The Lucky Farmgirl
Chapter 578 - 567: Set Up

Chapter 578: Chapter 567: Set Up

This year, as usual, the prefectural school only selected one hundred and fifty students, and of course, the Prince of Yizhou couldn’t possibly finish reading all one hundred and fifty thick exam papers.

Moreover, the academics presented one hundred and eighty papers, from which one hundred and fifty were to be chosen.

Therefore, he only flipped through a few on the top, which were those ranking closest to the front. After looking them over, he asked, "Are there any controversial essays?"

After exchanging looks, the academics replied, "Your Highness, we have roughly ranked the papers, but everyone has different opinions, so it’s normal to have some controversy."

The Prince of Yizhou then frowned, dropped the papers he held, and with a lifted chin said, "Then let me see the last ten papers."

"Yes."

Bai Shanbao’s paper was among the last ten.

Having flipped through the top three, it was natural to see the contrast with the last ten. He simply skimmed through them without careful examination, then casually tossed them aside one by one.

When he got to Bai Shanbao’s paper, he paused, then hoisting the paper in his hand, he asked, "Isn’t this paper rather good? Although far from matching the top three, it’s much better than the other ten selected, and should at least be within the top one hundred and fifty, right?"

An academic glanced over and bowed his head, responding with a "Yes."

But another academic, not convinced, said, "Perhaps Your Highness should examine the final essay question in detail."

Only then did the Prince of Yizhou flip to the last essay answer, and after staring at it for a while, he laughed, "There is talent indeed, although it might be a bit too presumptuous."

After saying so, he tossed the paper into the pile with the nine others, clearly not planning to pass it.

However, Lord Zhang took a glance, stepped forward to pick it up, and laughed, "I’m quite curious as to what this person wrote to make Your Highness so angered."

After saying that, he also started to look through it.

Upon finishing, Lord Zhang’s face remained cheerful as he gently said, "It is quite audacious indeed, but such a talented person is expected to be a bit arrogant. If the school could educate him, he will undoubtedly become a pillar of the state in the future."

Right away, an academic fond of Bai Shan took the opportunity to remind, "Lord Zhang, you should see where this student is from—he’s only twelve years old."

"Oh?" Lord Zhang hurriedly flipped to the information glued to the front. After seeing it clearly, he burst out laughing, "Indeed, just twelve. Your Highness, this makes him all the more teachable."

The Prince of Yizhou reached out for it, looked over his origin, and nodded, "He’s a young man, and the vanity of youth can be excused. In that case, let’s admit him."

A sigh of relief came from the academics, as Bai Shan truly was an excellent prospect.

"However, although accepted, we cannot award him too high a ranking. My opinion is that one hundred and fiftieth place would be good, to prevent him from becoming even more arrogant once he is enrolled."

Everyone promptly agreed.

The Prince of Yizhou then stood up to take his leave, "Alright, I’m not adept at this examination process, so I’ll leave the final rankings and admissions decisions to Lord Zhang."

In Yizhou City, aside from the Prince, Lord Zhang held the highest office, so assigning this task to him put no pressure on the Prince.

The assembly busied themselves with bowing to see the Prince of Yizhou out the door.

Afterward, they commenced reevaluating and setting the rankings.

However, Bai Shan’s position had been set at one hundred and fiftieth place; regardless of how poor those ahead of him were, he would not advance a single place; and no matter how outstanding the remaining students were, they could not displace him and take his spot.

In general, Bai Shan’s results were quite good, so the academics felt no guilt in locking in this ranking.

Manbao and the others spent most of the day making their kite and incidentally made one for Mr. Zhuang as well.

Mr. Zhuang’s kite was the simplest; lacking any good patterns for him, they crudely drew a sitting Confucius, then copied a few Chapters from The Analects onto it.

The characters were neat and small, and from afar, one could still discern that they were letters; once in the sky, likely nothing would be visible but blotches of ink.

Bai Erlang claimed he would make a tiger kite, which indeed looked like a tiger only after much effort. With the help of Manbao and Bai Shanbao, they managed to cut out a large caterpillar. Manbao drew the caterpillar’s mouth, and then Bai Erlang smeared it with all sorts of colors before finally assembling it with bamboo strips.

Ignoring the caterpillar’s head and adding some scales to the body, it would look like a dragon rather than a caterpillar.

Bai Shanbao made a gigantic tiger kite, spoiling many sheets of paper before succeeding. After coloring, the whole tiger looked imposing and majestic.

Manbao, on the other hand, obtained several beautiful flower images from Keke and then started to draw based on them, spoiling several sheets before barely managing to create what he considered his best work.

After finishing the kites, they all went to Mr. Zhuang for judgment.

Mr. Zhuang carefully examined the four oversized kites laid before him. He picked up the one with Confucius and The Analects’ maxims and nodded, "Good, we shall go out for an outing early tomorrow morning."

The three disciples cheered happily. Anticipating, Manbao asked Mr. Zhuang, "Teacher, which of our kites do you think looks the best?"

Bai Shanbao and Bai Erlang both looked at him expectantly.

Mr. Zhuang then pointed to the kite in his hands and declared, "This one looks the best."

Bai Erlang, unsatisfied, protested, "Teacher, yours only has one Confucius drawn with just a few strokes, and it’s very blurry without any color."

"That’s why it looks the best."

The three disciples: ...

Feeling unconvinced, Manbao took a look at his own painting, then turned to find Zhou Silang, "Silang, take a look at my completed kite."

Zhou SiLang glanced over and praised, "Well done, well done. Didn’t you say you were going to make a flower kite? Why did you end up painting a mountain? But I must say, this colorful mountain is indeed eye-catching."

Upon hearing that, Bai Shanbao and Bai Erlang couldn’t help but burst into laughter, almost unable to hold their kites.

Annoyed, Manbao pouted and took his kite back to the room, deciding to ignore them for the rest of the evening.

Zhou Silang, unsure of where he went wrong and seeing Bai Shanbao and the others nearly collapsing with laughter, just pursed his lips and mumbled, "It can’t be that the painting is actually flowers, right?"

Bai Shanbao, with tears in his eyes, nodded without being able to utter a word.

Zhou SiLang could only secretly apologize to his sister in his heart, then took a look at Bai Shanbao and the others’ kites and praised, "Your kites have turned out quite well."

Bai Shanbao and Bai Erlang laughed while showing off their satisfied smiles.

The next day, bright and early after breakfast, they all set off in a carriage together.

Rather than leaving the city, they headed for Qixia Mountain within the city limits.

Atop Qixia Mountain was a Taoist temple, and below lay many wealthy families’ villas. Halfway up the mountain was a wide expanse of woods and meadows. Mr. Zhuang often played there with his classmates when he was younger and knew it was a perfect spot for kite flying.

In spring, many children from nearby liked to go there to fly kites.

Search the lightnovelworld.cc website on Google to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality.