Ask Sword

The day of the final exam in the palace has finally arrived.

Li Ang sat on the attic of the restaurant, watching the examinees who filed towards Suzaku Gate. My heart is full of emotions.

On the table in front of him was a roster, which recorded the general information of the key candidates who participated in the final exam.

As in previous years, there were more than 2,000 candidates for the final exam, and only 700 of them were selected in the end.

It would be fine if the questions of the final exam were more towards the test of spiritual power, but if it was a test of writing or classics.

Li Leling leaned against the window, waved goodbye to Chai Chai, waited until the Suzaku door was closed, then withdrew and said to Li Ang with some worry.

probably not.

Li Ang comforted, Every year's final exam questions are given by the head of the mountain and doctors. They are random and strictly confidential, but they can also be guessed by other methods...

The head of the mountain has been away from Chang'an for so long, and the right to choose the exam questions is in the hands of the doctors.

If this year's exam is about classics, then Dr. Wang Wenlun, who wrote the questions, should disappear for a while to avoid suspicion.

Since they have not disappeared, there is a high probability that the final exam questions will not be classics.

Of course, it is also possible that a bunch of questions for the final exam have been ordered long ago, and the head of the mountain and Si ye will randomly select one of them.

Li Ang added silently in his heart.

————

No this exam paper

In the examination room, Chai Chai squinted and checked the examination papers on the table over and over again.

There are three exam papers, normal size, clean white paper, empty without any questions, only the center, with the four characters of birthplace and name printed.

This is your final exam question.

On the podium, a professor from the Slender Academy who was in charge of the exam said loudly: The exam paper doesn't have any additional questions.

You only need to use the issued Langhao pen to fill in your own information in the [Native Place] and [Name] of any exam paper, even if you pass, you can leave the exam room on your own.

What?!

All the examinees in the audience raised their heads in unison, astonished.

Just fill in the information and pass the final exam?

What a joke, they are not His Majesty's most beloved princes and princesses, if they write a composition called My Emperor Yu's Father, they will be admitted to the academy without passing the exam.

There must be something wrong.

You heard me right, there is only this one exam content.

Another chunky invigilator added: Three test papers, only one of which needs to be clearly written is considered a pass.

In addition, the clearer the handwriting, the higher the score.

The examiner,

A student raised his hand and said, If you write your hometown and name on all three exam papers, won't the probability of being admitted to the entrance palace be higher?

haha, yes.

The thin high school examiner smiled and said, However, there is one thing to pay attention to. If the paper is damaged, or contaminated by excess ink, and the name cannot be read clearly, then the test paper will be invalid.

Three exam papers mean three chances

A strange smile appeared on the face of the thin college examiner, and he slowly took out an open wooden box from under the table.

The wooden box is rectangular, and the grooves in it are neatly stacked with fifty brushes.

The short and fat examiner carried the wooden box, walked down the stage, and carefully picked up brushes with metal tweezers with talismans on them, and placed them on the desks of each examinee.

The barrel of the Langhao pen is made of green bamboo, round and smooth. Mao Feng is translucent and soaked in ink.

call

The chunky examiner's movements were slow and steady. He returned to the stage after all the writing brushes were distributed, took a long breath, and wiped the sweat from his forehead with a handkerchief, as if he had done some heavy physical work.

The exam has officially begun.

The skinny college examiner nodded and said to everyone: Different from previous years, this year's final exam prohibits candidates from communicating privately, and also does not allow any behavior to assist others.

In addition, if candidates experience symptoms such as physical discomfort, fainting, or coma during the exam, the academy will forcibly intervene and escort the candidates out.

If the candidate's symptoms are severe, it is judged that he is no longer suitable for the test, or the fainting time exceeds the test period, then the qualification will be automatically revoked.

I hope all candidates will do their best.

The academy is just a place to study, and there is only one life.

The skinny college examiner spoke sincerely, but many students in the audience showed wry smiles.

For those who are already in the academy, the academy is really just a place for learning.

But for candidates, it means getting ahead, jumping into the dragon's gate, family luck, and glory.

The expectations of the family, the future of the family, and the destiny of the individual all depend on this exam.

The heaviness of it is not only something that the examiner can pass away with a sentence?

As if knowing that he had said something nonsense, the skinny college examiner sighed softly, waved his palms, and announced the start of the final exam.

.

