Emperor Que Shaohua

The 21st year of Tianyi's Wuchen Branch Examination is scheduled for August [-]th, and entry begins at five o'clock in the morning.

For Migui in Luocheng, long-term residence for exam preparation means a lot of expenses. In order to save the cost of board and board, Zhao Mian and others have been staying at the home of a teacher named Sun. It takes about half an hour to drive there by carriage from Prince Jing's Mansion.When Yang Yue arrived with some food and clothing, it was the afternoon of the previous day.Everyone had already packed up and came forward to say hello, but Manager Yang quickly noticed something was wrong. Apart from the nervousness they should have had before entering the room, everyone who greeted them had a heavy face on their faces.

"Why don't you see Heling?" He looked around, but he didn't see Chen Yuanfu.

The six or seven students who were taking the exam were silent for a while, and Zhao Mian replied: "Brother Chen suddenly fell ill last night, and he is still not recovering. If this continues, I wonder if he can still take the exam. "

"It's such a pity," another scholar named Xu Jimo sighed, "Last month's Wenhui, several Hanlin judges said that brother Heling must be a top-ranking candidate with his talent and learning."

According to what everyone said, Chen Yuanfu was still doing well until last night, but he suddenly started to have a fever at night, and then he vomited and had diarrhea.The illness came on violently. When the doctor was invited to see it, he only said that it was due to external wind and cold, and the internal fire was empty, and he had hysteria. Another doctor said that he had eaten his stomach badly.

"However, we have been very careful about our diet recently, and we seldom eat or drink outside, just to prevent the exam from getting sick." Zhao Mian said, with a deep worry on his face, "Yuanfu still doesn't want to miss the exam, and wants to go to the exam." But he's so sick I'm afraid he won't even be able to get out."

Yang Yue went to see the patient, and Chen Yuanfu, who was usually quick thinking, was lying on the bed, his face was gloomy and weak, and he was swaying when he reluctantly got up to greet him.Going to the Gongyuan like this, don't talk about writing an essay to answer the questions, I'm afraid you won't pass out in the examination number.

"Brother Chen, why don't you go back with me, your health is important, let the famous doctor in the mansion treat you." Yang Yue sighed.He didn't know if Xi Minghua had come back, and he didn't know if he would be able to make it in time, but his life was the most important thing, and he needed to be treated as soon as possible if he had an emergency.

Chen Yuanfu insisted on refusing, only saying that resting for a while might improve.Maybe he couldn't get up his energy, or he was worried that King Jing would force him to stay and recuperate when he saw him.

Yang Yue couldn't persuade him for a while, he thought about it, left the two little attendants Chu Shu and Autumn Equinox to take care of him, and hurried back to Prince Jing's mansion by himself.

It was evening when I returned to the mansion.King Jing took medicine and took a nap for half an hour in the afternoon. Xi Minghua, who had returned from Huangjue Temple, was feeling his pulse, and King Ning, who was next to him, listened to Mr. Yang's report.

Luo Pingyuan frowned when he heard that, Chen Yuanfu became ill sooner or later, but at the most critical moment.There is no difference in the diet of all the candidates, so why is he the only one who suddenly fell ill?Having just experienced the Huangsi incident, he thought more than before. He always felt that if this situation was not because of being too nervous before the exam, it would be like being poisoned.

He looked at King Jing, and Luo Yanhua was silent for a while before he said: "Director Yang is very thoughtful. Chen Heling has a very high temperament and a stubborn personality. The more frustrated he is, the more he refuses to ask for help. It's not good to force him to persuade him. Just look at him He still insisted on taking the exam, and I was a little worried that his body would not be able to endure it.”

"Let me go for a while," Xi Minghua said, looking at the sky outside the window, "What's the use of being brave, you have to determine what the disease is before talking about other things."

"Thank you so much, Master Gu," Jing Wang said, "How about I ask Xiaoshuang to help you get the medicine box?"

"You don't need to say thank you," Xi Minghua sighed, "I'm forced to do so, and I'm sure that nothing will happen to him, so that Sect Master Jiang can sleep soundly at night. Otherwise, it seems that this kind of person will go his own way for a scientific examination and even risk his life." I really don't want to deal with someone who is so talented, even if he is so talented."

"...Anyway, with Dr. Xi around, I feel at ease." King Jing said, "Yuan Fu is not someone who is keen on fame and fame. No wonder he couldn't get over it."

Luo Pingyuan watched Jing Wang and Xi Guzhu helplessly settle the matter, which was a little funny, but also full of gratitude to Xi Minghua.Brother Huang sent Qin Shuang to go with him, obviously he also felt that the illness was strange, and he wanted to find out the cause.Thinking of Chen Yuanfu, he felt regretful. After all, the exam is the most important battlefield for a student. It is a blessing in misfortune to get the help of the Master of Dream Fairy Valley, but even if he can force himself to enter the palace, his state will definitely be greatly affected.

