The rules for the official examination are much stricter than those for the examination, and the examination is not obscured, the question type is not announced in advance, and every official candidate must be carefully searched and identified before entering the examination room to prevent entrainment or impersonation, and he will be turned away if he is a little late.

At the right time, the door of the Xuanzheng Hall was opened, more than 5,000 officials lined up in ten columns and marched towards the main hall in turn, no one dared to speak, everyone walked forward silently, Li Xuan was the fourth person in the third column, his face was gloomy, and he followed the team into the main hall without saying a word.

The layout in the main hall is not much different from the examination of the previous few days, and it is also separated by simple wooden boards, and the examination number has changed, and the four districts of A, B, C, and D are concentrated in the main hall, Li Xuan's examination number is No. 443 in Area B, and soon, he found Area B written on the huge sign, walked directly into the third row, and soon found his seat.

There are also a few seats in the seats, and there are pen, ink, paper and inkstones on a few of them, which were only placed last night, and there will be special people to distribute the exam papers later, Li Xuan sat down in his seat and waited for the start of the exam without saying a word.

"Wei Qing, the waiter in the Ministry of Lower Rites, is the deputy chief examiner of today's official examination, that is, today's inspector, I announce the rules of the examination room Wei Qing is reading out the rules of the examination room one by one, and several people engaged in pushing a cart full of examination papers walked in front of each candidate, and each person issued a paper.

The car slowly approached Li Xuan, and Li Xuan's heart began to tense, gah! With a soft sound, the car stopped in front of him, and one of the practitioners handed him a roll, and carefully instructed: "Don't worry, don't forget to write your name." ”

Li Xuan took the roll, he suddenly heard a soft whisper from next door, he hurriedly unfolded the roll, and was stunned. The exam paper is as many as eight pages, densely filled with questions, dazzling, there is no poetry to do, there is no strategy, almost all of them are pasted scriptures, "Book of Rites", "Zuo Chuan", "Book of Songs", "Zhou Li", "Etiquette", "Book of Changes", "Book of Books", etc., all have, each line is empty a small paragraph, let the candidates fill in. In this way, even if you ask someone to prepare poems and strategies in advance, it is useless. This is the real ability.

Generally speaking, the posting of scriptures is the basic examination in the imperial examination. All the scholars who have gone through the cold window for ten years can basically memorize it very well, and even after many years, as long as they review it slightly, they can also remember it. Zhang Huan announced in June that the national official examination would be held, giving candidates three months to prepare. The review time should be sufficient, unless you can't memorize it at all when you read, or you are too old to really forget.

Because of his advanced age and forgetfulness, there is no way, after all, there are too many officials in Datang, let alone more than half of them, Li Xuan looked at the roll blankly, and couldn't say a word for half a sound, he relied on the shade of the door to enter the office. Cockfighting lackeys when he was a teenager. Wandering in Chang'an City, he has never read a book seriously. The Dali Temple Sizhi he is currently serving is from the sixth rank, not high or low, according to the normal establishment of six people is enough, but now there are eleven people, and there are only three or four people who really work, Li Xuan belongs to the mixed officials and the like, and he basically can't complete today's topic. ^^ first release of ^UC e-book ^^^

At this time, Li Xuan quickly glanced at both sides, the aisle was empty, very quiet, and the invigilator rarely moved, he slowly turned the pen around, carefully looked for it on the pen barrel, and finally he found the pen tail, gently rotated the cover on the pen tail, and opened it, it should be a hollow pen holder, but Li Xuan trembled, and actually shook out a roll of paper from it, he hid the roll paper under the roll at once, and quickly restored the pen cover to its original state.

He glanced at the probe on the aisle again, but suddenly saw that the head of a candidate not far away also stretched out, the two of them looked at each other, and they both smiled, there was no invigilator, Li Xuan immediately unfolded the paper scroll quickly, and it was densely filled with small characters, and the number in front of it corresponded to each question one by one, which turned out to be the standard answer to this exam paper.