Chai Chai sat on the seat, looked around for a while out of the corner of his eye, and found that all the candidates in the examination room were still sitting where they were, and no one touched their brushes.

The words of the two examiners clearly imply that there is a problem with the examination paper. And everyone has only three chances.

After a long time, some candidates finally took a long breath, stretched out their arms tremblingly, picked up the writing brush on the table, and assumed a writing posture.

Then he froze.

His eyes were wide open, his arms were shaking, his teeth were trembling, and his face was pale, as if he had seen something terrifying and incomprehensible.

tick.

The ink accumulated in the tip of the pen dripped onto the test paper along the tip of the pen, dyeing circular ink marks on the edge of the test paper.

Tick ​​tock.

The ink dripped more and more, as if there was no end, and the examinee finally couldn't hold on after a stalemate for more than ten breaths, dropped the pen holder, and leaned back towards the back of the chair, his whole body was soaked in sweat, as if just Salvaged from the pond.

what happened?

The same question appeared in the minds of all candidates.

Chai Chai rested his chin on his hand and observed the candidate carefully.

The other party's arms trembled, his face was pale, and his eyes drifted away, but his eyes were not congested, and his forehead had no bulging veins. It didn't feel like he had suffered physical torture.

Could it be oppression on the mental level?

Chai Chai hesitated for a moment, took off the jade hairpin on his head, and gently picked the writing brush on his desk with one end of the jade hairpin, nothing unusual.

Using the hosta to dip the ink from the tip of the brush, there is no abnormality.

Even when the nib is squeezed with a hosta, the ink will come out significantly more than the upper limit of the wolf hair.

Could it be that this pen is not the point, but an alienated object that can flow out ink?

The real difficulty lies in the test paper itself?

Chai Chai frowned and thought about it, while some candidates next to him, their eyes lit up, deliberately smeared ink on the table with a brush, and then dipped it with the items they carried, such as jade pendants, trying to bypass the restrictions in this way.

However, when they excitedly tried to write their names on the test paper, they all stopped, showing the same symptoms as the previous candidate.

'how so.'

Chai Chai pursed his lips slightly. So many people had the same reaction, which proved that it was not the first candidate who was pretending.

But Qi Shushua stopped at the same place, proving that the mechanism of the test paper is probably that when the behavior of [trying to write information] occurs, the strange ability takes effect.

Even, as long as the content of I want to write a message occurs in the mind, the ability will be triggered.

Chai Chai slowly retracted his gaze. Some candidates tried to use ink to write the text on the desktop backwards, and then covered it with the test paper to print the text on the test paper.

But this kind of behavior also caused his body to become stiff and unable to move. When he let go of his palm, the entire examination paper fell on the ink marks.

The whole block of the name column was smeared with ink marks, and the test paper was immediately invalidated.

'Is this the power of alienated objects?'

Chai Chai was so shocked, even though she spent all day with Li Ang and Li Leling, two school disciples, she had never seen any alienated objects.

Time passed by every minute and every second, and candidates kept dropping brushes in the examination room, and some even fainted and fell to the ground.

Don't move, I'll help you.

The skinny high school examiner ran down the podium, stopped the other examinees, and used his thoughts to help the fainted student up. After checking the situation, he was sent directly out of the examination room.

The examiner returned after a while, and announced to the rest of the candidates: After the doctor's examination, his condition is no longer suitable for the exam, and he can only wait until next year.

After all, the thin high school examiner paused, as if he couldn't bear to see the students torture themselves, and sighed: This final exam not only tests courage and perseverance, but also tests heart, wisdom, and understanding.

Please do what you can.

After finishing speaking, he sat back in front of the stage and drank tea without saying a word.

Heart, Wisdom, Comprehension.

Chai Chai lowered his head thoughtfully, and looked at the examination paper again.

According to the examiner's repetition, there are no interlayers in the test paper, or invisible questions that require special means to see.

The only test center is to write the name of the native place.

Being able to do it means stepping into the school palace and jumping over the dragon gate. If you can't do it, you can only come back next year, or even bid farewell to the academy forever.

The memories of this period of time flashed through Chai Chaishen's mind, took a breath, picked up the writing brush on the table, and slowly moved to the test paper.

!!!

Her eyes widened suddenly, and in the next moment, all the light in the surrounding environment stretched and dimmed rapidly,

Only a strong light shines from the top of the head.

