The Prime Minister's Darling novel Chapter 170

Chapter 170: 115 Perfect answer sheet! (Two updates in one)_2

The man slowly chewed and enjoyed his food.

The aroma of the meat mixed with the smell of pickled vegetables pervaded the entire examination site, driving all the exam candidates to the edge.

With such challenging exam questions during the daytime and such terrible weather, wasn’t it enough of a torment? Why would anyone want to eat such fragrant food in the examination site?

Did you really come to take the exam?

Who brings such a lavish spread to an exam?

If not for the ban on candidates talking with others, they would have screamed, “Brother, share me a bite. I got you covered wherever you go in the future!”

Adding insult to injury, how could there be no mosquitoes in the hot night?

Xiao Liulang and his two companions applied some mosquito repellent and slept soundly. Whereas the candidates, who had spent the night fighting mosquitoes, came out of the exam site with dark circles so heavy they could barely keep their eyes open.

Fortunately, on the day the exam was over, a heavy rain fell in the provincial city, cooling off the weather.

On the 11th day, the candidates entered the examination room again.

The second exam was a discussion on the Five Classics. Each discussion wasn’t required to have many words, not less than three hundred would suffice. In previous years, it often revolved around people’s livelihoods and official careers, such as commerce, agriculture and irrigation, the division of duties in the six departments, and so on.

Yet, this year, they started off with a discussion on the pros and cons of reducing the power of the feudal lords, which directly stunned the candidates.

Which fearless examiner set such a sharp and sensitive question?

In Zhan Country, exam questions for the rural examinations were set by the cabinet every year, then inspected by the emperor. It was only after the emperor’s approval that they were box-packed, sealed, and sent off to major provincial cities.

The exam questions issued uniformly by the court were consistent. However, it didn’t rule out an individual or accidental situation, such as leaking or damaging the questions. Therefore, the court usually prepared eight sets of exam papers.

The chief examiner randomly drew the questions on the spot during the examination. Whichever set was drawn was used, and as far as they were concerned, there wasn’t a precedent of all the provinces getting the same set of questions.

Unluckily, the chief examiner of this provincial city drew the most difficult set this year.

Among these candidates, there were newbies like Xiao Liulang and also those who had been taking exams for most of their lives with graying hair.