Waking Up to Take the Xiucai Exam

The First Chapter: Waking Up to Take the Xiucai Exam

Zi Bofeng shivered and woke up.

At some point, the air around him had grown a little colder.

"Did the heat shut off?" All he remembered was that he couldn't take his advanced math professor's soporific lectures anymore. He couldn't fight off the longing of his upper and lower eyelids to fly together, so he'd finally let the two lovers meet on the Magpie Bridge and share a night of passion.

That passionate tryst had carried him into a world turned upside down.

"Huh... did I sleep for a long time?" His arm was numb and his head foggy. When he turned, he saw that his deskmate was gone too. Hadn't he told him to wake him up before leaving?

"And... where is this place?" The classroom before his eyes wasn't the one he'd been in before falling asleep. His eyes were bleary and he couldn't see clearly, but it looked a little smaller than his old classroom.

He stretched, rolled his neck from side to side, and his joints cracked. He interlaced his fingers and pushed his hands forward twice, then shook his head. Only then did his vision clear.

The first thing he saw was a broad back, clad in a patched, patched-again cloth robe. The man had short, coarse hair, but on top of his head was a little ball of hair wrapped in a square cloth. It looked rather comical.

Looking around, he saw that most of the people nearby wore similar clothes, some new, some old. Some had their hair tied up, while others did not.

Zi Bofeng was about to look again when he realized he was wearing a similar robe himself.

It was white, with wide sleeves that could hide both his hands.

Then he lowered his head and saw that he really was wearing the same sort of clothes.

Had he accidentally fallen asleep in a class in the film and television department?

Zi Bofeng was mortified. How had nobody woken him up?

He looked around and noticed a sheet of white paper on his desk, with a brush, ink, and inkstone beside it. There was also a small piece of paper bearing a line of writing that looked vaguely familiar: "One person, two people; a heart, no heart."

Zi Bofeng picked up his brush and drew three strokes in his palm. Two curved upward, one downward: a smiling face.

Looking at the smiley, Zi Bofeng grinned foolishly too.

Suddenly, someone behind him gave a heavy cough. Zi Bofeng turned around and saw an old man dressed like an Old Scholar standing solemnly behind him with his hands clasped behind his back.

Still grinning, Zi Bofeng held up the smiley in his palm, hoping to look cute. But the Old Scholar simply raised his hand, and a little wooden stick, a foot long and two fingers wide, smacked Zi Bofeng on the head.

The stick wasn't long, and the blow wasn't hard, but when it hit Zi Bofeng's head, it sounded like a hollow gourd: "Thunk!"

The blow was like the Buddhist saying about a staff strike that brought sudden enlightenment. Zi Bofeng cried out in pain. His head throbbed as if countless tiny needles were stabbing into it, and a flood of memories that weren't his own surged into his mind.

What... was going on?

"Hmph. What crime deserves a candidate who shows such contempt for the examiner?" Though the Old Scholar spoke of punishment, he didn't pursue the matter. He simply clasped his hands behind his back and walked on.

Zi Bofeng trembled for a long while before slowly lowering the hands clutched around his head. He turned back and sat upright.

The memories that had just poured into his mind had merged with his own, leaving him even more confused.

Was all this actually real, and not some dream? Had he really become someone else?

And the place he was in... was the examination hall for the Prefectural Examination!

The Prefectural Examination was the first step in the ancient imperial examination system. Pass it, and you became a Xiucai, earning an official degree. In modern terms, it was like getting into the civil service and becoming a government employee, opening up a broad road to advancement.

And here he was, sitting the Xiucai exam.

"You have a quarter of an hour left." Standing at the front of the hall, the Old Scholar looked down at the candidates, then at Zi Bofeng. He couldn't help shaking his head, his disappointment plain to see.

Zi Bofeng remembered now. This Old Scholar was a learned man who was widely respected. Though he had never earned much of an official title, he had taught countless students. Zi Bofeng himself had often benefited from his guidance.

The Old Scholar's assessment of Zi Bofeng had been: "Naturally intelligent, with a photographic memory. He studies diligently and has read countless classics, yet he doesn't know how to adapt."

Poor children were often like that. Their limited experience left them knowing only to study hard. They treated book learning as holy writ, never thinking to adapt it.

In other words, he was a bookworm.

When the Old Scholar had first met Zi Bofeng, he had shaken his head and stamped his feet in dismay. Such promising talent—some Private School teacher had turned him into a machine that knew nothing but how to recite books.

Zi Bofeng's photographic memory was famous. With a gift like that, one glance could save him a day of hard study. He could have spent the extra time thinking over and digesting what he'd learned. But he didn't. He was a book addict. He read, memorized, and learned everything, from the writings of great scholars to the scribbles of three-year-old children.

But not knowing how to adapt wasn't a fatal flaw. Reading widely and turning other people's ideas into your own was still better than knowing nothing at all. Passing the Xiucai exam would be no problem. With Zi Bofeng's cautious, old-fashioned temperament, he could land a clerical job and live comfortably for the rest of his life.

