The Prime Minister's Darling novel Chapter 505

Chapter 505: 254 Top of the Honor Roll (First Update) _{freёwebnoѵel.com}

Chapter 505: 254 Top of the Honor Roll (First Update)

The Emperor was in Jinluan Hall, reviewing the examination papers of the candidates. The Minister of Rites, the Chief Eunuch of the Honglu Temple, and several Grand Scholars of the Cabinet were all present.

Although the papers had been corrected by several people, the Emperor would still question them if he had doubts.

All of them were extremely tense, especially the Chief Eunuch of Honglu Temple.

Of course, the papers presented to His Majesty were not all clean. They had intentionally mixed in papers from candidates they wanted to promote from each faction. These candidates were not necessarily weak, as those who performed poorly could not even make it to the Palace Examination.

They feared the Emperor might not favor the selected candidates and single them out for elimination, reselecting from the papers of those ranked after the 20th. This happened rarely, but it was not unprecedented.

If the Emperor placed a paper to his right after reading it, it meant it was accepted, but if he placed it to his left, it indicated an objection.

Papers with objections usually had no chance of being placed in Class Alpha, but they generally wouldn’t descend to Class Three ranking either.

The Emperor had reviewed ten papers so far, and no paper had been rejected yet.

The weather was nice today, so the Imperial Study Room was incredibly quiet, with only a warm spring breeze slowly entering from outside.

The wind blew up a corner of a paper, and Eunuch Wei hurriedly used a yellow jade figurine to hold it down.

Without raising his head, the Emperor appreciated Eunuch Wei’s meticulous care. Eunuch Wei had served him for many years and was indeed worthy of his trust.

The Emperor gave a low cough, and Eunuch Wei quickly offered him a cup of hot tea.

Even the temperature of the tea was just right.

“Your Majesty, you have been reviewing papers all morning, please take a break,” Minister Li advised worriedly. “Your Majesty’s health is of utmost importance.”

“I am fine,” the Emperor answered. It was just a little feverish. This was the worst part of being an Emperor. A small rumour could cause a big upheaval, so he didn’t like to admit when he was unwell.

The Emperor took a sip of tea and continued to review the papers. He had just finished reviewing the papers of Yuan Yu and Ning Zhiyuan, the talented scholar from Jiangnan. Currently, both papers seemed to be ranked in the top three.

The overall quality of the candidates of this session was better than the previous sessions, making the selection process much more difficult.

The Chief Eunuch of Honglu Temple was one of the people who had tampered with the papers. He knew well that the Emperor was about to review Xiao Liulang’s paper. Xiao’s paper was not highly graded, ranking at the tail end of the top twenty.