First Imperial Examination Reinforcement (Seeking Recommendations and Collections!)

Top Scholar Pavilion.

The only one that truly lives up to its name is the one in Eastern Capital Kaifeng Prefecture.

By tradition, scholars who place on the golden list inevitably head to the Top Scholar Pavilion to celebrate, where fine wine and beautiful women are in abundance.

They are truly beautiful women; since the Top Scholar Pavilion is government-run, the official courtesans from the Music Bureau are also among them, all of the highest quality.

With such a good omen, gradually, a high-quality imitation Top Scholar Pavilion would be built opposite the Examination Hall in every prefecture, and business would be at its most prosperous.

Unfortunately, the Top Scholar Pavilion in Yong Prefecture has met with disaster.

As early as last night, members of the Ming Cult had snuck in and seized control of the entire establishment.

"Dharma King, the time has come!"

At the notification from the sentry, a burly, imposing old man stepped out.

A scar stretched straight from the corner of his eye to his neck, hideous as a centipede. He carried two heavy hammers on his shoulders, wielding them with such ease that they seemed weightless. The white-haired old man had clearly mastered hard-body techniques, exuding an extraordinary, overbearing aura.

"Today, I shall bathe Yong Prefecture in blood to avenge the Saintess!"

Thinking of Fairy He, whom the people of Yong Prefecture had already quickly forgotten, the old man's face was filled with both hatred and tenderness.

Who would willingly be a sycophant? If not for a love so deep it could not be recovered, both expectant and fearful of the end of fate, it is only a pity that, in the end, one never truly has everything.

A mere line of text condensed the essence of a million words. When the old man awoke from his memories, the scene below was already in an uproar.

"Huang Shang of Dong'an!"

"Huang Shengzhong! Congratulations! Congratulations!"

Although Huang Shang kept a low profile and did not attend literary gatherings to show off his poetic talent, as a disciple of Zhang Zai, the Four Verses of the Humble Abode had long since spread, making him different from ordinary scholars.

When others placed first as the Jieyuan, the crowd would still mutter among themselves, but when Huang Shang placed, he was recognized instantly.

Seeing Huang Shang surrounded by scholars, the old man barked coldly: "Attack!"

Swish!

Over a dozen agile figures lunged out, throwing hidden weapons. Their targets were not just the defenseless scholars, but also the patrol guards of the Examination Hall and the retainers of wealthy gentry.

In a small place like Yong Prefecture, the posting of the results is a festival-like event; basically, every person of status and reputation attends.

These people were the Ming Cult's true targets.

Having suffered greatly in their recent clashes with Wu Que and Nightingale, they were now like dogs driven to a wall, simply casting off their disguises.

Terrorist attack, hostage-taking!

If things went smoothly, they would simply launch an uprising; if not, they would use these people to force Wu Que and Nightingale out to exact revenge for the previous generation's Saintess, He Sijun, and her disciple, Zhu Yan.

The old man did not strike himself, instead peering down from above, preparing to savor the panicked and terrified expressions of those who were usually so high and mighty.

Indeed, the attack came far too suddenly.

Not to mention the weak combat strength of the garrison in Jinghu South Circuit, even in the capital, no one would have expected martial artists to attack during the posting of the imperial examination results. The scholars were completely stunned.

"How dare you!"

It was not until a deafening, thunderous roar rang out.

It was Huang Shang, standing in the center!

He held no brush, yet he took a single step forward.

Facing the sudden onslaught of martial arts villains, he stepped forward without a hint of fear and shouted his rebuke.

To ordinary ears, the sound was merely loud, but to the members of the Ming Cult, it felt like a thunderclap erupting on flat ground. The sound wave not only deflected the hidden weapons but also left them feeling dizzy and disoriented, causing their second wave of attacks, already primed and ready, to fail to launch.

"It's the Jieyuan!"

"Noble Spirit!"

Stung by this shout, the scholars snapped out of their daze, their limbs turning to jelly as they looked at the hidden weapons.

Yet, at the same time, those scholars who revered the theories of Mencius felt these four words flash through their minds, and they cried them out.

Mencius said: "I am good at cultivating my Noble Spirit. This spirit is vast and strong; if cultivated with integrity and without harm, it will fill the space between heaven and earth."

Translated, it means that the Noble Spirit is great and unyielding; if one cultivates it with righteousness without causing harm, it will permeate the entire world.

It is not actually a form of power, but the temperament and backbone of Confucianism.

What Huang Shang was displaying now was not exactly what Mencius had envisioned, yet it shared the same marvelous effect.

When the list was posted and he was named the Jieyuan, Huang Shang felt the Literary Qi within his body nearly double.

Such explosive growth would be impossible for an ordinary person to adapt to, but thanks to the gradual preparations he had made over these days, Huang Shang remained calm. As his brow swelled, a stream of the purest true energy surged from his Ancestral Aperture.

Literary Qi can strengthen the soul, and the soul can in turn develop the Ancestral Aperture. At this moment, Huang Shang had a feeling that if he wished, he could directly use this infusion of Literary Qi to widen his Twelve Standard Meridians and Eight Extraordinary Vessels, leaping to become a true martial arts expert.

This was no delusion born of arrogance; it was the unvarnished truth.

