The Immortal Seeker: Legend of Bronze Mirror
Chapter 242 - 125 Elder Fang Decisively Ends the Debate, the World’s Top Scorer Emerges (Seeking Subscriptions) _2

Chapter 242: Chapter 125 Elder Fang Decisively Ends the Debate, the World’s Top Scorer Emerges (Seeking Subscriptions) _2

Thus, the officials, setting aside their eagerness to watch from the sidelines, all returned to their senses at this moment.

This is indeed a huge trap.

Fortunately, they are not the chief examiners.

Ultimately, it must be the chief examiners who bear the responsibility and determine the nature of the matter.

It must be said, their professional qualities are each exceptional. Even though they did not react at first, each relied on their instinctive awareness to handle Shen Mo’s questioning.

Thus, the most awkward people now are the reserve examiner and Shen Mo.

The reserve examiner posed the question, and Shen Mo needs to shoulder the chief examiner’s responsibility.

Now Shen Mo could no longer bother with disciplining the reserve examiner, he could only first resolve the current trouble. He slowly addressed Assistant Chief Examiner Wang, "Assistant Chief Examiner Wang, whether this essay involves cheating, a conclusion must be drawn. After all, as the chief examiners, we must be accountable to the Emperor, and to these students who have studied diligently for ten years, there can be no carelessness."

Elder Wang, under Shen Mo’s aggressive tone, could only vaguely respond, "The content of this essay is lively and interesting, extremely elegant, which makes it hard for this old man to believe that this is actually an eight-legged essay."

The examiners were enlightened.

The old are indeed more experienced.

If it were the works of ancient saints written by scholars of the previous generations, they couldn’t possibly match exactly with the modern framework of eight-legged essays.

Though the eight-legged essay is derived from ancient prose, its format, framework, and rhythm all have nuances in this current age.

It’s not something one could coincidentally achieve.

However, Shen Mo was not satisfied because Elder Wang’s arguments, while seemingly validating that the essay was not cheated, still left an unresolved pit. He continued, "What if someone slightly refined an ancient article and wrote it like this? Although this essay seems perfect, it doesn’t look like it has been altered."

The reserve examiner first thought Elder Wang would affirm this essay, and the mistake he made would have significant repercussions.

He deeply regretted it now.

But he couldn’t be blamed, after extensively reviewing numerous papers, it was easy to become dizzy and bleary-eyed, and a sudden encounter with such an outstanding essay, slipping up was normal.

Even if he hadn’t said it, due to the exceptional quality of the essay, it definitely would have entered into the discussions and evaluations among the examiners.

Everyone would have this same concern.

Because in the Great Yu Dynasty, incidents had indeed occurred where someone used a famous ancient eight-legged essay from previous generations to pass exams, which, once re-evaluated by the idle officials of the Hanlin Academy, implicated the entire county exam’s examiners.

After Shen Mo spoke, the reserve examiner had to deeply agree, and hurriedly chimed in, "Chief examiner is wise, we must be cautious."

The other examiners also nodded in agreement.

Shen Mo looked at the reserve examiner and asked, "Your Excellency, what good solutions do you have?"

The reserve examiner was startled, realizing he couldn’t shake off this responsibility, he wryly smiled and said, "Chief Examiner, what if we take a look at this candidate’s ’The Book of Changes’ questions. The four books question topics are about profound meanings, following the righteous path, consistent with ancient prose. However, the Five Classics question, which pertains to the candidate’s specialty, surely can’t coincidentally have both the four books and the Five Classics questions all being copied from lost ancient texts. If the two sets of answers show a huge disparity in quality, there must surely be foul play."

The topics of the four books question quote numerous ancient texts which had been lost, which could somewhat be justified.

But the Five Classics questions are based on the annotations from Zhu of the previous dynasty; finding an ancient text that matches the style and content of the four books while also sticking to Zhu’s Five Classics annotations is virtually impossible.

Shen Mo nodded, "Well spoken, let’s see how the owner of this answer sheet did on his Five Classics questions."

He instructed and soon found the Five Classics answer sheet of the candidate.

This time Shen Mo had the answer sheet hung up on the wall for everyone to observe together.

During the review process, the examiners couldn’t help but give Shen Mo a strange look.

Shen Mo’s expression was as calm as still water, showing no emotion.

At that moment, the examiners fell silent.

The style was indeed different.

However...

This was unmistakably your, Shen Junshan’s, writing style.

After all, Shen Mo was a top scorer coming from the Hanlin Academy, originally known as the Reserve Prime Minister.

It can be said, the top scorers of this dynasty, unless they ruined themselves, couldn’t possibly not enter the Cabinet.

Therefore, for those in the officialdom, studying the essays of the top scorers is a compulsory course.

This was like a destined future bigwig.

Like the future Buddha in Buddhism.

A top position had been predetermined.

"Somebody should have said it’s your man." A critic among the examiners muttered.

The reserve examiner’s face darkened even more.

Thus, everyone was silent, unsure how to speak up.

Shen Mo felt greatly wronged in his heart, his writing style during his own county exam years, although the same, was somewhat lacking...

Regarding now.

Having been an official for too long, his academic level had regressed, and writing eight-legged essays was something he hadn’t done for years.

But he soon realized.

"This is Xu Qing’s essay."

"Dammit!" Shen Mo couldn’t help but curse inwardly.

He suddenly understood Xu Qing’s intent.

Xu Qing’s essay on the Four Books was of saintly scholar level, definitely drawing discussions and attention from the examiners, ensuring it passed the initial selection.

While the Five Classics question typically determined the rankings.

With his recognizable style, unless other examiners wanted to seriously offend Shen Mo, they had to consider Xu Qing’s relationship with Shen Mo, placing Xu Qing as the Five Classics Leader, or even the Top Scorer.

After all, in terms of level, Xu Qing’s Four Books essay could arguably be called the best in history at the county exams.

Such a rich saintly aura has never been produced by any candidate in the county exams before.

Undoubtedly, it must be the level of a Great Scholar of this age.

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