My Wife is Unbeatable in the Whole World, Touch Me If You Dare!-Chapter 280 - 162: The Start of Spring Examinations

Let's not talk about the Imperial Examination for the moment, as far as Li Nuo was concerned, he first had to face the spring examinations at the beginning of next month.

Less than a month remained until the spring examinations, and just as Li Anning said, he could no longer indulge in his romantic affairs.

Li Nuo sent his wife back to the Song Family first.

He planned to make a final push before the examination. Having an unforgettable memory could only help him remember the content of the books; how to understand and apply the knowledge would still require some hard work.

Time flew by, and half a month had passed.

Li Anning walked out of the Ministry of Justice with an expression of utmost disappointment on her face.

Half a month had gone by, and he hadn't visited the Ministry of Justice once. Even if he couldn't do anything, couldn't he at least comfort her?

She went to the Song Residence and discovered that Li Nuo wasn't there.

After inquiring, she learned that Song Jiaren had returned half a month ago, but Li Nuo had been staying at the Li Mansion the whole time.

She went to the Li Mansion where Housekeeper Wu took her to a particular courtyard.

Inside the courtyard, two of the Li Mansion's maidservants were cleaning while whispering to each other.

"The young master has been so hardworking these past half a month, studying from dawn till dusk..."

"I heard that the young master seems to be preparing for the Imperial Examination."

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"Isn't it said that one needs to study for ten years to take the Imperial Examination? The young master has only been studying for half a year, can he pass?"

"I don't know, I heard the Imperial Examination is very difficult..."

...

Li Anning reached the doorway and saw that figure sitting behind the desk, intently reading. Suddenly, all her anger dissipated.

Even if she knew that he couldn't change anything, she still felt a twinge of emotion in her heart.

Li Nuo glanced up and said with surprise, "Why are you here?"

Li Anning entered the room and said indifferently, "I came to see you, is that not allowed?"

She looked at the scattering of books on the desk and asked, "How prepared are you? How confident are you?"

Li Nuo asked, "What kind of confidence are you talking about?"

Li Anning shot him a look and said, "Of course, I mean the confidence of becoming an Advanced Scholar. Or are you as confident as your father in achieving the Sixth-Ranking Scholar?"

Li Nuo thought for a moment and said, "Seven or eight out of ten, I suppose."

The confidence to become an Advanced Scholar, of course, he was fully confident.

Sixth-Ranking Scholar, at present, he truly didn't have the capability.

But no matter, there was still more than a month until the Imperial Examination, and his room for improvement was still significant; he had already made some preparations in advance.

Li Anning looked at Li Nuo, and at that moment, a glimmer of hope genuinely arose in her heart.

What if...what if he really could, like his father, single-handedly achieve the Sixth-Ranking Scholar?

But soon, she scoffed at herself, shook her head, and cast aside that unrealistic thought.

In the worst case, she would just leave when the time came.

After all, she would absolutely not marry someone she didn't love!

...

Within the books, there is no passage of time; it passes quickly, and in the blink of an eye it was February.

On the first day of February, the spring examinations officially began.

In previous years, the entire Capital Road boasted only two or three thousand participants in the spring examinations.

Like the Imperial Examination, the spring exams included all Six Arts, although they were much less difficult. Still, each subject had to be graded above a B.

Even passing the spring exams couldn't guarantee admission.

This session's reform of the Imperial Examination cut off other methods of entering the academy, causing an abrupt surge in the number of candidates registering for the spring exams, which reached over ten thousand—several times the number of previous years.

All the candidates were divided among various Examination Halls.

In Chang'an, at a certain Examination Hall.

Li Nuo sat inside a narrow examination booth with several examination papers laid out in front of him.

Like the Imperial Examination, the first day of the spring exams was for the Book Department.

The Book Department was divided into four parts.

Calligraphy, painting, Law, and Composition.

The exam started in the morning at 7 a.m. and ended in the evening at 9 p.m.

It was approximately a twelve-hour span from morning to night to complete four subjects.

Candidates could choose in which order to write the subjects based on their circumstances.

