The daily life of a peasant girl taking the imperial examination

Ten days have passed since the results of the prefectural examination were released.

On this day, Zhuge Yunshu, as usual, finished washing up and then entered the system for serving the country and the people to begin his studies.

She first spent four hours completing the two Four Books questions, two Five Classics questions, and three policy essays assigned by Master Wang. Then, she spent an hour and a half each attending two intensive classes with renowned teachers from the system—"How to Write a Brilliant Eight-Legged Essay" and "How to Master the Essence of Policy Essays." The content of these two classes was both insightful and practical for Zhuge Yunshu.

In the past, Master Wang would always assign a lot of homework first, then spend half a day explaining the articles to them the next day, and the remaining half day would be used for revision.

In his words, scholars who want to write good articles mostly rely on comprehension and a lot of practice; to sum it up, "The master leads you through the door, but the practice depends on yourself."

In the two lessons taught by Zhuge Yunshu within the "Serving the Country and the People" system, several articles were directly provided and compared according to three levels: good, average, and poor. The lessons pointed out the strengths and weaknesses of each article, and explained how to improve their level. They also discussed which writing styles would be favored by which types of writers, and in the examination room, if one did not know the examiners' temperaments, which type of article would be most likely to be favored by all the examiners...

Although such "opportunistic" practices were considered shameful by most scholars, Zhuge Yunshu believed that any candidate about to take the imperial examination would not consider the lessons on "how to write excellent eight-legged essays" and "how to master the essence of policy essays" useless.

This is a concise summary of the most practical tips for preparing for the imperial examinations, compiled by the system at great expense from highly respected scholars from different eras and even dozens of generations.

Each lesson required a one-time payment of points, which could not be viewed repeatedly. This is why Zhuge Yunshu listened exceptionally attentively to these two lessons, filling no fewer than ten notebooks with notes. The reason she took so many notes was because she felt that not a single word spoken by these two renowned teachers was superfluous.

Suddenly, Zhuge Yunshu seemed to have thought of something and said, "System, the knowledge I've learned is mine, right..."

She thought that if this kind of content were passed down from generation to generation, as long as the imperial examination system was not abolished, even if the descendants of the Zhuge family were not very successful, they probably would not fall into such a difficult situation.

System: "...Of course, knowledge is priceless. How much you can remember depends on your own ability."

That being said, the system still felt that something was amiss.

Meanwhile, Zhuge Yunshu received affirmation from the system and studied even more diligently.

After completing two expensive courses within the system specifically for the imperial examinations, Zhuge Yunshu switched the system's learning interface to martial arts training mode.

Some time ago, Zhuge Yunshu's martial arts foundation was finally recognized by that master, so he gave Zhuge Yunshu three sets of skills: "Invincible Mighty Fist", "Whirlwind Shadowless Kick" and "Number One Divine Sword Technique in the World".

When the expert introduced the three options, Zhuge Yunshu didn't even think about it and immediately chose the third one. Why? Because, throughout history, which famous person who was both a scholar and a warrior ever used an "invincible powerful punch" or a "whirlwind shadowless kick" when fighting with others? Just thinking about this unsightly scene made Zhuge Yunshu shudder.

[If the move is incorrect, try it ten times. Good luck!]

Zhuge Yunshu: "..."

Okay, she can do it again!

[Your moves are sloppy; you have to do it twenty times! As someone who possesses the Divine Sword Technique, how can you have such a careless attitude!]

Zhuge Yunshu: "..."

【...】

[The moves are unsightly. Do it fifty times! Such beautiful swordsmanship, yet you swing it like you're throwing garbage! How can this be tolerated?! Ugh! Enough is enough! No more tolerance...]

Zhuge Yunshu: "..."

She silently covered her ears and mentally complained about this 'face-obsessed' martial arts monitor.

【...】

Four hours later.

[Ding! Today's task has been completed in a truly cringe-worthy manner. The progress of the first move of "The World's Number One Divine Sword Technique" is 10/100. Host, please keep up the good work!]

