In Love With My Fierce Farming Wife!
Chapter 1194 - 1106: Cheating

Chapter 1194: Chapter 1106: Cheating

"The chicken soup has been simmering since yesterday, and despite stewing for a day, you didn’t sip it this morning before you hurriedly left. I had the Imperial Kitchen fish out the overcooked chicken meat and bones and used the broth to make a bowl of vegetable noodles for you to try."

With a leisurely, gentle smile on her face, Su Pan’er eased the tightly wound string in Qin Yi’s heart considerably.

"Really, Pan’er has taken such pains back and forth for me, then I certainly must savor it carefully."

Qin Yi sat down at the table and looked towards the large bowl placed on the surface.

The bowl was an oversized one, thin as cicada’s wings, lustrous and translucent. Entwined within the bowl, the noodles curled and twisted, topped with a few grains of vibrant Scallion Flowers, the soup light in color with only a rich aroma continuously wafting out, stirring his great appetite.

Looking at such a simple bowl of noodles gave him an inexplicable feeling of home.

He smiled at her, picked up the chopsticks and began to separate the noodles, uncovering several pieces of green vegetable leaves resting at the bottom.

No matter how much he picked, it seemed the noodles would never end.

Su Pan’er watched with amusement: "Your Majesty, there’s no need to keep separating them. This bowl of noodles contains only one strand, specially instructed by myself for the kitchen to make for Your Majesty. Why not try the taste?"

A bowl of noodles with just one strand?

Qin Yi looked surprised, but his hand didn’t slow down, slurping the noodle into his mouth with one go.

Although Qin Yi had become an emperor, years of marching and battling in the South and the North had long accustomed him to eating quickly. The bowl of noodles not only contained one strand, but the portion was indeed small. Qin Yi finished the noodles in just two bites, the green vegetables entered the spot between his thumb and index finger, and he drank the noodle soup to the last drop, still looking at Su Pan’er with a sense of longing.

"It’s a bit scant, is there any more?"

"Your Majesty probably hasn’t had the chance to eat properly since yesterday, right?"

Su Pan’er diverted the subject by bringing over some refreshment for him to rinse his mouth: "The stomach can be damaged by eating too much at once after being empty for too long. If Your Majesty likes it, I can have the Imperial Kitchen make some more later."

The current implication was, if he wanted more noodles now, there were none.

With a sense of unfulfilled desire, Qin Yi picked up the refreshment to rinse his mouth, before moving to sit on the soft couch on the other side.

"Eunuch An said you had something urgent to discuss with me. It isn’t just for the sake of this bowl of chicken noodle soup, is it?"

Yet Su Pan’er playfully smiled: "Does Your Majesty think filling your belly with this bowl of chicken noodle soup isn’t the most important matter?"

"Important, indeed it is!"

Qin Yi laughed heartily, gesturing for Su Pan’er to come with a wave of his hand: "Come here, into my embrace. I was so focused on eating just now that I forgot to ask if you had eaten?"

They say when one is well-fed and warm, one starts to think of other needs, and this saying was indeed true.

Although his belly was not full, seeing the increasingly voluptuous parts of her body due to pregnancy, a restless feeling arose from his lower abdomen, wishing he could act immediately. His eyes inevitably held that particular meaning.

But this time, Su Pan’er did not comply with his wishes!

"What time is it now? Naturally, I’ve had lunch already."

Instead, she gave him a covert glare: "Didn’t Your Majesty ask if I had something to discuss?"

She turned and walked towards the desk on the other side, pulled open a drawer, and took out an exceptionally thick envelope, then turned and handed it to Qin Yi.

"This letter, right after Ke’er fell ill coming out from the examination hall, I sent someone to visit her, and Ke’er handed it to me on the spot, asking me to present it to Your Majesty for your review. I intended to give it to you a couple of days earlier, but there was never an opportunity."

Su Ke handed over a letter to herself.

Qin Yi recalled how he had secretly instructed Su Ke to pay attention to the situation inside the examination hall and to report back immediately if anything unusual happened.

Now that the Spring Imperial Civil Service Examination was over, Su Ke had long since left the examination hall. He had not seen Su Ke report back and thought that Su Ke might not have discovered anything, but unexpectedly, the letter was delivered to him through Pan’er.

He took the envelope and saw it was sealed with sealing wax, showing that no one had opened it.

He continued and tore open the edge of the envelope, and, unexpectedly, three candles fell out first. He examined the candles for a moment, but couldn’t find anything unusual. He reached into the envelope again and pulled out a piece of paper.

After reading it quickly, he solemnly picked up the three candles once more.

"What’s going on?"

Su Pan’er asked curiously.

"It is something Ke’er brought out from the examination hall," Qin Yi said, passing the letter to her while holding the three candles tightly in his hand.

Su Pan’er skimmed the contents of the letter quickly and also understood why His Majesty was hesitant.

"Your Majesty, does Ke’er suspect that these people cheated using the candles?"

"If they truly cheated with candles, there will be many people involved," Qin Yi replied gravely.

He then ordered Eunuch An to bring a small bowl and a candle holder.

He placed one of the separated candles into the bowl and then placed the bowl on the candle holder to heat up. As the bowl heated up, the wax gradually melted. When the candle slowly melted away, a piece of wax paper as thick as a wick appeared before their eyes.

Peeling away the wax paper revealed a piece of paper filled on both sides with tiny characters—the very answers to the previous Spring Imperial Civil Service Examination questions!

Neither of them reached for it; they just stared at the paper scroll before them.

From Su Ke’s account, it seemed that the person who delivered the candles must have had many such candles and distributed them through a certain secret signal to request these specially made candles.

But the question is, who made these candles? Who leaked the exam questions from the hall? Who wrote the answers on the small slips of paper, and who was responsible for selling the specially made candles in the examination hall?

After all, Qin Yi had only just reformed the examination rules and personally supervised the creation of the questions and went to the Imperial Academy to pose questions on the spot, all to prevent the exam questions from being leaked in advance.

It was truly a case of "the higher the virtue, the higher the devil"!

No matter how many precautions and reforms are in place, one cannot stop people from wanting to cheat.

"You needn’t worry too much, Your Majesty. As the saying goes, ’where the water is too clear, there are no fish, and when people are too scrutinized, there are no followers.’ You strive to be an enlightened ruler, and these gray areas will always exist no matter what. Without some practical incentives, who would really accept your salary and share your worries? It’s better to take a broader view," Su Pan’er said.

"Are you suggesting that I let these cheating incidents during the Imperial Examination go unchecked? I cannot stand for this!" Qin Yi said, clearly angered, and he got up without even taking a rest, ready to leave. Upon reflection, he turned back to retrieve the wax paper from the wick.

"Your Majesty!" Su Pan’er suddenly caught his hand: "What I mean is that you should not focus on the trivial details. Even if among these people, some cheat, some take the exams on behalf of others, or some find connections. Such things happened in the past and will certainly continue in the future."

"In any industry, any place, as long as there are people, there will be competition. And where there is competition, corruption naturally follows."

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