novelraw Chapter 88: I Prefer Doing Big Questions in My Dreams
Chapter 88: I Prefer Doing Big Questions in My Dreams
Li Qiuchen stood beneath the notice board with a grave expression.
She had indeed passed, which meant her father's money had been spent for nothing after all.
Once was coincidence. Twice was absolutely not.
Something was definitely off about this ranking, and he already had a vague suspicion forming in his mind.
"So can we go home now? I want braised spare ribs with green beans for lunch."
Hu Caiyi stood to the side chewing on her handkerchief with an aggrieved expression, "Didn't we just agree that I was treating everyone to smoked chicken? Now that you're a First List honor student, are you pretending you don't know me?"
"I forgot."
Miss Tang Xiaoxue felt no guilt whatsoever, "Then let's go eat the smoked chicken first."
"Let's go!"
"Wait a moment."Li Qiuchen quickly blocked the two little gluttons, "Miss Hu, it's still early. I'd like to take my young miss back to have a look at the examination hall from a few days ago. Would you like to come with us?"
Hu Caiyi looked puzzled, "What is there to see at the examination hall?"
"Aren't you curious about how my young miss ended up at sixty-fourth on the First List?"
"Well, I am curious about that."
Hu Caiyi grabbed Miss Tang Xiaoxue's hand and said with great earnestness, "If you genuinely have the ability to answer questions while dreaming, you absolutely must teach it to me. No matter what the price, I have to learn it!"
This child had nothing but wishful thinking in her head.
Whether Miss Tang Xiaoxue actually had the ability to answer questions in her sleep was debatable, but Li Qiuchen suspected that perhaps everyone had been in some kind of dream that day.
The three of them arrived at the entrance to the examination hall. Sure enough, the gates were firmly shut, with not a trace of activity to be seen.
This was supposedly one of the more bustling central areas of the county seat, right next to the county school. Such a large examination venue, apparently unused at any other time, brought out only once a year?
Wasn't that a tremendous waste of a resource?
Li Qiuchen stood at the gate, closed his eyes, and took a careful moment to sense what was around him.
Yes, this place had to be an illusory realm.
Three days ago when he had come to sit the examination, his mind had been entirely occupied with how to answer the questions, and he had failed to notice these details at the time.
The proof of identity received when registering before the examination was most likely the token needed to enter the illusory realm but unlike the illusory realm he had entered before, this one had provided no information prompts of any kind.
It was fair to say that everyone had been working through the questions inside a dream.
The written scores on the paper accounted for only part of the total marks. The other portion was most likely determined by the fluctuations in the candidate's state of mind during the examination itself.
Without that explanation, there was simply no other reason that could account for him throttling his score and still landing third on the First List, or for Miss Tang Xiaoxue sleeping through the whole thing and landing sixty-fourth.
Devious. Devious beyond measure.
Li Qiuchen marveled at it inwardly while quietly putting himself on guard.
Caution had been the right instinct. This county school was riddled with hidden design at every turn. The very first entrance examination had already caught all candidates off guard without any of them being the wiser.
If he had actually registered under the false name "Chu Xiaohe," or had been hiding any other secrets, they would have all come spilling out without him even realizing it.
Third on the First List was still too conspicuous a position. It would inevitably attract the attention of those with sharp eyes and keen interests. After going back, he needed to think about making some small adjustments to his public persona, to find a way to maintain a low profile while still extracting as much benefit as possible from the situation.
Most importantly, he couldn't let anyone dig up his true background.
Miss Tang Xiaoxue. Hu Caiyi.
Li Qiuchen turned his head and calmly studied this pair of unusual young ladies.
A Rakshasa ghost and a fox spirit, like a pair of brightly glowing light bulbs.
And directly beneath a light bulb was precisely where the deepest shadow fell.
Commonly known as the darkness under the lamp.
"I'm already getting a little hungry. When are we going to eat the smoked chicken?"
The young miss was growing restless and starting to get a little fussy.
"We're going right now. Let's head out."
Li Qiuchen broke into a smile, warm and bright as the first days of spring, which left both girls momentarily stunned.
"With me here, I will certainly see that both young misses come to no harm."
The day after the children's examination results were posted was the first day of school at the county school.
As the only official school in Yun County, the county school might have had a straightforward name, but there was nothing simple about what lay within.
Five hundred students in the inner hall, over a thousand in the outer hall, occupying more than ten mu of land, with layered buildings rising one above the next in an impressive and grand spectacle.
The examination hall where the children's examination had been held three days earlier was nothing more than a side courtyard tucked beside the school's back gate.
The county school's tuition was expensive, but there was good reason for it.
The quality of teaching resources went without saying. Regarding benefits alone, students enrolled at the county school were issued a standardized style of scholar's robe, with no obvious distinction between inner hall and outer hall students, and even the men's and women's cuts were identical.
The county school provided the Five Classics free of charge as official teaching materials.
These five texts were the "Guiyi," the "Liji," the "Faxiang," the "Shisong," and the "Lishu."
The copies Li Qiuchen had bought for Miss Tang Xiaoxue at the bookshop were simplified youth editions for general readers. What the inner hall issued now were the complete original texts, and even these were only a portion of the full originals.
As inner hall students, each was additionally issued a token representing their identity, with the student's personal information recorded on it. Only by presenting this token could one enter the inner hall.
Many young masters and misses who came with study companions found that their companions lacked the ability to pass into the inner hall and could only wait in the outer hall.
Beyond these provisions, there were also free accommodations and meal services available to inner hall students for whom the daily commute was inconvenient.
To be honest, none of these were particularly remarkable in themselves.
What did one hundred taels of silver actually represent? Measured against local prices in Yun County, you could find an ordinary local resident, buy their house outright, ride to school on them every day, have their wife cook you a different elaborate meal every single day for a year, and still have a comfortable sum left over.
The real benefit of the inner hall lay in the fact that it provided students with officially sanctioned cultivation methods and high-quality cultivation resources at reasonable prices.
Things like miraculous elixirs, divine talismans, and magical treasures.
Of course, all of this was street rumor. People on the outside didn't know the full details, and new students like them probably wouldn't have access to any of it for quite some time.
That his daughter had placed on the First List was a surprise Boss Tang himself had never anticipated. After a full round of socializing outside, he returned home considerably drunk, and was just about to call Miss Tang Xiaoxue over for a word of praise when he happened to look up and see Li Qiuchen. His mind jolted suddenly to attention.
Wait a moment.
This young man had placed third on the First List!
When he had still been a nameless boy from a country village, promoting him to a steward's position would have filled him with overflowing gratitude.
But now?
A top scholar who placed third on the First List of the children's examination. What was the proper way to address him now?
The shock sobered Boss Tang up by half on the spot.
With a few casual words he shooed his daughter away, kept Li Qiuchen behind, then promptly rose from his seat, picked up the teapot himself, and poured Li Qiuchen a cup of hot tea.
"Young Master Li..."
"Please don't joke with me, sir."
"No, no, how could this possibly be a joke? The very first moment I laid eyes on you back in Blue Stone Platform, I could already tell you were a young man of keen intellect and exceptional bearing. As long as you applied yourself to your studies, I knew you were destined for great things!"
He simply hadn't expected those great things to arrive quite this quickly. The sheer magnitude of the surprise had left him somewhat unprepared.
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