Tranquility

As winter turns to spring, the air smells like gunpowder from firecrackers. It has been a year since Shuanzi's accident, and the life of the Tang family has finally returned to the right track.Although there is no need to observe filial piety for the younger generation who died young, but ordinary people still have some taboos in those years when family affairs happen.Now that the Spring Festival is over, it is a good sign that Tang's carpentry work has gradually increased after being overjoyed.

In the afternoon, in the courtyard of Cheng’s family, two little fur balls, one gold and one silver, rolled together. Little Silver lay on Xiao Jin’s body, biting its ear and pulling it around. Sunlight.

Sister Cheng was sitting on the porch leeward of the wind. The little pink jacket made her skin look smooth. She was embroidering a purse in her hand. On both sides of the purse were embroidered one gold and one silver with two naive puppy puppies. She gathered the tail thread. She lowered her head and bit it off. As soon as she raised her head, she saw Tang Ning's slender figure with the light behind her back, walking towards her unhurriedly.

Sister Cheng was a little surprised. There was only her and her father's bedroom here. Tangning had never been here before. Although she was puzzled, she put down her purse, stood up slowly, and waited for Tangning to approach with a smile.

Tangning glanced at the two balls stacked on top of each other, smiled and said to Sister Cheng, "Is Little Silver bothering you? It's so naughty, I never saw it not moving."

Sister Cheng smiled even more happily: "I'm nothing, but Xiao Jin has been tormented by it so much that it has become more and more lazy, and now I even have to bring food to my mouth."

Tangning frowned and said angrily, "This is not acceptable. It will make it even more lazy, and it will also make sister eat poorly."

Sister Cheng said disapprovingly: "Xiaojin is very good, and she is a girl, so she should be more delicate. Since Qiuqiu gave it to me, I will take good care of it."

The moment Tangning heard Qiuqiu, she still felt a little uncomfortable.Regarding Qiuqiu's death, he has been hiding the truth from Sister Cheng, only telling her that Qiuqiu lived with wolves in the deep mountains and gave birth to many puppies, which he couldn't keep, so he gave these two dogs to them to raise.Sister Cheng doesn't understand the complicated things between wolves and dogs. She only knows that Qiuqiu has found a good home and lives happily, and that's enough.

In order to cover up her gaffe just now, Tangning quickly said, "Anyway, don't spoil it too much. Sir, I still need to ask me for something. Where is his bedroom?"

Sister Cheng turned her beautiful eyes to the locked door of the west wing.

Tangning straightened her clothes immediately, said goodbye to Sister Cheng, knocked on the door and entered the husband's room.

Mr.'s bedroom is actually a study room. The study room in the west wing of the school is full of commonly used books such as the Four Books and Five Classics. In a sense, they are all for others to read, and the books in his bedroom are for himself. .When Tangning came in, he was overwhelmed by the large bookshelves on three walls. Fortunately, he had seen Dr. Lu's collection of books before, so his surprise was only fleeting, and he returned to normal when he turned around and closed the door.

Mr. Cheng was very satisfied with Tangning's performance. After Tangning respectfully finished his salute, Fang nodded and told him to sit down.

Mr. Cheng is a person who doesn't care about etiquette. It can even be said that he despises etiquette, so he rarely asks Tangning to observe the etiquette of teachers and students.

Therefore, his behavior just now made Tangning realize that what the husband said next must be very important.

Sure enough, Mr. Cheng held the teacup and was silent for a long time before slowly saying: "February 25 is the period of the county examination. Although the county examination is not the examination of the imperial examination, it is the beginning of the imperial examination. It must not be underestimated."

Tangning hurriedly stood up and listened to her husband's instruction.

Mr. Cheng waved his hand again, indicating that he did not have to stand up.He took a sip of tea and continued:

"If you had taken the county test last year, I wouldn't have said these things. However, you have grown a lot this year, so it's better to say these things earlier."

He put down his teacup and sat upright, as if he had made up his mind, he looked at Tangning solemnly and said, "You see, the country is safe and the people are peaceful, the world is at peace, and the people all praise the emperor as a wise ruler, but they don't know that although he is not a foolish ruler today, he is still a fool." The real Yongjun, Dazhao's prosperity is due to one person, and this person is the chief assistant of the cabinet, Yu Ying and your lord."