Li Xuan pressed the excitement in his heart, and quickly copied it, while copying but vigilantly paying attention to the aisle, a total of two hours of the exam, he only took one hour, and it was done, Li Xuan checked again, mainly to check whether there was a mistake in copying, just when he was halfway through the inspection, suddenly, a sound of footsteps came from a distance, it seemed that he was coming to take the exam, and Li Xuan was so shocked that his liver and gall were broken, he suddenly crumpled the paper roll into a ball, and swallowed his stomach as fast as he could.

The footsteps stopped next to him, and Wei Qing's voice came, "What's the matter?" ”

The examinee next to him said, "My pen is broken, can I get a new one?" ”

"Wait a minute." Wei Qingdi's footsteps walked away again.

Li Xuan's heart was slightly relaxed, but his answer had already been swallowed, and there were still four pages left unchecked, so he had no way of knowing if it was right or not, Li Xuan's scalp was numb for a while, what should I do? At this time, he wanted to beat the person next door to death with an old fist, and he sat there stupidly, not knowing what to do?

"What, are you done?" Wei Qing suddenly appeared in front of him and asked with a smile, "If it's done, you can hand in the papers." ”

"Yes! Be! I'm done. Li Xuan hurriedly picked up the paper and handed it to Wei Qing with both hands, Wei Qing saw that he was really done, he was a little surprised, he took the paper and flipped through it, the doubts in his eyes were even thicker, he knew that Li Xuan was a person who did not learn and did not know how to do it, but the first few pages of the exam papers were almost all correct, and the answers were very standard.

But doubts are doubts, Wei Qing still drew a circle on his scroll, indicating that it was completed normally, and he calmly said to Li Xuan: "You can go back, pay attention to keep quiet when you go out." ”

Li Xuan didn't dare to say anything, turned around and hurried away, Wei Qing looked at his back, shook his head in great surprise, and muttered to himself: "This is strange!" ”

At noon, with the bell ringing at the end of the examination, the Xuanzheng Hall was closed, and the officials of the Ministry of Rites began to check the test papers by number, and the whole afternoon, the Xuanzheng Hall was extremely busy, and some of the officials began to go to court, and some bought some local products in Chang'an to prepare to return to the place, regardless of whether the exam was good or bad, the exam was over, and the Ministry of Officials would announce the disposal plan five days later. ^UC eBook^

By late evening, all the clean-up was being completed. The next thing is to read the papers, the marking of the official examination is not done by the officials of the Ministry of Rites, but from the Guozijian to find more than 100 students, by them to cross-judge, the officials of the Ministry of Rites except for a few important people, the rest can go home, Wei Qing is the deputy chief examiner, of course he has to stick to the end, but the discipline is not as strict as before, the family can send them some daily necessities under the supervision of the guards.

Now. Wei Qing and seven or eight Lang Zhong and Wai Lang stayed in the side hall of the Xuanzheng Palace, and from time to time, some unqualified or strange papers were sent by the grading staff. The so-called unqualified means that only less than 50% of them are correct. These people will be directly blacklisted and reported to the Ministry of Officials, and the strange volume has obvious loopholes, such as many places have Zhang Guan Li Dai, or several papers Zhang Guan Li Dai The situation is the same. In this case, it may be that the candidate has memorized two books backwards, or it may be cheating. They need to be identified one by one.

"Squire, this is another list of unqualified." A clerk sent a thick roster, this is already the third book today, Wei Qing sighed slightly, took the roster and flipped through it, there were more than five hundred people, at this time, he found a trace of alteration on the fourth page, and a line was all erased by the ink pen, he pointed to the alteration and asked, "What's going on?" ”

"Returning to the squire. The subordinates have already asked. This was a clerical error on their part, and their subordinates had checked the papers. It's a mistake indeed. ”

"Is it okay to make a mistake?" Wei Qing reprimanded with a blank face: "Go!" Tell them to copy it again, and there should be no trace of alteration on the roster. ”

