Chapter 156 Ancient Farmer (13)

The days of preparing for the exam were fulfilling and boring.

Thanks to Master Lin, Lin Shiheng moved into the upper room. The inn would prepare food and drinks, and the other drivers would try their best to help him think of them.

Soon the day of the exam arrived. He entered the examination room according to the procedure. Before the exam officially started, people were whispering around.

"Have you heard? The Crown Prince is here to invigilate this time."

"Didn't they say that the Crown Prince would not be involved in government affairs?"

"Brother Zhao is confused. That's the Crown Prince. How can he be compared with other princes?"

The Crown Prince of this dynasty was fifteen years old. Before he was born, His Majesty had been delayed in having children. Therefore, after getting the first son, he was ecstatic and directly announced that he would be named the Crown Prince.

It would be great if he was really the only child. Unfortunately, since the birth of the Crown Prince, the curse of no one in the harem being pregnant seemed to be automatically broken. One after another, princes and princesses emerged, and they were not much different in age from the Crown Prince.

With more children, the emperor did not love the prince as much as before, and the situation of His Royal Highness the Crown Prince, who had a large group of brothers and sisters, became awkward.

This time, as a crown prince, he should be in charge of the capital like his father, but he was sent to supervise the examination, and he was also a deputy examiner, which made people doubt the status of the crown prince in the emperor's mind.

Of course, these are things that officials of higher ranks have to think about. Now a group of scholars in the examination room can't think of such far-reaching things. They are just excited to see His Royal Highness the Crown Prince.

Among the excited scholars, a scholar with a calm face who sat quietly and empty his mind became more and more prominent.

Sun Xiucai... No, the crown prince saw such a scene as soon as he followed the chief examiner in, and his heart was immediately shocked, and he felt that his judgment was correct.

Lin Shiheng is indeed different from ordinary people.

His situation is getting more and more difficult. His father is getting older and his temper is getting weirder. He doesn't care about his younger brothers, allowing them to provoke him and dig holes for him. The more indulgent the princes are, the bolder they are.

This time he came to be the deputy examiner, after all, it was his father who gave him the order, but he was assassinated on the way. Don't think that those assassins can hide it from him by pretending to be people from the previous dynasty. Those people were clearly sent by his brothers.

The prince was so angry that his teeth itched. He was young, his mother died early, and no one in the palace spoke for him. Recently, his relationship with his father became more and more distant. His brothers jumped up and down and wanted to kick him down and take the position of the prince. The pressure was not small.

He was only fifteen years old, but no one dared to believe it.

In the end, he was still afraid. Although he was the prince, he could actually give his subordinates far less than his brothers who had the support of his mother's family. Most of the people around him were for fame and fortune. The prince was very worried that if his brothers gave more fame and fortune, would the people around him betray him like this time.

Thinking of this, the prince looked at Lin Shiheng who was sitting quietly in his seat with bright eyes.

He is different!

He is talented, not greedy for money, has a bottom line, has strategy, and he is a candidate for this exam. As the deputy examiner, he has a natural close relationship with Lin Shiheng.

It would be strange if he didn't recruit such a good candidate for counselor!

Not to mention that he is very confident in Lin Shiheng's literary talent, just relying on the relationship that he wants to recruit people, this exam, as long as Lin Shiheng's writing is not so bad, he can make him on the list.

When the prince thought that he would finally cultivate his own team, he was excited and happy. When he thought that Lin Shiheng didn't know his identity, he had a little more bad taste belonging to the young man.

If he stood in front of Lin Shiheng now, and someone called him His Royal Highness, would this scholar who had been tepid and never changed his face since they met be frightened and change color?

Thinking of this, the prince coughed dryly and walked to Lin Shiheng's side as if unintentionally.

The person next to him reminded: "His Royal Highness is here."

The people in the room knelt immediately.

"I, the humble servant, wish His Royal Highness the Crown Prince a thousand years, a thousand years, a thousand years, a thousand years..."

Lin Shiheng also knelt down lightly and said what he said. After the Crown Prince spoke, he looked up.

The fifteen-year-old Crown Prince deliberately smiled at him like he did before.

The blue-clothed scholar also smiled back and sat in his seat calmly.

The Crown Prince: "..."

That's not right!

Where's the shock? !

The Crown Prince didn't react until the exam started, when Lin Shiheng calmly ground the ink and wrote.

He knew that Lin Shiheng guessed that his identity was not simple, but he didn't guess that he was the Crown Prince, right?

The fifteen-year-old Crown Prince fell into confusion.

After the confusion, he found a reason for himself.

It must be because Mr. Lin was too smart.

That's right, that's it.

He must recruit Mr. Lin. When marking the papers, if Lin Shiheng failed the exam, he would let him pass. If his performance was not good, he would move him to the front. He would make Mr. Lin owe him a favor before he would recruit him.

The prince thought it over and buried himself in the papers.

He came prepared. Although his name was sealed, he had specially looked at Lin Shiheng's handwriting before and memorized his handwriting in his heart. As long as he saw the paper, he would definitely find an opportunity.

He didn't trust anyone, so he simply and roughly decided to do it himself. Fortunately, although he was the prince, he could still mark the papers together.

However, the prince's luck was so bad. He worked hard without taking a break to mark a batch of papers in his hand, but he couldn't find any trace of Lin Shiheng.