"Master Yu is a veteran of the three dynasties. He is upright and upright, with a high prestige. Under his governance, the people of Dazhao live and work in peace and contentment. Although corruption still exists, it is not serious, and the officials are considered diligent. However, under this prosperous scene, there is There is a great hidden danger, that is, Master Yu is not the confidant of the present. The present is obsessed with cultivating alchemy, neglecting the government affairs, the adults have repeatedly advised him, and the villain has slandered him. This year is fifty-six, if there is good or bad, it is hard to say what will happen to Dazhao in the future."

Speaking of this, Mr. Cheng showed a smile that was not a smile, and said: "Again, there are thirty-three people in today's age. After eating the elixir for more than ten years, they may become immortals soon, who knows for sure. The reason why I allowed you to become an official earlier is out of this consideration, while the situation is still good, I can accumulate experience and contacts earlier, so that if something goes wrong in the future, I won’t be unprepared.”

However, Tang Ning was a little confused. The emperor's first assistant seemed to be far away from him. Even if he became an official, he was only a seventh-rank official. No matter how much they fought, it probably wouldn't affect him.With that in mind, Tangning asked the question.

Mr. Cheng sighed, and said: "You just listen to me saying that you can't understand the rules of the officialdom, and you can only know the true face of politics if you are in it. Don't bother with these for now, just remember them. Now I want to What I told you is closely related to you. The magistrate of this county is surnamed Min Mingning. He was a Juren in the first year of Jingle. Let me tell you, in fact, any examiner is not the key to your success or failure, your success depends entirely on yourself."

Having said that, he stood up, walked in front of Tangning, put his hand on Tangning's shoulder, bowed his head and said earnestly, "In Dazhao, besides rebellion, corruption and cheating in imperial examinations are the most serious crimes. Murder is as long as One person's head, these two crimes are the heads of a group of people, and they must never be touched. However, no matter how many heads are killed, these two crimes have been repeatedly banned, not only in Dazhao, but in all dynasties in history, there has never been corruption and fraud It has been calmed down. This is untouchable, not only does it mean that you are not corrupt or cheating, but more importantly, if you see others doing this, you should not come forward to report it, unless it is a public outrage, otherwise do not get contaminated. "

Hearing this, Tangning felt that something was wrong, and asked in a daze, "Don't tell me you don't stand out when encountering this kind of thing, sir?"

But the gentleman replied with an inexplicable smile, and said irrelevantly: "I will never be an official."

Then, he sat back on the chair and said in a relaxed tone: "After finishing the business, it's time to talk about your homework."

Tangning immediately stood up and tensed her body, secretly thinking that the main event was coming.

The gentleman took a sip of tea, and his tone was full of uncontrollable joy—he was always very happy when teaching students, "I know you are very talented in drawing, but there is no test for drawing in the exam. Apart from letting you The first two sentences of the poem describing the scenery are a bit out of the ordinary, so what's the use? No matter what the poem is, it is a narrative description of the scenery at the beginning, and the emotion is expressed at the end. The important thing is the latter. After all, it is superficial. Poetry is nothing more than that, and there has been some progress in this year. But your stereotyped essay is very ugly. It is unsightly to look at the text without looking at the content. It is not right, the words are jerky, and there is no style at all .Sharp and flamboyant are criticized by others, but if you meet speculative examiners, you may have a chance to be on the list. Being too stable will only make your essays have no bright spots, and the examiners will not even have the impression of prudence, so they are destined to be eliminated You must know that it is much more difficult to leave the examiner with a calm and dignified impression than being aggressive and sharp. If you are not careful, you will become vulgar. The middle degree depends on the point of view in your article. You have something to say, Once you have solved the problem, even if you use the most common method, you are still calm; if you talk in general, you can’t get to the point, even if what you say is the words of a sage, it is still mediocre.”

Tangning didn't know what Mr. said, but as a modern person, it was difficult for him to read vernacular Chinese, let alone write orthodox classical Chinese, which required long-term practice to accumulate.As for the point of view of the article, it depends on luck. If you are lucky, if you encounter a solution in modern times and he happens to know it, the article will be brilliant; if you are unlucky, you will encounter an ancient unwritten rule and he does not understand it. It's a tragedy. He doesn't think there is anything wrong with some words, but the ancients would think that this is simply deceiving teachers and destroying ancestors.To put it bluntly, Tangning lacked knowledge and didn't understand many unspoken rules of ancient society, but as he lived in ancient times for more and more time, these could be made up for.

Obviously, Mr. Tangning knows more about Tangning's level. Although Tangning's stereotyped essays have many problems, he has a broad mind, a flexible mind, and is flexible. The articles I wrote are not too bad.