Generally speaking, most candidates would choose Calligraphy.

This subject was the simplest and took the least time as it only required writing a piece of calligraphy of no more than 100 characters which could be completed in a quarter of an hour if swiftly done.

The content of Calligraphy was standardized, but the style of writing was not restricted.

This spring exam's Calligraphy content consisted of a passage from the Sixteen Classics, approximately seventy characters long.

Li Nuo picked up his brush and, with a thought, activated the image of Gu Yanran from the Law Code in his mind.

After a moment of contemplation, he swiftly began writing. His calligraphy flowed like a dragon snaking across the paper, completing it in one breath.

Considering Gu's progress with other styles of calligraphy had not been significant lately, he could only use the Hairpin Flower Small Regular Script.

After setting the completed Calligraphy exam paper aside to dry, Li Nuo opened another piece of rice paper.

For the Book Department's painting section, candidates typically were given a subject to depict.

This spring exam's painting topic was "Rolling Clouds, Endless Mountains and Rivers," and it required the use of the ink painting technique.

In comparison to Colorful Ink Painting, Ink Painting was much easier. Li Nuo illuminated the image of Han Zhuo and, after a brief moment of consideration, began to paint.

Han Zhuo was better at painting figures, but his landscape paintings were not inferior.

Li Nuo spent a little over two hours on this painting.

After painting, he took out several pastries from his food box and briefly refilled his stomach.

Time was limited; in the afternoon, he still had to answer the Law and Composition sections.

After a short break, Li Nuo opened the Law exam paper.

The format of the Law exam was very straightforward, consisting of twenty questions, each one presenting a real case scenario for candidates to judge according to the Daxia Law.

This required an in-depth understanding of the Daxia Law, ensuring that judgments were neither too light, too heavy, nor incorrect.

Such matters were a piece of cake for Li Nuo, as the entire Daxia Law Code was embedded in his brain. In this subject, he couldn't possibly make any mistakes.

Even so, it took him quite a bit of time to finish these twenty questions.

Having completed the Law exam, Li Nuo dared not rest and immediately opened the final test paper.

This test was on Composition.

The first question on the opened test paper was for a prompted poetry composition.

"Evening Sun."

The topic was only two words, with no restrictions on genre or word count, allowing candidates to express themselves freely.

Evening Sun referred to dusk; the meaning was straightforward. Li Nuo quickly searched his mind for relevant poetry on dusk without giving it much thought, and soon he wrote down four lines.

Feeling out of sorts as evening comes, I drive my chariot to ascend the ancient plains.

The setting sun is boundlessly beautiful, but alas, it heralds the close of day.

Subsequent questions varied greatly, covering politics, economics, systems, military, law, history, and tested the candidates' accumulated knowledge. Basically, each candidate was to select a passage from the "Sixteen Classics," interpret it, and provide their personal views.

Over the past month, Li Nuo had not only memorized the "Sixteen Classics" thoroughly but had also reviewed every popular and obscure translation, allowing him to easily handle these questions.

The Composition questions in the spring examination were much simpler compared to the Imperial Examination; as long as one had a solid foundation, they could generally be answered.

About a two-hour period ahead of schedule, Li Nuo had finished the Book Department exam.

There was no need to check his work again, since even if there had been a mistake, he would not be able to correct it.

Having marks on the test paper could be suspected of marking the exam, which could affect the final assessment.

He organized the test papers neatly, stacked them, placed them on the desk in the exam room, and then left the room.

When he left the Examination Hall, his wife and Mumu were already waiting by the carriage.

After the Book Department exam, all candidates' test papers would be graded first.

To conserve resources, candidates scoring below grade B would be directly eliminated and not required to participate in the subsequent testing.

The court had already summoned examiners; once the first exam was over, they sealed the Examination Hall and started grading rigorously behind closed doors.

They needed to grade all the exam papers within a day and then publicize the list of candidates who had passed this subject.

This task required considerable effort, and teachers from major academies had been summoned in advance.

The night grew deep, yet inside the Examination Hall, it remained brightly lit.

