This year's Double Ninth Festival was originally Zhao Chongyang's 9th birthday, but this time the county test was set on the Double Ninth Festival. Therefore, on the sixth day of the new year, the family celebrated his birthday in advance, and on the seventh day of the new year, the family arranged a coachman and a 16-year-old house slave Zhao An to accompany Zhao Chongyang to the county seat.

The driver who drove him was none other than Mr. Qian's 17-year-old youngest son, Qian Xiaoan. Although Mr. Qian doesn't know kung fu, his two sons, Qian Xiaobo and Qian Xiaoan, have been practicing martial arts with the children of the dart master since they were young, and their martial arts are also good.

This time, ten of them were originally the children of Weiyuan Dart Bureau to accept Zhao Chongyang's employment, and after arriving in Zhaojiazhuang, he and his eldest brother Qian Xiaobo were left in Zhaojiazhuang, and the other eight went to Liujia Village. These two brothers not only have good kung fu, but also learned bookkeeping with Mr. Qian since childhood, so with a little training, it is no problem to be a bookkeeper.

It is precisely because of this skill that his two brothers were left in Zhaojiazhuang. After arriving here, in order to train the two to become financial experts, Zhao Chongyang taught them to use Arabic numerals to keep accounts, and use numbers to add, subtract, multiply and divide four operations.

Although the abacus was produced in the Song Dynasty, the people in this era could only perform addition and subtraction operations, and the formula of addition and subtraction was not perfect. Zhao Chongyang is an abacus enthusiast, not only learned multiplication in his previous life, but also learned to divide for an old accountant. Now, he is going to teach them all the addition, subtraction, multiplication and division of the abacus, and arranges for Qian Xiaobo to take over the accounts of the Zhao family while taking charge of the security work of the Zhao Mansion......

The distance between Zhaojiazhuang and the county seat is farther than that of Nanjing, so unless the Zhao family has necessary business contacts, they generally do not go to the county seat, but go to the capital city of Nanjing to buy the materials they need. Therefore, although Zhao Chongyang is 9 years old, he has only been to the county seat once.

The Zhao family naturally has a store in the county, and since the young master is going to take the exam, the shopkeeper of the Zhao family's shop in the county town has long been prepared to eat and live.

After arriving here for a day of rest, Zhao Chongyang ate before dawn on the day of the Double Ninth Festival, and was personally accompanied by the old shopkeeper to the county school.

The examinees entered. In order to prevent cheating in exams, the officers strictly and carefully inspect the cheating behaviors of candidates such as carrying slips of paper. All the candidates lined up to be searched by the officers. Suddenly, Zhao Chongyang saw an errand officer take advantage of the fact that others were not paying attention, secretly took out a note from his bag and hid it in his hand, and when he searched the basket of a candidate in front of him, he flipped through it twice, and the two people who searched took out the note full of words and said that the person was cheating, and twisted the candidate in front of the two examiners. The candidate tried his best to argue that he had not written the note.

Zhao Chongyang listened to the voice and looked at the back, and felt that the wronged candidate was very familiar, and ran over with a basket to see, it turned out to be Huang Fengming, a classmate who studied private school with him. He knew that Huang Fengming was a very powerful candidate, and he was very promising to pass the county and government exams, not to mention that those two errand soldiers had defiled him.

Zhao Chongyang was indignant, and walked forward and said to the two examiners: "I saw with my own eyes that this note was put into his basket by this officer. This Brother Huang is my classmate, and he has always been good at learning, and he can't cheat at all. ”

Only the deputy examiner looked impatient and said, "Who has time to listen to the two of you, and the two servants don't know the two of you, is it necessary to frame him?" If you excuse him again, you will disqualify him from the examination together and will not be allowed to take the examination for three years. Come! The candidate was taken down and locked up until the exam was completed. ”

At this time, the examiner finally spoke: "Wait, it is a matter of a candidate's future and innocence, and the truth of the matter must be clarified." ”

The deputy chief examiner said: "My lord, now that the exam is imminent, how can I have time to check it slowly." Why not wait until the exam is over, verify it clearly, if it is true, prove that he should be punished, if not, restore his reputation. ”

Zhao Chongyang saw that the chief examiner seemed to accept the suggestion of the deputy chief examiner, and he was very anxious, and said loudly: "Lord Mingjian, this deputy chief examiner always wants to help the errand officer get rid of and obstruct the adult to find out the truth, I suspect that these two errand officers are very likely to be instructed by the deputy chief examiner, otherwise the two errand officers would not risk going to prison to deliberately frame Brother Huang." Imagine that the county test is over, even if you find out the truth, this Huang brother missed this exam like you, and you will have to wait three years before you can take the test, if you don't find out that this Huang brother can also take the exam three years later, is this result still useful? To put it bluntly, the deputy chief examiner has only one purpose, that is, they don't want Brother Huang to take this year's exam. In fact, as long as the adults allow the investigation of this case, it will take a moment to find out the truth and will not delay the normal exam. ”

The examiner said: "This little candidate is right, I was almost fooled." Then may I ask this young candidate, do you have any good way to find out about this matter? ”

"As long as my lord allows me to ask these two officials a few words, I will immediately find out about this matter." Zhao Chongyang said.

