In the blink of an eye, it was already the morning of the third day.
Yan Li lined up in a long line and entered the examination hall with the other candidates.
In the past two days, apart from recuperating and reading, he also did one thing.
Of course, he was not the one who did it. It took him two whole days to collect all the information he could about Master Huofeng Zhu Rong.
Master Huofeng Zhu Rong was the Dharma Protector of the Five Elements Court, one of the nine Confucian orthodoxy schools in the celestial world. The Dharma Protector was the highest position in the Confucian orthodoxy. In the sect, he was second only to one person and above tens of thousands. His cultivation had already reached an extraordinary realm.
Zhu Rong had always been known for being fair and strict. This was also the reason why he was chosen to mark the exam papers.
While thinking about Zhu Rong's information, it was already his turn. After reporting his name and submitting the document, he was led into the examination hall by a low-ranking official. He came to a small enclosed cubicle in the hall with a low table and a soft couch.
The low-ranking official said indifferently, "The examination time is six hours. After six hours, you must hand in your paper whether you have finished it or not. Otherwise, it will be treated as a blank paper. During this period, you are not allowed to make any noise, walk out of the examination room, or use your True Qi. Otherwise, you will bear the consequences! "
After saying this, the low-ranking official left.
Yan Li closed the door and sat down. Not long after, a golden light fell and covered the whole cubicle.
When the golden light fell, he felt as if he was being stared at by many eyes, which made him feel a little uncomfortable. The noise that could still be heard disappeared as well. It was as if he had entered a completely enclosed space. Obviously, this was to prevent cheating.
He sat on the soft couch for a moment. The golden light moved again and cast down four big words, which read: Virtuous like water.
His heart trembled and he immediately understood that this was the examination question for this essay.
The short table had a brush, ink, paper, and inkstone. He spread out a piece of white paper, dipped the brush in ink, and wrote the four words "Virtuous like water" on the paper. Then he looked at it carefully.
The Sacred Court was in charge of setting the test questions, which were extremely difficult. It was not like 'Establishing a Son of Heaven', 'Saints are without substance', 'Cultivation', and so on, which had very clear directions.
Yan Li used an hour to think about it. Then, he laid out another piece of paper and wrote, "Water is good and beneficial to all living things, but it does not compete with others. It deals with the evils of others, so it is similar to the Tao. Benevolence, benevolence, benevolence …
Recently, he had read a lot of books, so he had a lot of ink in his chest. It only took him an hour to write a few hundred words.
After he finished writing, he put down the pen and checked word by word to make sure there were no typos. Only then did he read through it once. He felt that he had reached an extremely high level of quoting from the classics and was quite satisfied.
He felt very uncomfortable sitting in the cubicle. The rules didn't say that he couldn't hand in his paper in advance. He wrote his name on the white paper and was about to get up. Suddenly, something flashed in his mind, and he slowly sat back down.
He reread the test paper as he thought about Zhu Rong.
It was said that Zhu Rong had been a marking officer many years ago. At that time, many of the papers that were marked had a unified comment, which was: Emphasis on discourse and light on cultivation.
At that time, those essays were considered to be excellent, but without exception, they were judged to be inferior and failed the exam. Because of this, Confucian orthodoxy and the Sacred Court even had a conflict, which caused quite a stir.
With that as an example, he immediately broke out in a cold sweat. Without hesitation, he crumpled the paper into a ball and threw it aside.
The topic was not clear, and it was difficult to find the main idea.
Not only that, but he also had to focus on cultivation, which was indeed not easy.
Yan Li had no choice but to continue thinking hard.
This time, he thought hard for an hour, but he still couldn't find a key to solve the problem. His attention was gradually diverted, and he felt a splitting headache. Annoyance and anger gradually accumulated in his chest.
The discourse on cultivation was not like a traditional scientific examination.
He had taken the exam once in the Land of Gods. Although his results were not good, he had barely passed. More importantly, the essay he wrote did not require much thought, because the "scientific examination" had a model to follow. Every stroke had its own rules, and by following those rules and following the model, it was very easy to solve the problem.
This exam focused on the discourse on cultivation, and there was an ambiguous and difficult question. It was not easy to solve the problem, and when he thought about how he still had to pass Zhu Rong, he had a headache.
Seeing that six hours were slowly being used up, he felt more and more pressure.
After taking a few deep breaths, he relaxed his body, supported his body with his hands, and looked up at the golden light above his head.
The golden light seemed to be cast down from the ceiling. It should be some kind of talisman.
He believed that his every move was under the watchful eyes of the invigilator.
After staring at the golden light for a while, he suddenly opened his eyes wide. He saw that the golden light that formed the cover was formed by layers of liquid-like substance that flowed endlessly. It was also in a process of constant change.
Of course, this world was not limited to changes in martial arts and cultivation.
Change itself was the embodiment of "Dao".
His chest was suddenly filled with a kind of emotion. There was a special kind of inspiration that gradually intertwined.
The irritation was gradually dispelled, like a silent spring breeze brushing through his heart. The withered flowers and plants were injected with new vitality, so that they gradually became exuberant.
But suddenly, it came to an abrupt stop, because there was a slight bell ringing from outside. It was like the kind of soul urging sound that signaled the end of the exam.
It was indeed the soul urging sound that signaled the end of the exam, but Yan Li's time was not up yet.
He quickly thought of the reason. Because there were too many examinees, they could only enter the examination hall in batches. It should be the time of the previous batch of examinees.
His chest was filled with irritation again, and there were less than two hours left.
He could only stare at the golden light again, trying to find that feeling.
The magic of talismans was that no matter how much you knew about them, you could always feel that they were unfathomable.
The golden light flowed, and if you stared at it for a long time, it was as if you had entered another level of space and time.
There, you could feel a different kind of vitality.
"Ding —"
The soul urging bell suddenly rang. Yan Li suddenly opened his eyes, and almost cursed out loud.
If it wasn't for the fact that he couldn't make noise, he would have definitely cursed the examiner.
Forcing himself to calm down, he suddenly had a thought, and raised his head to look coldly at the golden light. He really didn't believe that the sound had come in accidentally. If someone was deliberately disturbing him, things would be a bit troublesome.
There wasn't much time left.
Cultivators were also human, and as long as they were human, they would inevitably be affected by some external factors.
Yan Li was better at adjusting his emotions, so when he realized that this could be a malicious pressure, he had the intention to resist it.
Many times, it was like this. Under the premise that you didn't know, you could be inexplicably affected, but once you were on guard, it was as if a wall had been erected in your heart, and the result was completely different.
In just these fifteen minutes, there had been three strange sounds, but they didn't affect him in the slightest.
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