It wouldn't be so unlucky. He finally got a chance to sell good things to a promising strategist, but it slipped away?

The prince was feeling sad, and suddenly heard a discussion from the examiner who was looking at the paper.

"This article is good, and the handwriting is also good. I just don't know which talented scholar it is."

"Looking at it now, this one deserves the first place."

"Oh? Let me see it."

The prince felt a little disappointed. It seemed that the first place had been chosen by them.

What a pity, he still thought that only someone like Mr. Lin could deserve the first place.

With the idea of ​​"let me find faults", the prince stood up and walked to the group of adults who were discussing with a paper, "Can I take a look too?"

The adults who were discussing enthusiastically just now were all silent. They were also eager to see the prey and even forgot that His Royal Highness the Prince was still there.

The prince successfully got the test paper, and then his eyes widened.

Isn't this Mr. Lin's handwriting?

In order to prevent zu0'b-i, the previous dynasty ordered that all candidates' papers must be copied by Yu before being handed over to the examiners for evaluation, but the candidates can still write the agreed words on the paper, which can be said to be a case of you have Zhang Liang's record and I have a ladder over the wall.

In this dynasty, the previous emperor ordered that in order to avoid zu0'b-i, examiners are assigned to various places by Beijing officials and cannot go to their hometowns. Once they arrive at a place, they will be followed closely by eunuchs sent by the emperor and live together in the examination hall to set questions.

After the questions are set, until the exam is over, the correction is completed and the results are released, the examiners can leave the examination hall.

The prince was an exception. He was like a mascot and had no right to set questions. Therefore, no one would say anything to him if he arrived late. However, once he entered the examination room, as a deputy examiner, he could not leave until the results came out.

Because of this rule, copying by reputation was dispensable. The court did not want to abolish it. In addition, there were always mistakes in copying by reputation. The examinees did not make any mistakes, but the copyists made mistakes, which caused the examinees' scores to decline. Therefore, copying by reputation was abolished from the beginning of this dynasty.

The examinees' papers can appear in front of the examiners in their original form.

This is not bad either. At least many examiners will occasionally look at the handwriting to increase the score.

And now, the prince looked at the paper in his hand and was 100% sure that this was Mr. Lin's handwriting.

As for the article written on it, he was still looking at Mr. Lin to write it.

The prince was a little confused when he found that someone had opened the skylight by himself.

An elderly examiner next to him asked, "Your Highness, what do you think of this?"

The prince forced a smile.

"Good."

At the same time, he was more determined to recruit Mr. Lin.

Such a great talent must be used by him.

No, there is no need to recruit him, they have already agreed with each other.

The prince felt that Lin Shiheng was unfathomable. The smile that the scholar gave him in the examination room before was now interpreted as him accepting his olive branch.

This fate between them must be destined, and God has destined Mr. Lin to help him.

In the future, he will definitely be able to outlast his father, defeat his brother, sit on the throne, and get along well with Mr. Lin.

The prince, full of fighting spirit, stayed in the stuffy little courtyard until the papers were corrected.

Before he had time to recruit Lin Shiheng, a group of fast horses from the capital entered the city.

"Your Highness, His Majesty is seriously ill, please return to Beijing as soon as possible!!"

In the countryside, Li Lanlan was washing clothes, and Lin's mother came back from outside, "Lanlan, I saw your father went to our fields to help again, you cook more dishes, and let your father-in-law come to our house to eat in the evening."

"Hey."

Li Lanlan responded with a crisp voice, hung the washed clothes to dry, got up and went to the kitchen to see what dishes to cook in the evening.

Lin's mother was still a little absent-minded, because her son had taken the exam several times, and she was very familiar with the process. She knew that the results should be out by now, and the results of the exams would generally be transmitted to the county government first. If someone passed the exam, the government would naturally send someone to announce the good news.

She had only heard her son talk about it before, and had never seen it. Now she was looking forward to her son passing the exam, and at the same time she thought that if he didn't pass the exam, she shouldn't show too much disappointment so as not to put pressure on the child, and she looked up from time to time to look outside.

The daughter-in-law of the big room next door knew what her mother-in-law was thinking when she saw her mother-in-law like this, and immediately rolled her eyes.

I really don't know what my mother-in-law thinks. My third brother has failed the exam for so many years. I'm afraid he really doesn't have the talent. If this was her son, she would definitely not let him take the exam and let him go to the county to make money.

The second wife was a little restless. Seeing that the eldest sister-in-law looked indifferent, she simply quietly moved over.

"Sister-in-law, if my third brother really passes the exam, is it wrong for us to divide the family?"

"Don't daydream. If he could pass the exam, he would have passed it long ago. Why wait until now?"

The eldest wife was very sure, "Don't worry, he will never pass the exam in this life."

As soon as the voice fell, there was a faint sound of gongs and drums outside.

Mother Lin was shocked and stood outside the door looking far away with some expectation.

Father Lin, who was drowsy in the room, heard the noise and thought about what the old woman had told him before that if he passed the exam, it would be time to come and announce the good news. He also opened his eyes suddenly and stretched out his weak hands to sit up and look outside.

Just as they were expecting, the people beating gongs and drums finally came to the door. The leader saw Mother Lin's face full of expectation and stopped.

"Is this the home of Master Lin Shiheng? We are here to announce the good news. Congratulations to Master Lin for winning the provincial examination. He will be Master Jieyuan in the future!!"