The daily life of a peasant girl taking the imperial examination

A chubby boy, around thirteen or fourteen years old, was the first to stand up from below the arena:

"I am XXX, the town school principal of Yuntu Town... Therefore, a gentleman first examines others for what he himself possesses, and then criticizes others for what he himself lacks. What is the meaning of this?"

Zhuge Yunshu thought to himself, "They really came prepared. Although this sentence comes from Chapter 10 of The Great Learning, it is still quite difficult."

Wang Yi said, “This sentence comes from Chapter 10 of the Great Learning. It means that only by possessing these virtues and good deeds can one inspire others to do good; only by being free from evil deeds can one admonish others not to do evil... Therefore, setting an example is the foundation of one’s conduct in the world. Otherwise, as the following sentence says, ‘If one does not practice what one preaches, how can one persuade others?’ It is impossible to persuade or guide others if one has not even practiced what one preaches.”

"For example, if parents commit evil deeds, how can they expect their children to do good? That's simply unheard of..."

The fat man sat down awkwardly, and soon a student next to him continued, "I am XXX from Yuntu Town School. I would like to have a recitation contest with Brother Zhang, and the winner will be determined by speed. To be fair, Brother Zhang can choose books within the Four Books."

This is his best skill, because his memory is much stronger than others, and memorizing is a piece of cake for him.

Zhang Hao stood up, looking completely bewildered: "How can I memorize anything?"

The man said impatiently, "I already said, it's up to you."

"Alright, since I get to choose, you can memorize it however you want, but I can't bully you." Zhang Hao narrowed his already small eyes, a mischievous grin on his face.

"Let's just memorize the simplest version, the Three Character Classic!"

Upon hearing this, the man looked at Zhang Hao as if he were a fool, and said, "Fine."

As soon as he finished speaking, he began reciting: "At birth, man's nature is good..."

Zhang Hao quickly interrupted, "Brother, stop for a moment."

"I think reciting it forwards is too boring, so why don't we start from the end and recite it from the beginning?"

???

"Brother, you're not afraid to accept the challenge, are you?" Zhang Hao said slyly.

"how come."

And so, the two immediately began carrying each other from back to front. The student who took the challenge did well at first, but became increasingly unsteady as time went on.

In contrast, Zhang Hao could recite it backwards.

The result was obvious: the man lost and was so ashamed he wanted to disappear into the ground.

Zhang Hao smiled smugly, thinking to himself, "Fortunately, I spent several nights competing with Junior Sister Yun Shu and Junior Sister Wang before I finally managed to memorize this passage backwards."

He knew that his victory this time was very lucky. After all, what normal scholar would spend his spare time memorizing books backwards?

Only Junior Sister Yun Shu has such a refined taste.

"..."

After these two, many disciples stood up to ask them questions under the guise of seeking guidance, and Wang Yi and Zhang Hao answered most of these questions.

After all, in their view, the earlier problems were relatively simple, and the real difficulties were yet to come.

"I am Xiao An, the schoolmaster of Yuntu Town. Listen up, everyone, is it lively?"

This question amused most of the people present, who said that Xiao An must be an idiot!

Fire can burn everything, so how can it not be hot?

Wang Yi and Zhang Hao, like everyone else, originally thought the question was very simple; how could a fire not be hot?

However, upon closer inspection of the person who posed the question, Xiao An, who was one of the top students in Yuntu Town, it became clear that the question was definitely not simple.

Is it hot? There are only two possible outcomes: either it's hot or it's not.

The first possibility can be ruled out, so the answer is that it's not hot.

But why isn't it hot? There has to be a reason!

Just as the two were struggling with their decision, Zhuge Yunshu spoke up: "I think the fire isn't hot enough."

"Fire is the name, heat is the reality. The name 'fire' is not hot. If the name 'fire' were hot, then when Brother Xiao and I uttered the word 'fire,' our mouths would have already been burned."

"If you can't see it, what's the point?" Xiao An continued.

"...When the eyes are blind, closed, or in the dark, one cannot see anything, which shows that the eyes cannot see," Zhuge Yunshu said.

"..."

She truly hadn't expected Xiao An to pose such a sophistical question, especially one that was quite famous in history. But given her extensive reading, she could answer this type of sophistical question with ease, even if she didn't know it by heart.

It must be said that Xiao An truly deserves to be called one of the best students in Yuntu Town; the question he asked for advice was indeed quite original.

As soon as Zhuge Yunshu finished speaking, the entire hall fell silent. After a moment of silence, some disciples suddenly realized what was happening and slapped their foreheads:

"I never thought of this when I realized there was another way to look at the problem."

Zhuge Yunshu revealed a mysterious smile; let's solve this riddle.

“Junior Sister Zhuge truly lives up to her reputation; I am completely convinced.” Xiao An performed a classmate's salute, his eyes shining as if he had discovered a like-minded person.

It's worth noting that he spent several days researching these question types before arriving at an irrefutable conclusion.

Zhuge Yunshu, without even thinking, gave his answer directly.

It's easy to see that she was definitely not a bookworm who only studied books.

With the Xiao An issue resolved, Qian Wenxing immediately stepped forward:

"I am Qian Wenxing, the headmaster of Yunmu Town... My junior sister Qin Shuangyu, junior brother Wu Mochi, and I have come up with a new way to set questions. We will compete to find a sentence from the Four Books and Five Classics and extract words from the preceding and following text to form a sentence that is not a complete sentence. You can tell us the source of the sentence and the complete sentence."

"This method of setting questions mainly tests the students' familiarity with the Four Books and Five Classics."

Wang Yi and Zhang Hao: "......"

Being number one is no easy feat, especially with those who come up with their own tricky question types.

Zhuge Yunshu: "..."

Why does it sound so familiar?

Before the disciples could react, Qian Wenxing said, "Listen, everyone: Isn't it worth practicing?"

Everyone:? ? ?

Confused.

Wang Yi and Zhang Hao looked at each other, feeling a sense of familiarity, but they couldn't quite place where the phrase had appeared.

So everyone turned their attention to Zhuge Yunshu.

Zhuge Yunshu was also in a daze at this time. If he was not mistaken, this was the prototype of the "intercepting and matching problem" that was later criticized by people.

The reason for this question type is to prevent examiners from accidentally including previously asked questions in a standard, conventional way. Some candidates might have memorized the relevant passages beforehand, and because there are so many questions, these passages might be overlooked by the examiners, which would be unfair to other candidates.

The purpose was actually to prevent some candidates from taking shortcuts and cheating in the imperial examinations.

However, it must be said that this type of question is really bizarre, leaving people at a loss for where to begin, especially since it has never appeared before in this era.

This actually benefited Zhuge Yunshu, the cheat expert.

Zhuge Yunshu pondered for a moment, and realized that the most frequent occurrences of '习', '之', and '亦' were in the *Analects*, thus quickly arriving at his answer:

"This sentence comes from the Analects, Book 1, Chapter 1: 'To learn and at due times practice what one has learned, is it not a pleasure?'"