When the deputy chief examiner heard this, he was anxious, and hurriedly asked the chief examiner: "Do you insist on listening to a child's one-sided words and not believing your subordinates?" ”

The examiner said sternly: "This examiner only believes in fairness and justice!" Okay, candidate, I allow you to ask questions. ”

So Zhao Chongyang began to ask: "May I ask the two officials, did you just flip through the basket of Brother Huang and see the note, or did you carefully inspect the entire basket, including food and pen barrels?" ”

"Of course, I found it after rummaging through food, pen tubes, clothes, etc." After speaking, he smiled proudly.

The deputy examiner probably thought that the errand officer had answered the question well, and nodded with satisfaction. Only the examiner frowned.

At this time, Zhao Chongyang began to ask again: "Then may I ask this errand officer, how many pens did Brother Huang bring?" And the note you found in your clothes, or in the pancakes he was carrying? ”

At this time, the errand officer couldn't answer, and hesitated for a while, and the deputy examiner thought he was smart, and prompted: "What two fools, think about it, is the note found in the pancake, and the pen is not two?" ”

The other officer immediately understood, and immediately replied, "The note was found in the middle of the pancake, and the pen is indeed two." Because, in his mind, nine times out of ten the cheating notes found in the past were hidden in the sandwich of the big pancakes. Most candidates also only bring two pens, one to answer the questions and one to spare.

Zhao Chongyang asked again: "Are you two sure that the note was found in the mezzanine of the pancake, and the pen is two, and you won't retract the confession?" ”

The two said without hesitation: "Even if we are killed, we will say so, and we will never retract our confessions." ”

Zhao Chongyang solemnly arched his hand to the two examiners and said, "Two adults, the answer has come out, it is indeed two errand servants who are framing Brother Huang!" There are two reasons for this: one is that Brother Huang likes to eat noodles and never brings pancakes, so he only brings rice balls when he goes out with food. The second is Huang Xuechang's dual cultivation of civil and military, when writing, the pen is heavy, always afraid of bad writing, generally go to school to bring three pens, the exam is estimated to bring four, but definitely not two, at least three! ”

After a pause, Zhao Chongyang continued: "Senior Huang, you take out the pen and rice balls in front of the two examiners now, and ask them to verify them." ”

The examiner said, "No need to verify, I believe what this candidate said is true." You see, since this candidate surnamed Huang has good knowledge, will he write so poorly? There are only 116 words on this note, and 78 of them are typos, so it is obvious that the person who wrote the note is an uneducated person. As for the private school you mentioned, I went to sit in it when I went to the countryside, and your teacher Chen showed me the articles of students with excellent academics, and this Huang Sheng was also one of Mr. Chen's favored disciples. In fact, in addition to the inconsistencies and typos in this case, there is also a more obvious feature, if this note is taken out of the pancake, then there is some oil and water on the pancake, and the note hidden inside cannot be free of oil and water marks, so no matter from what angle of judgment, these two poor people did it on purpose. In addition, I guess you are Mr. Chen's most proud disciple, Zhao Chongyang, who is known as a little prodigy, right? ”

"The student is Zhao Chongyang, a child of Zhaojiazhuang, and today he got an axe in front of the adults, please forgive the students for being presumptuous."

The examiner laughed and said, "You are so young, thoughtful, knowledgeable, and have a sense of justice, which is really rare." I wish you a happy examination room, smooth sailing in your career, and become a pillar of the country as soon as possible. ”

Go to Chongyang Road: "Students should work hard to live up to the high expectations of adults." ”

The two errand officers have long been on the side of the six gods. The chief examiner shouted loudly: "Come on, escort these two people to the torture room and lock them up, and then interrogate and close the case after the examination is over." Yu Guang, the deputy chief examiner, is suspected of harboring criminals, and is not suitable to be the deputy chief examiner, so he is now exempted from his qualification as deputy chief examiner, and he has gone home to think about it behind closed doors.

An examination room turmoil subsided......