Great Zhou Wensheng

Chapter 47 The Great Test of Qingming: Slaying Demons!

Qingming Festival.

A sudden clap of thunder sounded, and a spring rain pattered against the window paper.

From the east wing of the Jiangyin County Confucian Temple, the clear sound of copper bells rang out, the bells on the eaves jingling in the chilly spring breeze.

Instructor Zheng Shuqian, dressed in a blue cloth robe, strode into the outer lecture hall with measured steps, tapping the ebony ruler lightly in his palm.

The county school instructor, known for his strictness, glanced at the thirty newly enrolled students sitting upright and suddenly smiled.

"Since the founding of the Great Zhou Dynasty, our Jiangyin County School has had an unwritten rule..."
Every solar term brings a small test!
During festivals and holidays, there are always major examinations!
The Qingming Festival falls during one of the twenty-four solar terms and one of the four major seasonal festivals, making it an auspicious time for outings, planting willows, paying respects to ancestors, and warding off evil spirits.

Therefore, the county academy has arranged a major assessment for you—slaying demons.

Slay the demon in Jiangyin County!
Demon slaying is a mandatory practical course for novice students!

You are provided with food and rice by the imperial court, cultivate your literary talents, and it is your duty to slay demons and eliminate evil to protect the peace of the people of Jiangyin.

It's Qingming Festival right now, and the start of summer is just around the corner.

If one fails this assessment, receiving a "lowest" grade, they will be ineligible to participate in the prefectural examination for the title of Xiucai.

The hall was silent. The students in the outer dormitory, seeing Instructor Zheng's smiling face, straightened their backs warily.

Hearing this, he actually breathed a sigh of relief.

I thought it was something big, just exorcising demons!
They had been waiting for this for a long time.

The students had been diligently studying literature in preparation for this matter. Otherwise, what use would all their literary skills be?

"no problem!"

Li Yunxiao twirled the wolf-hair brush in his hand and laughed, "Slaying demons during Qingming Festival will be perfect for visiting their graves next year! Last year, I even accompanied my father to slay a snake demon by the river, which was as thick as a water vat."

"However, Instructor Zheng, what kind of demons are we hunting?"

Han Yugui smiled reservedly and asked with a calm and confident expression.

The students all looked on with great anticipation.

Instructor Zheng Shuqian then said,
"Do you students still remember the essay you wrote in the Jiangyin County Gazetteer, Records of Strange Things, when you were taking the county examination for the title of 'Children'?"
The academy master said that the short story about the supernatural that you wrote was very well written and quite wonderful.

That "demon's tale" will be your grand test during the Qingming Festival. Test yourselves according to your own literary talent!

Saying,

Zheng Shuqian took out a list and said:
The county examination report on demons is as follows:
Jiang Xingzhou wrote "Iron Chain Dragon"—a vicious dragon deep in the great river;

Han Yugui wrote "The Old Locust Tree and the Red Wedding Dress"—a three-hundred-year-old locust tree spirit from Wuling Mountain;
Lu Ming wrote "The Tribute Robbery of the Shad Spirit"—a water demon that robbed the imperial court of its tribute.

Li Yunxiao wrote "Lord Langshan Eats the Moon" - Lord Langshan eats the moon to cultivate himself;

"

Zheng Shuqian made this statement.

"what?"

"Using the [demon tales] from the county examination as the questions for the grand assessment?"

"That's so insidious! Professor Cai has set a huge trap for us in advance!"

Suddenly,

The thirty students in the outer dormitory were all dumbfounded and erupted in uproar.

To know,
To make their essays stand out in the county examination, to secure a place among the top students, and to compete for the top spot in the examination.

They selected bizarre and even powerful demon tales from Jiangyin County and wrote a short, hundred-word chronicle of the supernatural.

Han Yugui's previously confident face froze instantly, his expression filled with astonishment.

In the county examination, he wrote a brilliant essay entitled "The Old Locust Tree and the Red Wedding Dress," which described how a centuries-old locust tree in Wuling Mountain had become a spirit.

Regardless of its level of skill or whether he could handle it.