"Yes!" Wai Lang didn't dare to say much, ran back to the hall with the roster, Wei Qing picked up another roster casually, this is a list of some abnormal exam papers, not much, only less than a hundred, the list of abnormal reasons were written one by one, most of them found abnormal reasons, and were ticked off by the black pen of the pre-trial Lang Zhong, among which there were two exam papers with the same error, and the two candidates were seated next to each other, and the pre-trial Lang Zhong hooked out with a red pen, which shows that there is a suspicion of cheating, and it needs to be carefully checked, and the red pen in the entire abnormal list is only these two, The rest of the land was scratched off with an ink pen

Wei Qing only scanned it briefly, and was about to put it down, suddenly, he seemed to feel something, and picked up the list again, and on the last few lines he saw a person's name, Li Xuan, is he also abnormal? Wei Qing couldn't help but pay attention, Li Xuandi made the mistake of filling in the wrong answer, and the last page all jumped a line, and the front was all right, Wei Qing remembered the situation when he handed in the paper, and it was really a little strange, he immediately got up and went to the main hall.

The marking area of the main hall has been completely closed with wooden boards, leaving only a few handover holes, and there is a long row of tables outside, there are more than a dozen people sitting, this is the registration and inspection office, all the papers that do not pass and abnormal papers are handed over here for the final registration of the inspection office, and after login, it must be signed, and another person must be audited to prevent omission, very strict, Wei Qing stepped forward and said to a student: "In the abnormal volume, the paper of the No. 443 candidate in Area B is transferred to me." ”

The students didn't dare to slack off, and immediately found Li Xuan's exam paper from the abnormal volume, Wei Qing turned to the last page, and sure enough, all of them jumped a line, it seemed that the first line was written twice, but all the back were all wrong lines, Wei Qing laughed coldly, if it was one or two mistakes, it could still be understood, maybe he remembered the wrong line, but the last page was all wrong, and even filled in the simplest Analects in the Book of Poetry, which is impossible to say.

"I'm going to take a closer look at this volume, so I'll take it with me first." Wei Qing explained, and took the roll back to the room.

When he returned to the room, he was greeted by a man, "Squire, your family has brought you something, just outside." ”

"Got it." Wei Qing put down the scroll and walked to the outer hall, in the open space of the outer hall, a family member was standing there waiting for him, and there were several soldiers next to him, there are also rules for sending things in this house, books and other paper items are not allowed to be sent, and large daily necessities such as bedding are not allowed to be sent, only some special supplies are allowed, such as medicine, meals or some family safety messages, etc., and there must be soldiers on guard, this is a kind of humane accommodation, after all, the test has been completed, and the final marking is not up to them.

The housekeeper was carrying a box in his hand, and when he saw him come out, he immediately stepped forward and said, "Madame asked me to bring a little ointment, and a few of the master's favorite side dishes, Madame said that everything is fine at home, and the old man's body is also calm, please rest assured." ”

As he spoke, he handed over the box, and there was nothing special in his words. The box has also been carefully inspected, there are no loopholes, but Wei Qing is still slightly stunned, he never uses any medicine, why did he send him the ointment? Surprised in his heart, but his face did not show any sound, he took the box and instructed: "Tell Madame that I will return home in three days, so that she can take care of her father." ”

Wei Qing took the box back to the room and carefully closed the door. He immediately opened the box, and there were only three plates of side dishes and a gourd-shaped porcelain vase. The porcelain vase contained an unknown ointment with a fragrant smell. There was nothing unusual in the dish, and there were no other items in the box, and then Wei Qing's eyes fell on the gourd porcelain bottle, which was obvious. If the family sends a medicine that they don't know, there must be an article in it.

He picked up the porcelain vase and looked at it carefully. The porcelain vase is very complete, there is no mechanism or anything like that, he thought about it, then took a chopstick from the box, slowly inserted it into the ointment and stirred, suddenly, he felt as if he had touched something, small and round, as big as a lotus seed, Wei Qing's heart moved. He walked a few steps to the door. Looking out, no one came. He immediately slammed the bottle against the wall, and with a thud, the bottle cracked and fell to the ground.