Although Xi Minghua said it reluctantly, but curing a disease is like putting out a fire, he immediately tidied up, and then hurried away accompanied by Qin Shuang.

After dinner, King Jing originally wanted King Ning to go back to Michelle House to rest, after all, he had been with him all day.But Luo Pingyuan took a volume of Tang poems and sat down in front of the bed, and began to read and recite them slowly.

He couldn't help but smile, Luo Pingyuan must be afraid that he would miss Chen Yuanfu's illness, so he wanted to distract himself by reading poems.This method is indeed quite effective, the yellowish halo of the oil lamp reflects the neat and tidy furnishings in the room, adding warmth, and also reflects the focused face of the emperor's brother.

After reading one by one, at some point, Jing Wang found that he was gradually fascinated by listening.Luo Pingyuan's voice is clear and slightly circumflexed, especially when he reads famous lines from Shixian.

The same is true of worldly carnival. In ancient times, everything flows eastward, and when the other troops go, when will they return, and put the white deer among the green cliffs.

"Ping Yuan," he said, "you have been reading Layman Qinglian's poems, but you have a particular preference?"

Luo Pingyuan himself didn't notice it, he thought for a while and said: "I think these lines are related to the emperor's luck, you should like it, so I read it unknowingly."

"I heard that the love is true. A generation of poets, I and other common people who do not admire, dare to say that luck is connected." King Jing laughed.It is said that when Li Bai was young, his demeanor was indeed like that of an exiled immortal. He came out of Shu in a beautiful light boat, robbing the world of love.

When Luo Yanhua thinks about it, the kind of spirit of traveling the world and indulging in mountains and rivers is so far away from him, and he can't help but want to sigh.Listening to his younger brother reading poems and talking a few words from time to time, he became more and more sleepy, and he didn't know when Luo Pingyuan stopped.

The owner of Mengxian Valley didn't come back until dawn, and his face was not very good-looking.When the carriage drove into the mansion and stopped, he directed several subordinates to push a middle-aged man dressed as a scribe out of the carriage, and ordered them to find a vacant room and lock him up first.

Luo Pingyuan returned to Hanxiaozhai last night after King Jing fell into a deep sleep, he came out of the room after hearing the noise, and saw this scene.

"Master Gu has worked hard." He went up to meet him and said, "How is Brother Heling? Can Dr. Xi sit in my study?" After a quick glance, the man looked gentle, but his face was flustered and his eyes kept moving.

"Chen Yuanfu has already gone to the Tribute Academy to take the exam. If he insists on getting sick, I don't bother to stop him." Xi Minghua said lightly, "I think it's right. He was drugged, but luckily it's not serious."

He took Qin Shuang to walk towards Hanxiaozhai, and said again: "Your Highness Fifth has learned how to cut off beards now. Sect Master Jiang is still awake at this time, so let's talk to you first."

Luo Pingyuan was half relieved, and followed behind: "Dr. Xi has already found out who did the harm secretly?" It seems that it is probably the person just now.

"They live in other people's homes, who else can they have?" Sure enough, Xi Minghua said, and glanced at him, "I'm busy detoxifying, so I don't have time to ask more questions, so I can only bring back the school teacher surnamed Sun."

Chen Yuanfu was given a potion mixed with croton, which was quite violent and even fatal in severe cases.He often drank strong Guanyin tea, and he didn't guard against the tea leaves being stolen by others, so he got the idea like this.Fortunately, the person who did it was a layman, and he was afraid that he would drink it wrong, so the dose was still light.

Xi Minghua brought some antidote drugs with him, and when he arrived, he was prescribed a prescription for the symptoms, and he was caught overnight. When he was about to leave for the exam, Chen Yuanfu still had a fever, but his diarrhea had largely stopped, and his spirit had improved.

"It's not easy to take the medicine soup to the examination room, so I had to let him drink another dose before leaving, and bring some pills with me for emergency, and then it's up to his own luck." Xi Ming painted.

"Then why did Mr. Sun Shu do such a thing?" Luo Pingyuan said, "Wouldn't it be a personal grudge if you only attack Brother Heling alone?"

"The behavior surnamed Sun can't be denied after being found out, but if you ask him why, he will flicker and refuse to tell the truth." Qin Shuang said, "I want to ask deeply, but he will cry to Fanxi and the others for help and beg for mercy, so don't push him too hard face to face. .Now that I have passed the exam, it’s not too late to ask questions slowly.”

"Your Highness Fifth, Sect Master Jiang will definitely intervene in this matter. You don't have to hide it from him, just try to ask as clearly as possible so that he doesn't have to think about it." Xi Minghua instructed, after a busy night, his expression was a little tired, " I'll go to sleep, and you can discuss the rest of the matter."