But the moment he entered the examination hall, the fellow had fallen fast asleep. The Old Scholar had quietly nudged him twice, but he still hadn't woken up. In the end, the Old Scholar had no choice but to give up.

The examination hall was a fair place. If you threw away your own chance, you had to wait another year.

Actually, given Zi Bofeng's nature, there was no way he would fall fast asleep in a place like this. Someone had drugged him.

The Zi Bofeng from before would never have thought of that. But now, after a little recollection, Zi Bofeng remembered the classmate who had invited him to tea before he entered.

Zi Bofeng glanced around and saw a candidate with Slanted-Eye turn back, smile at him, then turn around and resume writing furiously.

You son of a bitch! Zi Bofeng was furious. It was this guy. He'd dragged Zi Bofeng into one meaningless conversation after another, acting as if he wanted to become close friends. Several classmates had warned Zi Bofeng not to associate with him, but Zi Bofeng had even told them, "A gentleman is open and at ease, while a petty man is forever worried and distressed." This time, he'd learned the hard way.

Zi Bofeng might not know how to adapt, but with his killer photographic memory, he was a formidable rival in other people's eyes!

Damn it, he hadn't just harmed the former Zi Bofeng. He'd harmed the current Zi Bofeng too!

Calm down! Calm down!

He was in the examination hall!

Since he was already here, he might as well make the best of it. The former Zi Bofeng had been calm by nature, and the current Zi Bofeng was even calmer. He looked down at the paper. The question written there was surely the topic for this exam.

So this was what the imperial examination was like. Heh, no multiple choice or fill-in-the-blanks, just an essay?

If you were afraid I was too good and would block your path, then I'd just have to block your path and see what happened!

Let's see me write an essay that could settle the world!

As for exam experience, who could beat college students who'd been through the gaokao? The whole process of reading the question, figuring out the answer, and writing it was already second nature to them. In this unfamiliar setting, he might as well put those skills on display.

"One person, two people; a heart, no heart." Just eight simple characters.

Zi Bofeng immediately thought of the gaokao prompt: "Choose your own title, perspective, and topic, excluding poetry, and write an essay of at least eight hundred words."

There weren't many requirements, and the Old Scholar hadn't said anything before the exam began. It looked like they really were supposed to choose their own topic.

Those eight characters could be interpreted in many ways. So... if this was an imperial examination...

Zi Bofeng recalled some rumors he'd heard. This Prefectural Examination was meant to select Xiucai, but also to choose officials. Disorder was brewing, the people were in revolt, and there were too many troubles. The existing officials were mostly deadweight, and there weren't enough of them, so more lower-ranking officials had to be selected.

"One person, two people; a heart, no heart"... Hmm, he'd write about individual and group incidents, intentional crimes, and unintentional mistakes.

Should he argue for or against? That was the question. Taking the affirmative was likely to make his essay resemble everyone else's. Taking the negative risked going off topic. Fine, he'd take the upright, proper path. A sound outlook was the way to go!

Having settled on his topic, Zi Bofeng pondered briefly, then casually picked up the brush beside him. He held it above the paper, pressed down once, and line after line of bold, forceful characters spread rapidly across the page.

As for this "former Zi Bofeng," he really had been a hardworking young man. He'd read widely and dabbled in all the arts. He was only passable at music and chess, but his calligraphy and painting were both outstanding. Still, the Old Scholar's assessment had been: "His brushwork is skilled, but his ideas are narrow." In other words, it was another version of "You're very good, but..."

As for the "current Zi Bofeng," he was lazy by nature and loved to daydream, but he fit the character "change" to a tee. He changed his mind three times a day and never stuck to anything.

The essay poured out like a waterfall, written in one breath. His thoughts flowed so smoothly that not a single correction was needed.

His argument upheld sound principles, yet its angle was novel. It combined the spirit of modern legal thinking with paired, balanced prose, in four- and six-character phrases.

It was stern, declaring, "If you intend to do good, then good is good; if you commit evil without intent, evil is still evil." It also advocated rule by virtue: "If you intend to do good, you receive no reward, though it is good; if you commit evil without intent, you receive no punishment, though it is evil." The whole essay embodied that same character: change.

In short, he had written a long and flowing essay of eight hundred characters, which could be summed up in six: "It depends on the circumstances."

Writing this kind of flexible, noncommittal essay was a piece of cake. Extremes of black or white were outdated; these days, one needed a dialectical mindset.

After finishing, he read it over once more and nodded in satisfaction. The page was full of empty words. It read with such satisfying flow that it seemed to offer insight, yet gave you nothing at all. This was chicken soup for the soul!

This pot of delicious chicken soup ought to leave the examiners dizzy and nodding their heads in approval.

Zi Bofeng grinned in satisfaction. He almost wanted to add a smiley face at the end, but forced his arm to stay still and held back.

The Record of Raising Monsters