Wei Qing squatted down and carefully opened the ointment with chopsticks, and finally took out a small black wax pill from the ointment, he was even more suspicious in his heart, picked up the wax pill and gently crushed it, inside was a small paper ball, at this time, Wei Qing's heart was pounding violently, he slowly unfolded the paper ball, and there was a line of words written in it, which was his father's handwriting: Collect Li Xuanjin one thousand taels.

Wei Qing suddenly sat down in his seat, the nervousness just now had turned into a kind of fear, his father accepted a thousand taels of gold from others, and let himself be involved in the examination room to cheat, Wei Qing's eyes slowly turned to the exam paper, Li Xuan was really cheating, and he was very stupid, even cheating leaked, Wei Qing looked at this paper blankly, his mind was at a loss, suddenly, he shivered, and suddenly came to his senses, what does Li Xuan's cheating have to do with himself, he must be someone else, one thousand taels of gold, do you want to buy yourself a silence? No way! He must not roll up this matter, he picked up the scroll and walked out quickly, but when he walked to the door, his pace slowed down again, this matter is probably not so simple, Li Xuan bought his silence with a thousand taels of gold, the matter must be significant, and he knew the answer in advance, and he could know the answer in advance under such a strict situation, the previous person involved in the case must be at least Xiangguo level, or Zhang Huan's harem, or even Zhang Huan himself is possible.

Wei Qing hesitated, he had to consider the consequences of this matter being stabbed, and Li Xuan's test paper had been approved by the ink pen, so he just had to pretend that he didn't know anything and passed, but in any case, the money could not be collected.

The examination of the system of science and the examination of the official of the official have quietly ended in the autumn wind, the officials of the official examination have returned to the normal court, and the scholars who have seen the examination of the subject are still waiting in Chang'an, the days have passed day by day, and finally it is time to publish the list.

More than 200,000 scholars have been reviewing the examination papers for nearly half a month, and the review is over, and all the people who participated in the marking are like having a serious illness.

This morning, Zhang Huan specially asked for half a day off, his youngest son who had just been born a few months fell ill, which made him worry, Zhang Huan's youngest son was born to Cui Ning, was born prematurely, and his body was very thin after birth, like a kitten, if the child died in ordinary people, but he was lucky to be born in the emperor's family, Zhang Huan used the best imperial doctor, with the best medicine, his life was saved, but he kept coughing, in the middle of the night last night, he suddenly had a fever again, and it was difficult to breathe, and three imperial doctors rescued him from midnight, It was busy until the early hours of the morning that he was dragged back from the brink of death, but it wasn't long before the child's body began to heat up again. ^UC eBook^

Outside the ward, Cui Ning anxiously waited for the news of the imperial doctor, she had cried countless times in one night, and her tears were almost dry, at this time, she was very weak and clinging to Zhang Huan's body, her eyes were swollen and red, and she kept wiping the corners of her eyes with a handkerchief, next to her, Pei Ying, who looked haggard, was also anxious and gently rubbed her handkerchief, and kept whispering to comfort Cui Ning, there were also Pingping and her adopted daughter Bailing in the room, and one more person was Cui Xuezhu, who had only been in the palace for two months, and was named Zhaoyuan, she sat at the end with interest, silent.

"Huanlang, if the child has three long and two short. I, I don't want to live Cui Ning suddenly cried, the child has suffered so much in just two months, and her heart is about to break.

"Don't worry, the imperial doctor has already rescued them once, they have experience, and they should be fine." Zhang Huan put his arm around his beloved wife's shoulders and comforted her in a low voice, in fact, he himself was also worried, how could the two-month-old child withstand such a big toss. He stroked his beloved wife's thin shoulder, thinking that she had not been comfortable for a day since she married him. Zhang Huan felt even more guilty in his heart.