The key is,
That three-hundred-year-old locust tree spirit was struck by lightning and turned into charcoal long ago!

"Instructor Zheng, I wrote about a three-hundred-year-old locust tree spirit from Wuling Mountain!"

The problem is, it is said that the old locust tree spirit was struck by a bolt of lightning and burned to a charred piece of wood!
Wasn't it dead?

How can I kill it again?

Han Yugui was astonished and asked.

"These mountain spirits and monsters of Jiangyin are not so easy to kill!"
He was struck by lightning, that's true!

But it's not necessarily true that it was struck by lightning and killed. The heavens may have turned against it!

The earth has turned into a demon!

Whether it's a disaster or a demon, anything that has survived in my Jiangyin County to this day is not easily eradicated.

According to historical records of Jiangyin County, this 300-year-old locust tree on Wuling Mountain seems to have been struck by lightning seven times, and its eerie legends still circulate to this day.

Clearly, it's not easy to completely eradicate it.

of course,

If all else fails and you can't kill it, you can find another locust tree spirit in Wuling Mountain and kill it as well.

Anyway, all fairies look the same, so no one can tell which one it is.

Zheng Shuqian shook his head.

"What the instructor said makes a lot of sense!"

Han Yugui was speechless for a moment.

"Instructor, the story of the shad spirit robbing the tribute ship that the student described in his report is pure fabrication by a drunkard in the county tavern. It should not be taken seriously!"

Upon hearing this, Lu Ming's face turned pale. He had written "The Robbery of the Shad Spirit Tribute," which was a major case involving the imperial court.

Li Yunxiao, however, remained calm. In his novel, "The Wolf Mountain Lord Eats the Moon," the wolf demons were quite common, arguably the most ordinary demons.

There's no need to make excuses.

Our Jiangyin County is located in Jiangzhou Prefecture, under the jurisdiction of Jiangnan Circuit. It is the most prosperous Jiangnan region in the Great Zhou Dynasty.

Compared to the border states of Saibei, Monan, Lingnan, and Jibei, which are full of barbarians and demons.

The number of demons in our Jiangnan region is actually very small.

There has been no demon king for three hundred years.

In the desolate wilderness of Wuling Mountain, deep in the forests, one might occasionally encounter some minor demons and demon soldiers, none of whom were particularly powerful.

Instructor Zheng smiled faintly.

Jiangnan is a place of few demons, safe and prosperous.

However, this is not necessarily all a good thing, as it means that the scholars and educated men in Jiangyin County have very little practical experience in fighting demons.

Once on the battlefield, casualties are likely to occur.

How to increase students' practical experience has always been a headache for county colleges.

"That 'Demon Chronicle' written by Instructor Zheng's student."

Jiang Xingzhou fell silent.

He wrote "The Iron-Chained Crocodile Dragon Chapter".

According to records, in the summer of the third year of the Tian Shou era, Pei Shoucheng, a former county magistrate and a scholar, personally suppressed a crocodile dragon demon in the Yangtze River.

It has a history of twelve years.

Not to mention that so much time has passed!

That crocodile demon alone was enough to rival a scholar who had passed the imperial examinations; he, a mere student, had no chance against it.

This hole that Cai Yuanjun has created is not easy to fill!

"There's no need to worry about sailing; that alligator dragon demon has long since disappeared into the river and cannot be found."

You kill one or two fish demons and search for one or two old items in the river—such as fragments of the iron chains used to bind the demons back then.

As long as it's satisfactory, it counts as passing the Qingming Festival assessment.

Instructor Zheng said that he did not make things difficult for him.

After all, he also knew that
The alligator dragon demon described by Jiang Xingzhou is a real demon recorded in the "Jiangyin County Annals".

The alligator dragon demon that former magistrate Pei Shoucheng personally dealt with required the full strength of the county, and even involved several retired scholars and academicians from Jiangyin.

Even if they were found, how could a mere student handle it?

"Students, do you still have any questions?"

Instructor Zheng Shuqian looked around and, seeing that the thirty students in the outer dormitory had no other questions, said, "Then let's set off!"

(End of this chapter)