Because although the volume of his true energy was small, its purity surpassed that of low-level martial arts.

Ordinary martial artists rely on the Lower Dantian to generate true energy, carefully opening their meridians through the accumulation of daily effort. If they are too eager for success, they easily fall into demonic obsession.

He erupted true qi directly from his Upper Dantian—one could even call it Innate True Qi—circulating it through the meridians of his body. As the true qi surged and expanded, the originally narrow meridians widened in its wake.

One method yields half the result with double the effort, while the other yields double the result with half the effort; the disparity was clear at a glance.

Even so, Huang Shang had already considered this.

He was not greedy for quantity.

He focused the true qi boost brought about by the surging Literary Qi primarily on the Twelve Standard Meridians.

Sure enough, in a short span of time, as the volume of true qi multiplied several times over, the strength of the Twelve Standard Meridians reached the level of an accomplished martial arts expert.

Next, Huang Shang attempted to combine his true qi with his Literary Qi, using both simultaneously.

The true qi borrowed the ethereal nature of the Literary Qi to permeate the heavens and earth, while the Literary Qi borrowed the grounded nature of the true qi to settle deep within his body.

"Nurture my Noble Spirit!"

All of this takes a long time to describe, but in reality, it occurred in a mere few dozen breaths. When he heard the scholars' exclamations, Huang Shang felt that the Noble Spirit described by Mencius was truly fitting.

Of course, this power of his was different from what Mencius described, nor did it need to be the same.

Every person born between heaven and earth has their own path.

Walking one's own path is the only truly magnificent way.

Therefore, by adopting this name, Huang Shang was not only expressing an attitude of standing between heaven and earth with a clear conscience, but also employing a means of attack.

The effect of his single shout left everyone, whether in the light or in the shadows, utterly horrified.

He took a step.

Forward.

Where he was once surrounded like the moon among stars, the crowd now spontaneously parted.

Huang Shang walked to the very front of the scholars, leading them to face the Ming Cult directly.

"Thieves!"

It was unclear which scholar had shouted the first word, his voice trembling.

"Thieves! Thieves! Thieves!"

With someone to lead the way, the remaining scholars summoned their courage, eyes wide with rage, glaring at the vicious thugs holding swords and blades.

Standing shoulder to shoulder before the Examination Hall, the scholars let out a deafening roar that formed a rolling tide.

In contrast, the Ming Cult members retreated again and again.

With their ears ringing and their heads spinning, they stumbled back, eventually falling to the ground against their will, their seven orifices bleeding as they were killed by the sheer force of the sound.

Above in the restaurant, the old man, who possessed innate divine strength and had never feared anything in his life, found his hands trembling at this moment.

"Go! Go!"

"No! It's fake! I don't believe it!"

Reason told him that the situation below was absolutely wrong, but the desire to avenge the Saintess drove him to leap from the Top Scholar Pavilion, gnashing his teeth as he forced himself step by step toward Huang Shang.

Huang Shang looked at him and spoke: "There are things a man must not do, and only then can he accomplish things. You evil cult monsters, committing treason and seeking to spread the flames of war everywhere, deserve to be executed!"

The Great Song had been established for a hundred years. Despite occasional unrest and frequent wars on the borders, the interior of the country had maintained general peace.

To people living in the modern era, such peace might be commonplace, but after the hundreds of years of turmoil during the late Tang and the Five Dynasties, this was a rare and precious era of happiness for the Han people.

Now, the Ming Cult was about to destroy this hard-won happiness.

For such thieves, Huang Shang finally took out the Zhuge Pen and dashed off two characters.

Mountain!

Heaven!

Heaven within Mountain, Great Taming!

The Great Taming Hexagram: climb the high mountain to survey the affairs of the world. Nothing is greater than heaven, nothing is more still than the mountain; stop advancing, and store up strength at all times.

This was a technique to accumulate momentum.

In an ordinary battle, it would take a long time to build up, but here in the Examination Hall, where Literary Qi was surging with nowhere to vent, it was accomplished in an instant!

When the Noble Spirit condensed at the tip of the pen, drawing upon the Literary Qi within the Examination Hall and surging forth with an irresistible force, the old man's eyes finally revealed terror and despair.

Too late!

Under the shocked gazes of Wu Que and Nightingale, who were hidden in the shadows, this mighty Ming Cult Dharma King was instantly submerged in the torrent of Literary Qi, like a wave in the vast ocean, vanishing in an instant.

To the eyes of ordinary people, it appeared as if the bandit leader had tried to harm the top scholar, only to be rebuked by a furious shout. He swayed, staggered back three steps, and the hammer he had raised struck his own crown, causing him to collapse backward.

"Is this the cultivation of talent? Before the Examination Hall, with the home-field advantage, it is truly terrifying!"

Wu Que gasped, never imagining that the battle would end without them ever needing to intervene.

Huang Shang put away his pen, contemplating the first strengthening he had received from the imperial examination.

His back, seen by the scholars, was etched into their hearts.

Many years later, some would become high officials, some would govern regions, and some would return to farming to survive, but none would ever forget that day.

Thunderous sound awakening the dream, the Noble Spirit vast and mighty!

Divine might!