Suddenly, he felt that the placket of his lichen was pulled, and when he turned around, he saw Pei Ying holding a small piece of paper in his hand. It reads: Today is the day of the list, you must go to the court, and I will leave it to me here.

Zhang Huan also had hardly slept all night, his face was dark, and his body was exhausted. Seeing Pei Ying reminding himself, he sighed secretly. Why don't you know that today is very important? But today, the child had an accident, Cui Ning was sad to be like this, as a husband and father, he should accompany her no matter what, he shook his head, quietly pointed at Cui Ning, and signaled himself to wait a while, Pei Ying was helpless, and got up again to go out to write a note.

At this time, Cui Xuezhu, who had been sitting at the end, suddenly walked over. Half knelt in front of Cui Ning and whispered to her, "Sister Ning." Today is the day of the release of the science list, and the emperor must go to hand-pick

Cui Ning was shocked. She raised her head and said apologetically to Zhang Huan: "I'm sorry Huan Lang, I don't know, you should go quickly!" ”

Zhang Huan hurriedly waved his hand, "It's okay, it won't affect me if I go a little late, if it's urgent, Han Shangshu will come to me." ”

Pingping next to her can see it clearly, this Cui Xuezhu is currying favor with Eighteen Lang again, Ping Ping is a straight-tempered person, although she doesn't care about Cui Xuezhu marrying Zhang Huan, but she doesn't like Cui Xuezhu's foxy charm everywhere, racking her brains all day long to please Eighteen Lang, Zhang Huan is handling court affairs in Lin De Palace, but she ran to serve with a Raush Zi iced sour plum soup, Pei Ying accused her afterwards, she confessed her mistake, and secretly knelt down in front of Zhang Huan at night to plead guilty, and now she took advantage of Pei Ying's time to persuade Cui Ning, this goblin!

Pingping's face sank suddenly, and she said in a long voice: "Eighteen Lang is the king of a country, of course he knows which is more important, if he doesn't know, then there is still the queen's advice, and it is not your turn to remind." ”

Cui Xuezhu's face suddenly swelled red, she looked at Zhang Huan pitifully, there were tears in her eyes, Zhang Huan also knew that her life in the palace was actually not good, many things were not handled smoothly enough and did it too obviously, which caused public anger, but she was still young after all, so she couldn't bear to talk about her, nodded to her, and signaled that she didn't blame her, Cui Xuezhu lowered her head and returned to her position.

At this time, Pei Ying walked in again, she saw Cui Ning pushing Zhang Huan away, she didn't know what happened, she was slightly surprised in her heart, so she looked at Pingping, but Pingping didn't say a word, as if she didn't see anything.

"What's going on?" Zhang Huan saw Pei Ying holding a fold in her hand, so he asked her.

Pei Ying hurriedly handed him the fold, "Han Shangshu has been here, please ask the emperor to deal with this matter." ”

Zhang Huan took it, sure enough, it was the list of the top two hundred and fifty results in the subject exam, and there were the results of each candidate in the back, he glanced at it, Bai Juyi ranked third, and there was Liu Zongyuan in the tenth place, and the other Guo Mu didn't find it for a while, but it was not enough to just give him this roster, he needed to have a meeting with Xiangguo to discuss the candidate's conduct to decide the final admitter, he knew that Han came to him because the matter must be urgent, he took a deep breath and said to Cui Ning: "Ning'er, I can't accompany you as a husband, but you have to remember, I love our children as much as you do. ”

Cui Ning nodded with tears in his eyes, Zhang Huan patted Pei Ying's hand again, turned around and strode away.

In the political hall, the seven prime ministers and the imperial history of Cheng Yan Jiudu were already waiting for Zhang Huan, although they had only cooperated with each other for less than half a year, they knew that Zhang Huan would definitely come, and the conference room was very quiet, and no one spoke.

"Your Majesty has arrived!"

