years of hard study.

"Take it out, it's like a roasted pig's head, and you still have to take the test, what a fart!" the invigilator waved his hands in disgust.

Su Jin was very annoyed when he heard this, this joke is not funny at all, but he can't help him now, this student is so persistent, he must have suffered a lot, maybe he took the exam by borrowing money, it's God's will; go out After that, if you can find this person, you must help him heal his injuries.

The soldiers carried the seriously injured student away, and all the fires in the dormitories were put out, and then the gong was struck to indicate that it was time to hand in the papers; there was a loud clatter, and the remaining nine dormitories were opened at the same time , After the soldiers reached out and took the answered envelopes and handed them over to the invigilator, everyone was allowed out of the dormitory. Some people ran past Su Jin's dormitory with their lower body covered. Yes, this is to quickly open the gate to release the water.

Su Jin smiled slightly, and took out the chamber pot from the corner. It was lucky to have the chamber pot this night, otherwise, he would have run away like them, clutching his balls and pecking at the wolf. Only then did this girl know that she likes to drink tea at night, and she has to get up once every night.

Su Jinshi took the chamber pot and poured it out. When he came back, he saw that the student next door was also carrying the chamber pot. The eyes of the two met, and they fell on the chamber pot in each other's hands at the same time, and they smiled knowingly. Nod and pass.

After randomly fetching water from the water tank to wash, the students began to eat breakfast. Su Jin made a pot of tea and brought it in. He took some pastries and ate them. When the door opened, he saw the outside of No. [-] House diagonally opposite Beside the small stove, someone quickly took out a roll of tissue paper from a biscuit and stuffed it into his clothes, and then looked around in a panic.

Su Jin is happy, cheating!Haha, it’s the same in ancient and modern times, the small copy of paper was hidden in the cooking cake and brought in, he was lucky, he was not discovered, and he succeeded in taking the risk; Su Jin didn’t have the heart to expose other people’s old secrets, when the person looked over Before that, he quickly looked away, pretending to concentrate on blowing the tea foam on the teacup; the man heaved a sigh of relief, and slowly broke up the pancakes, baked them hot, and ate them piece by piece.

There is half an hour of rest time after breakfast, and during this half hour, you can walk around a little, and the range is limited to the aisles between the dormitories, and you can only speak in a low voice. Su Jin thought of the one in the next dormitory. That man, he seemed to be a veteran, so he wanted to go over and talk to him, but when he turned around, the door of the house was closed tightly, and he was hiding inside without even showing his face. [

Su Jin could only turn around embarrassingly, and sat on the wooden board on the first floor in a daze, wondering how Wang Anshi and the others did in the exam.

He didn't allow him to think too much, the time was right, and the gong started again; it was still the same old rhetoric, no one was allowed, no one was allowed, and finally the test envelopes were distributed, and the dormitories remained locked, this time the doors would not be opened until late afternoon .

The second test is Tie Jing Mo Yi, which is actually the easiest for the students. The test Tie Jing is the test questions are the contents of a subset of the classics studied in the past. Choose one or several sentences to cover the two ends, and open the middle. The only line, cut paper into posts.Cover up several keywords in the original text, the number of words covered ranges from three to six or seven characters, and the candidates are required to complete the original text on the posting paper.

The test of Moyi is to learn ten or twenty major meanings from the main text of the scriptures, and require the examinee to clarify the meaning of the text and explain the difficulties.

These two items are things to memorize by rote, and students who have worked hard will not find it difficult at all.

Su Jin doesn't have this ability, but Su Jin, the real nerd in his skin, has been studying hard for several years, so Su Jin is not worried. A random search in his mind will turn up a lot of half-understandable sentences Come out and make yourself sick.

Take a look at the test questions, there are ten scriptures posted, and there are not many sentences. Look at the first question, "If the world has the way, then the government is not in the doctor's hands. If the world has the way, then", Su Jin's mind quickly popped up. sentence, fill in the blanks with the words 'common people don't discuss', and fill in the entire sentence completely; this question is considered to be answered.

Next: "Get off today, the car is on the same track, (the book is the same, the line is the same.)" "The sun and the moon can shine for a long time because of the sky, (the four seasons change and can be a long time.)" "The emperor is the general, and the soldiers are selected. , (Succinct and handsome, the dedicated person is meritorious, to mark injustice;)' and other questions, although remote and tricky, but as soon as they escaped the reading range of that bookworm 'Su Jin', Su Jin answered them one by one without any hesitation.

After filling out the ten questions, it took no time for a cup of tea.

Su Jin felt relieved, and looking down, Mo Yi Wudao below is a bit troublesome. There are a lot of questions just looking at the title, it seems that it takes some brains.

For example: Ask, "The Analects of Confucius" talks about nature similarly, "The Doctrine of the Mean" talks about the nature of heaven, and "Mencius" talks about nature being good, do they have the same purpose?

Another question: "Mencius" said that nature also has destiny, and destiny also has nature. Knowing different things, how can we distinguish them?

Ask again: Zhou Zi's "Tai Chi Tu Shuo" says that "five sexes are moved and divided into good and evil", and "Tong Shu" says "sincerity, how much good and evil" does it mean?

……

In short, one set of questions followed another after another, and they were all half-understood ancient books, which made Su Jin one head and two big. Add some assumptions to your own judgment and some nonsense, so that you can slowly answer all the way.

If it takes a cup of tea to post scriptures in front of it, it can be regarded as a road to Kangzhuang, but the test of Moyi in the back is a big puddle that can't be seen.

After finally waiting until the end of the exam to hand in the paper, Su Jin finally had dizzy eyes, weak limbs, a sallow complexion, and was able to walk and support the wall.