After seeing off the owner of Mengxian Valley, Luo Pingyuan said: "Let's go, Xiaoshuang, let's go ask for a confession together."

Qin Shuang glanced at him silently, not knowing when, King Ning used the name King Jing gave to the hidden guards of the Manfu, completely ignoring the fact that he was seven years older than him.He protested once, and King Ning's answer was very calm: "Your lord is my brother emperor." So Chen Yuanfu was brother Heling, Feng Jingyi was also senior brother Feng, and only he was called Xiaoshuang.

"Your Highness Fifth, you don't have to go," he said, "Just leave this kind of matter to me, and there are plenty of ways to get him to tell the truth."

"You come to ask, I don't interrupt, I just want to see Xuanshuang's method of interrogating confessions." Luo Pingyuan smiled, and said slowly, "In a few days, when Brother Huang is in better health, I want to interrogate someone personally .”

The truth is, if Luo Pingyuan wanted to improve his skill of extorting confessions by watching Qin Shuang's interrogation, this opportunity is really not ideal.Master Sun Shu is a talented person who is not familiar with martial arts and has no strength of character. Just being smashed and drugged, and then taken to the palace, he was already scared out of his wits.Qin Shuang cross-examined him for half an hour, but he didn't even use methods to extract a confession. He had already asked him everything he knew.

Mr. Sun Shu was from Los Angeles. After being selected as a scholar, he failed to pass the provincial examination three times, so he gave up the idea of ​​going to school. Relying on some ancestral houses in his family, he opened a private school. Provide board and board, not only to win fame, but also to make a living from it.

At first, Zhao Mian and two acquaintances lived in his home. This year was the year of the big exam, and Chen Yuanfu and others lived in, and they often talked about articles together.There are many talents and names in the group, especially Chen and Zhao. Someone once lamented at the literary conference that it is difficult to learn from Chen Heling, and it is difficult to learn from Zhao Fanxi.

Master Sun Shu was very pleased with this, but what he didn't expect was that all this could be transformed into actual benefits.

Since about a month ago, due to the approaching exam period, everyone refused to entertain outsiders, and concentrated on studying behind closed doors, and they still often exchanged essays with each other.At this time, someone found Mr. Sun Shu, a scholar in his 40s, wearing a Confucian shirt, with a goatee, and looked like a staff member of the Qing Dynasty.In a wine shop that Mr. Sun Shu often visited, the man pushed across the table 80 taels of silver and a paper scroll, with only one line written in it: Everything will be established if it is planned, and it will be destroyed if it is not planned.It comes from "the mean".

Master Sun Shu looked at the 80 taels of snowflake silver ingots, and even his hands trembled a little. His annual income was only four to fifty taels.The person who came just smiled inscrutablely and profoundly, and told him that what he had to do was very simple: hold a small literary meeting, and let the students who lived at home use this sentence as the topic to make a policy discussion, and then If you try to copy a copy of the article you wrote and send it out, you can get another 50 taels of silver.Of course, everything must be kept strictly confidential and must not be mentioned to anyone.

Master Sun Shu didn't understand why someone would pay such a high price for a few policy theories, but he took the 80 taels of silver, and he didn't want to give up and return it anyway, and agreed almost immediately.He put in a lot of thought and got the job done, except for Zhao Mian who didn't attend because of temporary business that day, and got all the strategies and theories of the others.To his delight, the gold owner did not withhold the silver, and he still got the full 120 taels.

Then, three days before Qiu Wei, the mysterious literati came to him again, and brought a person with him. The other party was in his 20s, dressed like a rich man's entourage, and spoke very arrogantly. .This time Goatee simply said hello and left, followed by another table, and the attendant pushed over 150 taels of silver bills.In addition, after the event is completed, the same amount will be given, 300 taels. If you buy Chen Yuanfu, you will not be able to take the exam.

It was already broad daylight, Qin Shuang ordered someone to drag Master Sun Shu, whose face was full of tears and slumped into a ball of ooze, to be kept locked up, and exchanged a glance with King Ning: "Your Highness thinks, what is going on here."

"First, I specified the topic to buy essays, and then spent a lot of money to prevent brother Chen from taking the exam," Luo Pingyuan thought, "It seems that the problem lies in the topic of Taoism, could it be...that is the exam question of this subject? Thinking of this possibility, his brows furrowed.

The questions of the scientific examinations in the past dynasties are all from the Four Books and Five Classics. Before the examination, there are always many people who speculate on the holy will or the mind of the chief examiner, and try to bet on the questions. There are even some people who spend money to buy discarded writing paper in the examiner's study room, and try every means to bribe the servants in the imperial study room, just to bet on the exam questions.