The stereotyped essays at this time were not as strict as those of later generations, and were only for the convenience of the examiners when judging the essays. Regarding the arguments and ideas in the essays, the imperial court actually advocated letting a hundred flowers bloom.Therefore, Mr. Cheng felt that Tang Ning's unique views were the key to his success in the future, and he should not be suppressed too much, so Mr. Cheng just pointed out his words and sentences, and said, "You should go back and think about what I said today. Think about it, before the end of the county exam, you don't need to come to school, you can just review on your own."

Tangning breathed a sigh of relief, bowed and exited the room.

When he walked down the corridor, he happened to see that Xiao Yin had finally pissed off Xiao Jin, and Xiao Jin held his head and rubbed him hard.Tangning was watching it amusedly. After a while, he realized that there was someone standing beside him. When he turned his head, he saw Sister Cheng lowering her head and rubbing the corner of her clothes. "What's the matter, sister?"

Sister Cheng was startled, she suddenly raised her head to look at Tangning, then lowered her head and took out the pouch embroidered at noon and handed it to him, "You're about to go to the exam, it's inconvenient if you don't have a decent purse to bring change, this is according to The little gold and silver embroideries you painted, you miss them in the city, you can take them out and have a look."

The corners of Tangning's mouth curled up unconsciously, and she wanted to say, if I miss you, I'll take it out to take a look. After holding back for a long time, I didn't feel like opening my mouth. The two stood awkwardly on the porch until the husband went out to see them, and then hurriedly parted.

On February 23, Tangning arrived at the county seat and stayed at Dr. Lu's house.

On February 24th, Tangning went to the county government office to register with her guarantee letter, certifying that she was innocent and not a descendant of a prostitute.

On February 25th, Tangning carried a basket and entered the examination room wearing a blue cloth singlet.

The examination room of the county government is not a single small room. The layout of the examination room is similar to that of modern times. There are neat desks in a big room. Each examinee has a desk, and a few people are assigned to guard it, and the exam begins.

There are five county examinations. The first one is the eight-part essay. If you pass the first one, you can directly take the government examination without continuing to take the next four.When Tangning got the test paper, she saw the test question - "Cultivate the Tao".

The corner of Tangning's mouth twitched. It was really hard for the county magistrate to come up with such a title. Although these two words come from "The Doctrine of the Mean", for those who play with words, it is not a problem to connect with a certain sense of Taoism. It is very convenient for students They used the topic to flatter the emperor, and County Magistrate Min flattered both sides, extremely tactful.

After Tangning finished writing the article, she carefully copied it again. After drying the ink, she rolled it up and put it in a special paper tube.At this moment, he was the only one who finished the exam. Tangning didn't intend to hand in the papers ahead of time. It has been proved that those who specialize do not get good results. With nothing to do, he glanced at Zhang Youcai who was diagonally opposite him.

Zhang Youcai lowered his head. Tangning could only see his pen moving back and forth in a decent manner. He was very curious about what Zhang Youcai had learned in Jiangnan, whether he was really talented, and whether he could pass the county exam.

Zhang Youcai didn't notice the interesting gaze behind him at all. At this moment, he straightened up a little, coughed, and quietly looked at the person on the left, who nodded unobtrusively.He coughed twice again, and the two invigilators guarding the door pretended to scan the audience casually, but consciously avoided Zhang Youcai's direction.

After witnessing the whole process, Tang Ning knew it well. The first thing he thought of was not how to catch Zhang Youcai, but to infer that Zhang Youcai didn't bribe County Magistrate Min. If County Magistrate Min leaked the question, why did Zhang Youcai find the shooter? He just went outside to find someone Write it on behalf and then silently come out.It seems that it is true that Mr. Min said that Magistrate Min's conscience is still alive.

Secondly, he started to think about whether to expose Zhang Youcai. The teacher's teachings were still in his ears, but this was just a small county exam, so it shouldn't have a big impact. Besides, he and Zhang Youcai had already had an enmity, so it wasn't bad. Although Tangning didn't He was not sure if the county magistrate would punish Zhang Youcai, but he was sure that as long as Zhang Youcai was caught on the spot, the county magistrate would not be able to cover him up, and he would be banned from the exam for a few years.

From Tangning making up her mind, to the person handing the test paper to Zhang Youcai, to Tangning reaching out to intercept the test paper from behind, everything happened in a flash.

Suddenly a clear voice sounded, "In broad daylight, under the eyes of everyone, how dare you cheat!"