Upon hearing this beautiful sound, Zhuge Yunshu collapsed onto the ground without any regard for his image; he was simply too exhausted.

This so-called "Number One Divine Sword Technique Under Heaven" has ten forms. The first form has one hundred movements. According to that unreliable martial arts master, as long as you practice this sword technique to the third form, you can fight ten strong adult men. If you practice to the sixth form, you can become a martial arts master in this world. If you practice to the eighth form, no one in this world can defeat you. The tenth form is absolutely impossible in this low-level martial arts world.

Doesn't that sound amazing? Zhuge Yunshu was also swayed by these superior conditions and resolutely chose this one. But who would have thought that this Divine Sword Technique not only requires you to have the correct sword-wielding posture, but also to maintain a beautiful appearance. Even if you grimaced during practice, you would be punished by that 'face-obsessed' martial arts monitor.

And so, Zhuge Yunshu practiced for no less than ten hours a day within the "For the Country, For the Name" system. At first, he broke down the movements, with each movement requiring a fixed number of sword swings of one hundred. Mistakes resulted in heavier penalties. Only in the last few days has he begun practicing continuous moves, one hundred times a day...

For the past fifteen days, Zhuge Yunshu has been tortured beyond belief. Once he enters the learning mode, he cannot slack off even if he is tired. Otherwise, the merciless "face-obsessed" martial arts monitor will record everything and send it to the martial arts master who goes out to play from time to time. When he returns from his travels, Zhuge Yunshu will face an even more "unbearable" punishment.

As for the so-called return date from the travels, Zhuge Yunshu roughly estimated that since she would enter the "Serving the Country and the People" system to practice martial arts every day, the master's return from his travels would sometimes be three days, sometimes five days, and the longest was as long as fifteen days...

Thinking of this, Zhuge Yunshu was so frightened that he immediately stood up and swung his sword even more vigorously. He did this not for any other reason than that tomorrow would be the fifth day, and the last time he returned was fifteen days ago. According to the pattern, if nothing unexpected happened, he would definitely see this old man in the Serving the Country and the People system tomorrow.

Zhuge Yunshu was filled with regret, wondering why she had chosen such a fussy sword technique.

......

Having finished learning martial arts and expending so much energy, Zhuge Yunshu decided to relax.

So she spent her points to enlarge the map of Xia Kingdom by 1000 times and studied it carefully. Zhuge Yunshu planned to draw the maps of the five kingdoms, including the map of Asia, exactly on her drawing board at a 1:1 scale. This way, she could save a lot of points that she would have spent on enlarging the maps proportionally.

The more Zhuge Yunshu thought about it, the more excited he became. He felt that he was a real money-saving expert.

Meanwhile, the system, seeing Zhuge Yunshu plotting to exploit him again, couldn't help but offer some advice:

"Host, you are a person destined for great things. How can you waste your reading time on such petty gains?"

"I'm studying, there's no time to waste," Zhuge Yunshu said without turning his head.

System: "But you already have the five-nation map that the system rewarded you with, and it's even clearer than the one you drew yourself. Why bother drawing it again...? With that time, you could learn more and earn more points..."

As they were talking, the system accidentally glanced at the contents of Zhuge Yunshu's drawing paper, suddenly floated in front of Zhuge Yunshu, and loudly questioned:

"...Ahhh, what are you doing? Why are you drawing enlarged details?"

Zhuge Yunshu remained calm: "Look at what you're saying, do I not need to learn the details?"

system:"......"

It was thinking that since its host had drawn down all the map details, how could it earn points by scaling the map proportionally?

The thought of losing all those points made it feel terrible, and in that discomfort, its mouth started moving uncontrollably.

"Zhou Bapi, host, return the points, IQ points, and talent points you owe me, hmph!"

Zhuge Yunshu: "..."

Points? IQ? Talent value?

As she murmured those words repeatedly, a sudden inspiration struck her.

How could she forget something so important?