Each time the examiner read out another rule, his icy gaze swept across the hall like a steel blade scraping bone. He put particular emphasis on phrases like "permanent disqualification," "referred for investigation," and "the Heavenly Eye sees all." Combined with the oppressive force and fluctuations of spiritual energy from the formation within the hall, his words left quite a few less composed examinees pale, their foreheads beaded with sweat. Some even began to tremble.
"..."
Among them, Lin Daiyu—who had come to the examination hall harboring a guilty secret, posing as the "false top scorer"—was the most affected. She was so nervous she could hardly bear it!
She felt that the supervising official's gaze kept drifting, intentionally or otherwise, toward her cubicle. Every stern warning seemed aimed straight at her heart.
The echoing rules and humming of the examination hall sounded to her like death knells. And the words "the Heavenly Eye sees all" left her sitting on pins and needles, as if the ever-present examination formation might expose her secret of taking someone else's place at any moment.
In short!
Her slender frame trembled faintly. Cold sweat had already soaked her back, and her hands, clenched tightly beneath the desk, were icy. Even her breathing had grown ragged.
But she didn't dare let it show. She could only keep her head bowed and avoid the examiners on the high platform, her heart filled with fear and another, unfamiliar emotion.
Fortunately, the long and stern lecture soon came to an end.
The supervising official seemed to have expended a fair amount of energy, so he said no more. Instead, he looked up at the remarkably precise, automatic sundial and clepsydra in the corner of the hall, powered by a massive spirit stone, then glanced at the sun climbing outside.