Because the Empress Dowager Sun and Mrs. Zuo Xiang's wife Sun Kexin, the former master and servant, were illiterate in big characters, so each piece of paper handed over was first read by the concubine Yingchuan, the princess of Weiguo and the lady of Dingxi, and then handed over to the young woman to read aloud the words and sentences written on the paper, and after the five main candidates gave comments, a literate female official was recorded behind the names and surnames of the ladies to be selected.

The first to be read was naturally the first two young ladies in scarlet dresses, and the answers written on their flower notes were exactly the same as what Hong Nushi had read before, not many words, a lot of words, and the two of them each took five comments without any suspense.

Among the women, those who didn't recognize these two young ladies thought that they must be the girls of the Sun family, otherwise how could they answer so neatly, and there was no difference at all. I don't want to wait for Hong Nushi to read out the names and surnames of the two of them, one is surnamed Jin, called Jin Cuiqiao, and the other is surnamed Cao, called Cao Yulian, they are not the girls of the Sun family?

Only those well-informed ladies in the family know about this so-called "golden" girl, "Miss Cao" was still surnamed Sun three months ago, but she suddenly passed out, so she changed her name and surname to become someone else's young lady, but in her bones, isn't she still from the Sun family? Empress Dowager Sun thought that if she covered her ears and stole the bell like this, she would be able to hide from everyone's eyes?

At this time, the chief candidates sitting at the top were passing on the answer of the third person who handed in the flower note, and Concubine Yingchuan only glanced at it, and a smile appeared on her lips, and she handed the flower note to Mrs. Wei Yin with a smile.

Duchess Wei Guo showed surprise in her eyes when she saw the answer written on the paper, and silently handed it to Mrs. Dingxi Houtai, who looked at it carefully, and also handed it to Hong Nushi with a surprised face.

Seeing the expressions of these three main candidates, Hong Nushi was already curious about what Miss Zhou, who was the third to present the flower note, answered, and hurriedly took it to take a look, and was immediately stunned, and read it three times to confirm that she was not mistaken, and couldn't help but glance at the Empress Dowager Sun before reading Cai Wei's answer.

When the ladies sitting below heard Miss Zhou's answer and answered the source of these three sentences word for word, they were in an uproar.

Empress Dowager Sun looked at Na Hong Nushi with round eyes and asked, "What did you just say, did all the girls in the Zhou family answer correctly?" ”

Hong Nushi nodded timidly, "The slave maid has checked it three times, and this Miss Zhou has indeed answered all three sentences correctly, and there is no difference between the source and the upper and lower sentences." ”

Empress Dowager Sun was so angry that she blurted out without having time to think about it: "How is this possible, my question is so difficult to answer, how can she answer it without any difference?" There must be a ghost in this? ”

Zhou Caiwei saw that Empress Dowager Sun could even say such a thing, she almost didn't laugh, hurriedly lowered her head and covered her lips with her sleeve and coughed twice deliberately. The heart said that this queen mother is really old, and she is so confused, she questions herself so clearly, isn't it equivalent to dismantling her own platform?

Cai Wei quietly raised her eyes to look up, she had hurriedly glanced up before, wanting to see what this Empress Dowager Sun, who can also be called a "legend", looked like, but she was dazzled by the golden phoenix crown of the Empress Dowager Sun, and she didn't see what the Empress Dowager looked like at all.

At this moment, I took a closer look, and saw that under the golden phoenix crown was just an old face, this face may have been beautiful and moving when it was young, but now Cai Wei can see on this face in addition to horizontal and vertical wrinkles, and then there is her anger at this time and another faint anxiety and worry.

She was still wondering how this Empress Dowager, as the most noble woman in a country, was pampered and wealthy on weekdays, even if she was old, she shouldn't look so old. But now she suddenly understands a little, seeing that her son has not been able to give birth to an heir for a long time, it is easy for her niece to give birth to a son, but she is still a fool.

She only cared about the Empress Dowager Sun here, and she didn't worry about the Empress Dowager's doubts about her at all, because she knew that Concubine Yingchuan would not miss this opportunity, and she would definitely pay tribute to the Empress Dowager very decently.

Seeing that no one dared to reply to Empress Dowager Sun's words, Concubine Yingchuan coughed lightly and said, "Why did the Empress Dowager forget, although your question is difficult, but Miss Jin and Miss Cao also answered it word for word." Besides, before this topic is read, but you are the only one who knows what this topic is, even if someone wants to play a ghost, they can't get it! ”

It can be seen that no matter how difficult it is to get this question out, as long as the ladies stand up with virtue and memorize all the books on women's virtues, it will be difficult for them to be difficult. If the Queen Mother doesn't believe it, why don't you take the test of the Zhou family girl again, and then come up with a sentence at random and let her answer, or randomly select one from the female book to let her memorize it, if she can't do it, then she is not a pass? ”

Empress Dowager Sun saw that Concubine Yingchuan even dared to say such a risky move, but she wondered if she was in control of the victory or had some kind of tricks, so she was so bold and determined. After this hesitation, it suddenly occurred to her that if she agreed to Concubine Yingchuan's mention and let Zhou Caiwei be asked on the spot again, in case she followed closely and asked Jin Cuiqiao and Cao Yulian in the court, when the time came, the two of them couldn't answer a word, wouldn't they be exposed?

