A heavy snowfall blanketed the Imperial Capital of Qi Kingdom.
By the next day, the entire Imperial Capital was covered in white.
As people walked the streets, white clouds of breath rose with every exhale.
Aside from seeing Lord Zhang off as he left the capital, Xiao Mo had spent all his time reading at the inn.
Before long, the weather gradually warmed, and it was already early March.
That day, the roadside stalls and vendors along Xuanwu Street, which ran from the Imperial Capital to the Examination Compound, had all been cleared away.
It was the day of the Metropolitan Examination.
After being searched, Xiao Mo entered the examination hall and found his assigned cell.
The examination was divided into three sessions, one per day.
The first session, on the first day, was poetry and rhapsody.
Candidates had to compose one poem and one rhapsody. It was the most important examination in Great Qi, directly determining whether they would be admitted as Jinshi.
The poetry topic was generally fairly open-ended.
But rhapsody topics were usually drawn from Confucian classics, histories, or imperial edicts.
This session tested literary talent, meter, and parallelism.
The poetry topic was "Bright Moon."
Xiao Mo wrote When Will the Moon Be Clear and Bright?, making a slight change to the first half to fit the topic.
The rhapsody topic was the rise and fall of a nation.
Xiao Mo imitated Ode to Epang Palace and wrote Rhapsody on Chunli Palace. Fortunately, this world had seen many dynasties and had a rich history, so it was easy to find allusions to replace those in Ode to Epang Palace.
For this first session, he would worry about nothing else until he had secured his Jinshi qualification.
The second session: discourse.
Candidates had to write one essay.
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