Where am I

She looked around in the chaotic darkness, and suddenly felt an extremely strong fear.

Like a furry spider crawling over the arm, a slippery poisonous snake gliding past the feet, and a sharp blade brushing gently against the neck,

But it's ten times, a hundred times worse than that.

Unable to escape, unable to evade, it was like standing in front of a crumbling, disintegrating and slowly toppling mountain peak, watching Wanjun Mountain rock topple and fall.

It's like facing a natural enemy.

A memory suddenly flashed in Chai Chai's mind.

One summer afternoon, Li Ang was lying on a chair, reading Liu Zongyuan's anthology, and when he saw the article The Snake Catcher, he casually said something.

Animals have such a thing as primal fear.

A sage named Darwin, er, a sage, once brought some real or fake snakes to the zoo to show the chimpanzees there.

A zoo? A zoo is a place where animals are kept in captivity, similar to Neiyuan. A chimpanzee is a black-haired monkey.

“He found that bringing a real snake or a model snake made by a human made chimpanzees extremely terrified. Even chimpanzees who were born in a zoo and had never seen a snake in their entire lives.”

This is very strange. It is understandable for those orangutans in the wild to be afraid of poisonous snakes, but why do orangutans who have never seen a poisonous snake feel fear?

He guessed that animals have built up the fear of snakes from generation to generation during the survival and reproduction of thousands of years. When the offspring of animals see snakes with the same shape, color and smell, they will instinctively feel afraid. , subconsciously run away in panic or freeze. Just like a mouse seeing a cat.

The pictures in my memory gradually fade away,

But the light above his head was gradually extinguishing.

The darkness came from all directions, and that strong inexplicable fear swept over her body, and Chai Cuiqiao took a step back involuntarily.

Slap.

Consciousness returned to the examination room in an instant,

The writing brush fell from the sweaty hands and fell on the test paper, smearing a piece of the test paper.

Ha ha.

Like other candidates, Chai Chai sat on the seat, breathing deeply, calming down the fear.

The darkness in the illusion clearly didn't show anything, but she was still so frightened that she couldn't be more frightened, and her mind was shaken.

Slap.

Slap.

The sound of falling pens in the examination room is endless, and every time a pen is dropped, it means that someone has withdrawn from the illusion.

.

The two examiners looked at each other, shook their heads helplessly, and sighed inwardly, 'This year's final exam is really too difficult. I don't know what Jijiu thought. '

————

What do I think?

In the hall of Honglu Temple, Chen Danqiu, who offered wine in the academy, raised his head from his books and looked at the other doctors, Is this year's exam questions difficult?

It's more than difficult.

Mu Changgeng, a doctor of agriculture, sighed: That is a first-class [Yuanyan] ah. Even if the test paper is only mixed with a little bit of Yuanyan, those students who don't even have a sense of energy may find it difficult to deal with it.

[Yuan Yan] directly affects the mind and mind of a person, and even personal courage is useless. Confucian scholars who have no power to restrain a chicken, and students recommended by the Ministry of War who have killed the enemy in battle, the performance of [Yuan Yan] is almost the same. no difference.

You will also be frightened off abruptly.

Xue Che, Department of Physical Sciences, frowned and said, Danqiu, this topic of yours

The head of the mountain is not here, and I will decide all the examination matters.

Chen Danqiu said indifferently: What's more, I have checked every test paper, and the [Yuanyan] content is just at the level that can scare people away, but not scare people to death.

He paused, glanced at his colleagues with different expressions on the scene, and said calmly: Also, don't think this is too harsh on the candidates.

Today, it is different from the past.

.

Some academic doctors still frowned, while Xue Che, Tantai Leshan, Su Feng and others were thoughtful.

Only a few people have the right to know that Jianxue Siye Cui Yixian and Nianxue Siye Xi Yangyu, who were wanted by the Yu State's most wanted suspect, Jun Qianzi, arranged together in the Hundred Thousand Barren Mountains.

Junqianzi is just one of the persistent illnesses. What really worries Xuegong and the State of Yu is the even bigger shadow lurking behind him.

As for the head teacher of Haotian Daomen who suddenly ended his retreat some time ago, and the letter they sent requesting an academic exchange with the academy.

It also made them feel faintly worried.

The situation seemed to have undergone some inexplicable changes, but the head of the mountain and Jijiu, who knew the inside story, still didn't disclose anything to outsiders, even Xue Che and other officials.