The papers for each minor subject were sorted by category and graded by specialized personnel.

"Writing that is as sloppy as a dog's crawl; such people are just making up the numbers. Even for the spring exam, not just anyone should be allowed in, C-!"

"It's just the spring exam, not the Imperial Examination, don't take it so seriously."

"Stop nagging, speed up the grading so we can finish earlier and head home..."

Inside a certain room, several examiners graded papers while chatting.

Calligraphy was the easiest subject to grade; generally, one glance was enough to draw a conclusion.

Three examiners, grading two thousand papers, didn't even need an entire night.

Although none of the three could be considered grandmasters of calligraphy, they all had considerable skill. Not many papers from the Imperial Examination could catch their eye, and grading the calligraphy papers of the spring examination was practically a torment for them.

At a certain moment, one examiner picked up a paper and his eyes showed surprise. He whispered, "Huh, this paper isn't bad..."

Finding a pleasing paper amidst so much garbage certainly brightened his mood; even his spirits lifted.

But soon, a strange expression crossed his face.

This handwriting is good indeed...

But why is it the Hairpin Flower Small Regular Script?

Which man practices the Hairpin Flower Small Regular Script?

This style is generally practiced by women and is known as the "daughter script."

If a man were to write in Hairpin Flower Small Regular Script, he would be made fun of.

However, purely from the viewpoint of calligraphy, this paper was indeed exquisitely written.

Soft and beautiful, elegant and floating, a real treat to the eyes. After seeing so much rubbish, not only his eyes felt cleansed, but his soul also felt washed.

He was extremely curious as to who could have written such a marvelous Hairpin Flower Small Regular Script.

However, for fairness, both the spring examination and the Imperial Examination papers only had codes rather than names, so he would have to wait until the results were tallied before knowing who authored this paper.

He passed the paper to the other two, saying, "Take a look at this paper; there's something interesting about it."

One of his colleagues had just put down a C-graded paper and took the offered paper casually. A casual glance fixed his attention, and he couldn't look away anymore.

Holding the paper in both hands and bringing it closer to his eyes, he examined it for a long time. Stroking his short beard, he exclaimed in amazement, "What a beautiful Hairpin Flower Small Regular Script! Could there be a woman among the candidates?"

The third colleague, attracted by his voice, came over to take a look and expressed the same amazement after seeing the paper.

Expecting a woman infiltrator in the Examination Hall was out of the question, as candidates were thoroughly inspected before entering; it was unimaginable that a man could write such beautiful Hairpin Flower Small Regular Script.

"Pardon me, but what grade do we assign to this paper?" asked the examiner who had first discovered it.

"Outstanding!"

"Indeed, it must be rated as outstanding!"

The Imperial Examination typically had nine grades, but above A+, there was a first-class rating known as outstanding.

A paper could only receive an outstanding evaluation if it was flawless in every aspect.

"I share the sentiment," he said, nodding, and wrote 'outstanding' on the paper with a vermilion pen before placing it to one side.

At that moment, inside another room in the Examination Hall, an examiner was admiring a painting, exclaiming, "Who would have thought that someone with such advanced painting skill would be present in the spring examination? Even in the official Imperial Examination, this person's painting could compete for a place. This painting deserves a Class A..."

Not long after, similar exclamations rose from two other grading rooms.

"Law without a single flaw—truly a promising pupil of Legalism!"

"Brilliant poetry, well remembered too. Outstanding might be contentious, but surely worth an A+!"

...

At this moment, Li Nuo was unaware of what was happening inside the Examination Hall.

Having tested all day long, he was already exhausted and had quickly drifted into sleep.

In his dreams, he alone claimed the title of top scholar in the Six Arts, and Your Majesty, honoring his promise, married Princess Anning to him. He held his wife with his left hand and embraced Anning with his right—then he woke up shivering from cold.

Li Nuo turned his head, silently released his wife's hand, rolled over, and went back to sleep.

At the same time.

Princess Mansion.

Li Anning lay on a lavish bed, clutching her blanket tightly, not knowing what she dreamt of, her face revealing a blissful smile…