"Time's up. All candidates, put down your pens and wait for the proctors to come collect your answer sheets."
Ming Shuiyun set down her fountain pen and let out a long, relieved breath. She exchanged glances with Qian Yuya and Lin Xue nearby. The latter gave a slight nod, making Ming Shuiyun happy yet somewhat guilty.
According to plan, Qian Yuya and Lin Xue would each deliberately get one question wrong, ensuring their total scores fell below Ming Shuiyun's. If Shi Wen, the All-Knowing Eye's veteran king, hadn't messed things up, this answer sheet would undoubtedly have been the highest-scoring one. But there was only one seat for the All-Knowing Eye, and three students couldn't share it. Tea Huan might simply designate someone at random to receive it when the time came—or, given the old man's peculiar tastes, he might deliberately prevent Ming Shuiyun from taking first place.
Qian Yuya and Lin Xue were only there to help, so they naturally had no need for the All-Knowing Eye. They were already quite satisfied with the Heart of Erudition awarded to second and third place. If not for the sake of occupying those two Heart of Erudition seats and pushing the other Sword Masters lower in the rankings, they would even have been willing to hand in blank papers.
Academic honors were useful for motivating students who had never seen blood, but to people like them, who bore blood feuds, they were completely meaningless. Compared to an empty sense of honor, hatred and ideals were what drove them to learn.
Still, their willingness to give up the opportunity was a favor, and Ming Shuiyun had no sense of entitlement whatsoever. At the end of the day, Ming Shuiyun was just an ordinary person. Everyone who was qualified to ascend the throne