Even Zhou Caiwei didn't answer that day, and the three girls were all swept down by then, which was not the result she wanted to see. Thinking about this, Empress Dowager Sun couldn't help glaring at Concubine Yingchuan fiercely, feeling that this woman was betting that she would not lose both, so she used this to blackmail her, so she had to reluctantly give Cai Wei a comment. The other four main candidates are naturally also judged.

She didn't know that Concubine Yingchuan would propose this proposal, and she didn't have any intention of losing both sides with her, because Concubine Yingchuan knew that no matter which sentence or paragraph she chose from those women's books, Cai Wei could tell the source and memorize the original text.

Empress Dowager Sun thought that the people around her must have missed the question to Concubine Yingchuan, but she didn't know that Concubine Yingchuan didn't know about this topic, but the power of this concubine is that although she didn't know in advance that Empress Dowager Sun would come up with such a tricky question, but when Empress Dowager Sun said that she would come up with the exam questions of virtue that day, she guessed that she would probably make a fuss about those women's books, so she ordered someone to bring a message to Caiwei and ask her to read all the women's books several times.

Zhou Caiwei's father had the ability to never forget, although he didn't pass on all this ability to his daughter, but Zhou Caiwei also remembered it very well, and a book can be memorized by heart as long as he has read it three times.

In the past, his father Zhou Zhen knew that he only had three years, so he personally taught his daughter the most essential and difficult part of the hundred schools of thought and the subset of scriptures and histories, and then selected a batch of books for her to memorize in her heart first, and then recite them in her heart every day to think about their meanings.

Therefore, after Zhou Caiwei read each female book two or three times in the past few days, she naturally remembered it word for word.

Empress Dowager Sun already suspected that it was the people around her who showed her mouth and went out, and when Cui Xiangzhi's daughter also answered two sentences, she firmly believed in this point. couldn't help glaring at Sun Kexin, the wife of Zuo Xiang, this had served her for many years in the past, and it was not unusual to recognize some old people around her, but I don't know which dog slave around her dared to reveal the news to this, and when she went back to the palace to find out, she couldn't see that she had smoked their tendons and skinned them!

Although Cui Qijun, the daughter of the left minister, answered two sentences, but the next sentence of the third sentence answered a word wrong, and wrote "Lingyunzhitai" as "Lingxiaozhitai".

Mrs. Weiguo and Mrs. Dingxi took a look, and the Empress Dowager, who was the first to give a comment, didn't give Zuo Xiang any face, and gave a last-class comment ruthlessly, so how could they evaluate it?

Empress Dowager Sun is naturally not afraid of offending Zuo Xiang, but they have to weigh it, but if they give a medium comment according to their own thoughts, what if they make the Queen Mother unhappy?

These two were in a dilemma, but the second concubine Yingchuan, who gave a comment, solved this trouble for them.

I heard Concubine Yingchuan say unhurriedly: "Although sometimes if you miss a fraction of a second, it will be a thousand miles away, but the difference between the word Miss Cui is not a big mistake in this sentence." "Xiao", rain clouds, and the common saying often says the word Yunxiao, which shows that its meaning is the same. It is not easy for Miss Cui to answer two sentences correctly, although there is a small flaw, but the flaw is not hidden, Miss Cui still deserves a "middle review". ”

Sun Kexin didn't expect that Concubine Yingchuan would help her daughter, so she couldn't help but smile at Concubine Yingchuan. The other two old ladies saw that Concubine Yingchuan's words were soft, but they made it clear that they were against the intention of Empress Dowager Sun, they already felt that today's Concubine Yingchuan was a little different from usual, although she was still so low-key and cautious, but occasionally she would show a little edge, it seemed that it was this time and that time, and now the shape of Concubine Yingchuan is no longer as silent as before.

So these two ladies also followed, and generously gave Miss Cui a "middle evaluation", Cui Qijun got four "middle reviews" and one "lower evaluation" at the first level, which is an extremely good result compared to the dozen or so young ladies who did not even get the "lower evaluation" and were eliminated.

Because the topic of the first level of the Empress Dowager Sun is too tricky, there is a lady who is familiar with women's books who answered one or two sentences, and the number is very small, but only seven or eight. Several ladies couldn't even write, so they had to hand in a blank paper, and the rest wrote an answer randomly, wanting to get one or two right, but how easy it was to get one right.

However, the grandnephew and granddaughter of Mrs. Weiguo were very lucky, she wrote all three sentences from "Internal Training", and she was blinded by one, although she did not write the upper and lower sentences, but several main candidates looked at the face of Mrs. Weiguo, and gave her a "lower comment", so that she passed this level first.

After the first round of examinations, a total of 14 young ladies passed the examination and were able to participate in the remaining four examinations, while the remaining 16 young ladies had to leave the venue gloomily and return home.

The fourteen young ladies who passed the test, in addition to the two girls who passed the Sun family, Zhou Caiwei, Cui Qijun, the daughter of Zuo Xiang, and Wei Ruolan, the daughter of General Wei, as well as the two girls of the Empress Dowager Sun's relatives, Xue Jinyan and Xue Jinying, are a pair of sisters, each of whom has passed the middle evaluation.

I thought that Empress Dowager Sun also missed some questions for the two of them, but she was afraid that the two of them would take the lead of Jin and Cao, so she only missed two sentences for them, instead of three sentences of all sù sù for them.

The other seven ladies who passed the test, except for one of the daughters of the nobles, the rest were the daughters of Wenchen. And the daughter of the noble is none other than Zhao Yifei from Anyuan Bofu.