All kinds of guesses are fine, and the people above usually turn a blind eye to it, but if the test questions are really leaked to the outside, it will be cheating in the scientific examination, and the nature is completely different. being disturbed.

He knew that in the three-day examination, there would be a total of three questions and two poems. The first question of policy theory was drawn up by Emperor Tianyi himself, and it was the most important when selecting scholars, and the other two questions should be written by the chief examiner Li Furen.If you are not quite sure, who will spend hundreds of taels of silver to buy a few strategies for exam preparation.The reason why he wanted to frame Chen Yuanfu was probably because he liked his literary talents and wanted to steal the answers for himself, so he did not hesitate to prescribe drugs to avoid similar answers at that time.

"That's probably the case," Qin Shuang listened to his thoughts, lowered her head and thought for a while, "but it stands to reason that if the students of this course get the leaked exam questions, they will try to keep it secret as much as possible, and don't want other candidates to know .Chen Yuanfu is already well-known for his talent and learning. Even if you want to steal an article, it is enough to get his own theory. Why ask for an essay meeting and let seven or eight competitors prepare this topic in advance. "

"Perhaps this person was also coveting Brother Zhao's article, but unexpectedly Brother Zhao didn't participate." Luo Pingyuan said.Thinking that everyone has already entered the Tribute Academy at this moment, he feels helpless for a while. Even if it really matches the exam questions, it can't prove anything based on a single policy topic. The way, now the situation is clear, I wonder if Brother Huang got up or not."

King Jing had already woken up.He has always been a light sleeper with many dreams, but he didn't wake up once last night. When he got up, he felt a lot lighter all over his body.In the past few days, I have been either busy or sick, plus I have a fever and sweat layer after layer. It's okay when I don't care about it. At this moment, thinking about it, I suddenly feel whether it is tolerable or unbearable.When King Ning and Qin Shuang arrived at Lancangju, he had just bathed and was about to have breakfast.

Luo Pingyuan also sat down together. Compared with the usual quietness, King Jing's expression in front of him was a little more relaxed and comfortable. He hadn't seen the emperor's brother relaxed for a few days, so he didn't want to mention his grandson at once. School teacher.

Qin Shuang also remained silent, and it was still halfway through breakfast. King Jing asked Chen Yuanfu, and Luo Pingyuan finally told the news from the night and the morning: "Whether there are tricks in the policy topic, it seems that we will have to wait." Fanxi and the others won't know until they finish the exam. Brother Chen left the stage sick, I hope he can survive."

"That is to say, there may be a policy theory that was leaked before the exam." Wang Jing said, this matter sounds not complicated at first glance, but when he thinks about it carefully, he always feels strange. For a while, he just pondered and remained silent.

He is far more familiar with the procedures of previous scientific expeditions than King Ning.The first topic of policy theory was drawn up by the emperor himself. After the topic was drawn up, Emperor Tianyi put it into the imperial scroll, sealed the outside with wax paint, and sent it to the Gongyuan with the imperial guards on horseback.Li Furen checked that the sealant was intact, and would put the reel in an iron cabinet face to face, and put it together with other questions he had drawn up. Then the cabinet door would be locked, and the key would be kept close to him until Qiu Wei needed to send out the questions that day. open.

The whole process was very rigorous. Li Dashi had lived in the Gongyuan for more than [-] days. Except for a few servants who couldn't get out, he couldn't even meet his family members, let alone pass on news.Looking back at the past scientific examinations, there have been cases where the test questions were suspected to be leaked, but most of them were difficult to trace, and the biggest possibility was that they leaked from people around the emperor.

"Assuming that someone has indeed mastered a topic in this subject's general examination and wants to take the opportunity to cheat, what will he do? If he is a candidate for the test, he must try to get a good essay that is good enough for the test; if he does not take the test, he will Thinking of selling the questions for profit. So someone came to Mr. Sun Shu, and the use of the 500 taels of silver is very interesting." He said, "The students trained by Limo back then, this time there are a total of eight people who refer to it. In addition, the other party got everyone's advice. Chen Yuanfu is the most famous, he must be targeted, but I always feel that not only He Ling, but other people have also been tricked. "

Luo Pingyuan didn't understand what he meant for a while, so what use could the rest of the policy theory be of any use?If it is found that two examinees have the same essay on the topic during the test, I am afraid that they will either be traced or both will be dismissed.

"Pingyuan doesn't know much about Fanxi and Heling's situation these years." Seeing that he was a little confused, King Jing continued, "Maybe I'm thinking too much, but apart from the two purposes of passing the exam and seeking profit mentioned earlier, Perhaps there is another possibility that the original 200 taels of silver was to buy eight of them who failed the ranking."