The Prime Minister's Darling novel Chapter 141

Chapter 141: 106 Treatment, Cunning Little Monk (Two updates combined) _5

The provincial exam takes place every three years, and Xiao Liulang was fortunate to have qualified for the scholar’s exam right after he was promoted to an academician. However, many other candidates had been eagerly waiting for this day for two solid years.

As the provincial test approached, the atmosphere in the academy became unusually intense, even the masters started focusing less on lecturing and more on providing mock tests for the students to solve.

Xiao Liulang would also pose questions for Lin Chengye. His questions were even more profound and tricky than those given by the masters, leading Lin Chengye to suspect that Xiao Liulang stayed up all night flipping through the classics to pick out sentences no one had ever memorized!

One noon, Gu Yan and a monk named Xiao Jingkong went to take a nap in the side house while Gu Xiaoshun was busy carving wood in the courtyard.

Lin Chengye was utterly overwhelmed by Xiao Liulang’s exam questions.

The manager, Zhou, was on guard duty at the entrance when a young servant suddenly approached him.

Zhou stepped aside and spoke in a low voice, “What happened?”

“The post station was flooded, and Brother Zheng was swept away by the flood. He only managed to return to the Lin Residence a few days ago and is still recovering there.”

Brother Zheng was the young man who came to propose marriage to Gu Jiao earlier. He was the son of a vice-manager in the Lin Family.

After Xiao Liulang refused to visit the Lin Family the previous time, the young Zheng left to return home, only to be caught up in a flood halfway through his journey.

“When did this happen?”

“Half a month ago.”

The trip to the provincial city was via a mountain road, making the journey relatively slow. However, coming back from the provincial city was faster as it was downhill, which allowed Lin Chengye to perfectly avoid the flood.

But if Xiao Liulang had accompanied Zhou to the provincial city at that time, he would have likely encountered the flood at the post station, just like young Zheng did.

Upon finishing tutoring Lin Chengye, Xiao Liulang noticed that Zhou had the look of someone who’d had a near-death experience. He couldn’t help but ask, “What happened?”

“Ah, it’s like this.” Zhou then told Xiao Liulang about the flooding that occurred at the post station half a month ago.

Xiao Liulang was familiar with that particular post station as it was the only one on that official road. In other words, they would have had to stay at that station if they ever visited the provincial city.

If calculated by timing, they would have reached right when the flood was happening.

Lin Chengye couldn’t have been there as he would have passed the post station long before the flood happened due to the quicker trip back from the provincial city.

Xiao Liulang then recalled the incident when Gu Jiao had stopped him from going to the provincial city.

Such coincidences had not been the first——

Because she asked him to buy Osmanthus Cake, he avoided a dispute at the Medical Hall.

Because she came looking for him to have lunch, he escaped a dorm collapse.

And because she wanted to spend the night in town, he avoided a snowstorm in the middle of the journey.

One or two coincidences could be a fluke, but three or four such occurrences merited deeper consideration.