Top Scholar

Chapter 24 The Final Sprint

The old man glanced at his eldest daughter-in-law again, and the eldest aunt reluctantly brought out a small box containing some loose silver coins, two strings of copper coins, and a lot of worthless paper money.

"This is the money the whole family is giving you for changing your address to someone else. Take it and use it to buy some household items." The old man handed it to his youngest daughter-in-law; these were all the gifts he had received yesterday.

Although we weren't supposed to contribute money, could the clansmen really come to eat empty-handed? That would be too undignified. So everyone gave a small gift, though much less than what we'd contribute to a meal.

"Yes, thank you, Dad." The aunt took the money box with both hands.

"When we get to the county, don't let the third son manage the money. That kid can't shake his spoiled brat attitude; he'll squander any amount of money," the old man instructed again.

Cui Cui nodded, indicating that she had remembered. Her uncle also had no objections; having stirred up such a big mess this time, he was now completely obedient.

“Although your father said he wants to hire a maid to take care of you for a year, I’m not comfortable with just an outsider. Let’s send someone from the family to look after you.” The old man sighed softly as he spoke, “Originally, it would have been best if your aunt went, but she’s not suitable…”

The younger aunt lowered her head sadly upon hearing this. She was actually a few years older than her younger brother-in-law, and naturally, they had been engaged long ago. But her first marriage ended before the ceremony, when her fiancé died of illness. Two years ago, she was arranged to marry a military officer, but just before the wedding, the Miao people of Bozhou rebelled, and the groom-to-be tragically died in battle while fighting the rebellion…

As a result, the younger sister-in-law acquired an unlucky reputation, and even on her joyous occasion yesterday, she avoided showing up. It was even less likely that she would be allowed to attend to such a dangerous event as childbirth.

"So it's best if your sister-in-law goes and stay there for a year or two. She's all bark and no bite, and sometimes she doesn't think before she speaks, so don't take it to heart," the old man finally instructed.

The younger aunt probably didn't know what kind of person her sister-in-law was, yet she readily agreed. Of course, even if she did know, it wouldn't matter. In the Su family, the old man rarely spoke, but when he did, everything had to be done.

Su Lu secretly sympathized with her aunt; from then on, peaceful days were no longer an option...

~~
The next day, before dawn, the old man took the whole family and escorted his uncle and his wife to the wooden boardwalk on the riverbank.

On the pier, there was a "crooked-bottom boat" commonly seen on the Chishui River. Its most distinctive feature is its tall, right-leaning stern, on which the boatman holding a giant oar stands, as if he is standing in mid-air.

This design was naturally intended to navigate the winding, treacherous rapids of the Chishui River. Even so, navigation is only possible during the dry season. During the high-water season, when the current is rapid and no hidden reefs are visible, no one dares to take the risk.

Grandpa Cheng and his eldest son were already waiting on the boat; they were responsible for taking the people to the county.

Watching the boatman maneuver the massive oar, which was over ten feet long, and steer the boat downstream at an angle, the old man breathed a long sigh of relief.

After a month, I finally cleaned up the ditch for the third son...

As soon as he relaxed, his back hunched over again, and he was exhausted.

"Truly, many children and grandchildren bring many troubles." The old man reached into his purse and pulled out a betel leaf roll. He first held it to his nose and took a deep breath of its refreshing and invigorating aroma before putting it in his mouth to chew. The spicy, pungent, and fragrant taste instantly filled his mouth and then went straight to his scalp, finally giving him the strength to walk home.

After returning home, he returned to his dejected state, barely eating three meals a day and sleeping twice a day, speaking no more than ten sentences. It's unclear how long he will need to recuperate before he can have another outburst.

On the other hand, his grandson, Su Lu, began to unleash his inner power and start his final fourteen-day sprint before the exam!
~~
Anyone who has been to school knows the importance of last-minute cramming. The period before the exam is the most effective time to improve scores, and every minute is precious!
At this point, Su Lu still had 53,000 characters to learn and a lot of material to review.

Su Youcai was panicking like a dog, constantly muttering, "It's too late, it's too late..."

Su Lu wasn't flustered at all; he was a habitual offender in this regard. Back when he was in college, apart from core subjects like English and advanced mathematics, he would only receive his review materials for other subjects a week or two before the exams.

Memorizing the entire exam content for one course in a day is practically a given. Although I forget everything right after the exam, at least I can get by... While the main reason I've never failed a course is that the teachers are lenient, it can't be denied that the effect of short-term, high-intensity memorization is excellent!

He believed that his younger body, after three months of hard work day and night, had reached its peak in terms of memory and would definitely have an even stronger performance!
Of course, Su Lu didn't rush into things. He carefully planned his time—firstly, his small regular script calligraphy had barely reached the basics. According to his older brother, although it still had nothing remarkable, it wasn't bad enough to disgust the teacher and get points deducted for poor handwriting.

Su Youcai said he benefited from taking the exam in December. That's the coldest time of year; his hands were frozen. The children's basic skills weren't yet up to par, which definitely affected their handwriting. So, everyone's papers didn't look too different…

So Su Lu temporarily canceled his daily one-hour calligraphy practice session. With his current handwriting level, he could maintain his skills simply by copying articles, so he didn't need to practice specifically anymore.