With a shout, Zhang Huan walked quickly into the political hall, and the seven ministers all stood up and bowed together, "Ministers, see Your Majesty!" ”

"Everyone, love Qing Ping." Zhang Huan waved his hand and said apologetically to everyone: "The emperor is seriously ill, and I have delayed state affairs for family affairs." ”

Today's ruling office is the military department Shangshu Yuanzai, he quickly stood up and said: "If it is not urgent, the ministers will not dare to disturb Your Majesty, I hope the prince will recover soon." ”

Zhang Huan sighed slightly, then stopped mentioning the matter, and said to Han: "Han Aiqing, you are the main examiner, start with you!" ”

"Obey the order!" Han stood up and said loudly: "A total of 223,000 people participated in this examination, and 200 people will be admitted, and 200 people will be admitted to each of the Khitan, Xi, Shatuo, Dangxiang, and Qiang five ethnic groups, which do not account for this quota. ”

After that, Han handed the official score roster to Zhang Huan, with Han Di's signature on it, Zhang Huan nodded, a total of two hundred and fifty people, only two hundred people were recorded according to the level of performance, and the next fifty people were alternates. ”

Yan Jiudu stood up and bowed and said: "Han Shangshu has given a copy of the roster to the minister, and the minister checked the list of illegal scholars recently found out, and found that nine of them did not meet the admission requirements, Yizhou Shizi Ziwei, listed seventy-seven, and his person stayed in the Qinglou on the night before the exam; Zhao Tao, a scholar from Bianzhou, listed one hundred and four, engaged in prostitution on August 22; Runzhou Shizi Jin Taigen listed 122 and entered the Pingkang Fang Jucai Casino on August 29

Yan Jiudu briefly introduced the violations of the nine people one by one, and finally handed the investigation report to Zhang Huan, "Here is the detailed situation, the evidence is conclusive, please look at it." ”

Zhang Huan flipped through it, and said without hesitation: "The imperial court has made it clear that candidates should have virtues, and even this simple constraint cannot be abided by, and the court cannot accept such a person, all these nine people will be dismissed, and nine people will be alternated from below." ”

Han immediately picked up the pen, ticked off the nine people one by one, and finally gave it to Zhang Huan, "The admission list has been decided, please sign it for Your Majesty." ”

Zhang Huan read it again, and asked everyone again: "Do you have any objections to Aiqing?" ”

Everyone read the roster one by one and agreed, Zhang Huan picked up the pen, hand-picked the three people as the shape of the circle, the list of eyes, and the flowers, and finally wrote his name on the admission roster and returned it to Han.

He suddenly remembered something, put down his pen and asked Lu Qi again: "How long will it take for the final examination of the official examination to end?" ”

Lu Qi hurriedly got up and said, "Returning to Your Majesty, it is almost over, and it will be submitted to Your Majesty's Imperial Review as soon as this afternoon." ”

Zhang Huan nodded, and asked again, "Is there any fraud?" ”

"Yes!" Lu Qi took out a book of folds and handed it to Zhang Huan, "This is the eighteen cases of mutual plagiarism found in the examination room, as well as the person who was arrested on the spot for passing the note, and the minister did not dare to hide it." ”

Zhang Huan took it and took a look, most of them were local petty officials, he handed it to Yan Jiudu casually, and instructed: "Yushitai will inspect them one by one, and finally write an official report to me." ”

"Obey!

Zhang Huan saw that the meeting had come to an end, so he stood up and said: "Whether it is the official examination or the scientific examination, it is a means for my Datang to select talents, especially the official examination, which is related to the governance of my Datang officials, I can't tolerate the slightest cheating, if you can't pass the exam and there are special circumstances, such as those over 50 years old, I will make up the exam in another way as appropriate, but if it cheats, not only will I be dismissed immediately, but I will also ask for responsibility and will not tolerate it!" ”

His tone was very stern, and the seven ministers stood up and bowed down together, "Ministers, remember the holy oracle. ”

"Okay, I'll look at the results of the official examination in the afternoon, and now I can publish the list."