This way, fourteen hours can be saved in fourteen days, and these are effective study time, which is equivalent to almost two extra days.

Secondly, he reduced the number of review sessions to four: twenty minutes, one hour, one day, and seven days after the first review. In the last few days before the exam, he further reduced it to three times. This method gave him two extra days to learn new material.

This is equivalent to having 18 days of study time, averaging 3,000 words per day, totaling 54,000 words. The time is just right, no more and no less!

This precise time management ability left Su Youcai speechless, and he even wanted to become this master's apprentice and learn time management.
Although there was finally enough time, Su Lu still tried to improve her memorization efficiency so that she could squeeze out a little more time each day to review the material she had memorized in the first month...

If things go wrong and I don't even pass the written exam, that would be a real disaster.

Therefore, he only slept for two hours a day, memorizing texts whether he was awake or asleep.

In the last few days, he eliminated all distractions, stayed indoors, and even ate his meals inside the house.

Every time my aunt came to deliver meals, I felt uneasy. The table, the bed, the floor, the walls of the room, and even the ceiling were covered with yellow banana leaf paper, each with black lines drawn on it like tree branches.

Qiu Ge'er sat cross-legged in the middle, muttering to himself while looking at the papers, his eyes never leaving them even while eating.

The younger sister wanted to help tidy up, but Qiu Ge'er repeatedly stopped her, which frightened her so much that she quickly raised her hands, stood on tiptoe, and retreated as if crossing a minefield.

As he was leaving, he bumped into his older brother returning from his work assignment.

"What's going on? Your face is deathly pale. Have you been possessed?" the uncle asked curiously.

"Shh, it seems like Qiu-ge'er is performing a ritual..." The aunt quickly made a shushing gesture and whispered, "Don't disturb him."

"Oh." The uncle quickly covered his mouth, thinking it made perfect sense. Cramming before an exam is only human nature.

She whispered to her aunt, "I'll have the second son take him to Guanyin Mountain to pray later. It'll definitely be better than him praying blindly."

"Oh," the aunt replied, thinking to herself, "Isn't that a place for praying for a child?"
Su Lu was certainly not performing any mysterious ritual; what he was using was called the 'memory palace technique'.

This is a clever associative memory technique. Its principle is to combine the content to be remembered with a spatial scene, thereby helping to remember and recall information.

During exams, we often encounter this situation: the knowledge points being tested are ones we've clearly memorized, but we just can't recall the specific details. This indicates a problem in the memory retrieval process.

The memory palace can solve this problem. The specific operation is like this: fix the knowledge points in an orderly manner in a familiar environment. At this moment, the thirty-three banana leaf papers hanging on the wall in front of him are the thirty-three chapters of "The Doctrine of the Mean".

The first image from the right is the first chapter of the Doctrine of the Mean, "What Heaven ordains is called human nature."

The twelfth page is the twelfth chapter of the Doctrine of the Mean, "The Way of the Gentleman is Subtle and Hidden."

The twenty-second chapter is the twenty-second chapter of the Doctrine of the Mean, "Sincerity and enlightenment are called human nature."

On the other three walls, the Collected Commentaries on Mencius were hung in the same manner. The Collected Commentaries on the Analects occupied the ceiling and the floor.

As for the "Commentary on the Great Learning," it was laid out flat on the table in order...

Su Lu spent his days facing the wall in silence, trying to deepen his understanding of the connection between knowledge and space. He stayed indoors to avoid information overload and to prevent this connection from weakening.

Once he established a strong connection, this place became his memory palace!
This method is very effective when you need to memorize a lot of information. When he recalls certain chapters, he only needs to imagine himself back in the room and 'walk' to the corresponding location to accurately retrieve the memory content he needs.

~~
Every night, Su Youcai would randomly select passages from the "Collected Annotations on the Four Books" in the next room to test him:
"He fishes without using a net, and shoots without using a bow and arrow."

After his father finished speaking, Su Lu closed his eyes slightly and returned to his 'memory palace'.

First, he knew that this sentence came from the Analects with Commentary, so he looked at the ceiling, which would help him quickly recall the specific source of the sentence—from Book 4, Chapter 7!
His gaze fell on the roof beam, where the scroll was to be hung.

All of this sounds complicated, but it all happened in the blink of an eye. Su Lu had already located the "Seventh Chapter of the Narrative" and "saw" the mind map on the banana leaf. The corresponding memories flooded his mind, and he blurted out:
"The 'gang' is a net attached to a large rope, used to fish by cutting off the current. 'Yi' is an arrow tied with raw silk for shooting. 'Su' refers to roosting birds. Hong Shi said: 'Confucius was poor and lowly in his youth. To support his family and perform sacrifices, he sometimes had no choice but to fish or hunt, just like hunting...'"

"Hmm, not bad." Su Youcai nodded. All day until bedtime, he kept testing Su Lu.

In fact, testing oneself is also a method to help solidify memory.

P.S. Thanks to my longtime reader Xiaomin for the generous donation! I'll add more chapters after the book is released!
(End of this chapter)