My Princess Has Been Reborn: Chapter 18

Chapter 18: An additional exam paper

The spring rain fell continuously for many days, making people lose interest in going out for leisure. 

These few days, Lu Qipei had actually been living peacefully in the Lu mansion. In the beginning, she had been worried that Qi Bo would ask her about her disappearance and she could not stop thinking about it. However, unexpectedly, not a single person had asked about it.

Later, Lu Qipei understood after mulling over it for a while. To these people, her words were perhaps not as trustworthy as their own investigations —— Lu Qipei did not know what they had found and did not think that Her Highness would specially help to clean up after her. Regardless, the situation now was not bad. She naturally would not take the initiative to speak and invite trouble, and she was even more unwilling to let these people turn their attention to Qi Yang yet again.

As day after day passed like this, Lu Qipei gradually calmed down and even took the initiative to ask Qi Bo about returning to their home. After all, Lu Qicheng’s imperial examination had already been missed. Continuing to stay in the capital to ‘borrow’ the residence of someone else was not very appropriate.

Qi Bo only said that they had to wait a while more and did not explain further.

Seeing this, Lu Qipei did not say anything else. She occasionally went to see Lu Qicheng but did not dare to go close to him again. It was just that, contrary to Lu Qipei’s expectations, since that ‘crazed’ incident, when Lu Qicheng saw her, he recovered his warm and gentle manner of the past. His insanity from that incident could no longer be seen.

In conclusion, these few days, Lu Qipei’s life was not bad, just that sometimes when she was studying or observing the rain, she would lose focus and think of someone else…

Time flew. It was calm in the Lu mansion but in the exam centre, they were up to their eyes in work.

The imperial examination was a gathering of the whole country’s talents. When there were few people, there were about a thousand participants. When there were many people, the number of participants could even exceed ten thousand. The candidates were kept in the exam centre to suffer for nine days. When they left, the people who were locked in the exam centre to suffer became the examiners.

The metropolitan exam would take place in the second month, followed by the palace exam[1] in the third month. Between them, there was not even a full month’s worth of time. They could not delay grading the papers.

Thousands upon thousands of exam papers were transcribed with the names sealed, then allocated to various examiners. After three rounds of appraisal, the papers of standard were sent to the vice-head examiner. Although this was how things went, every single person’s workload was still heavy, especially when each person’s appraisal was not the same. When there was a conflict of opinion, just one paper could take up a lot of time.

The head examiner of this imperial examination was the head of the Ministry of Rites, Fang Chengyue, who was already over the age of fifty. Being locked in the exam centre for half a month was quite difficult to endure for him. Moreover, other than the exam papers, there were also documents sent over from the Ministry of Appointments that needed to be looked through, pressuring them even more.

After much struggle, a big part of half a month had passed and the work of grading the papers was reaching its end. The two hundred or more examination papers selected were arranged properly and they looked for the original papers to compare them one by one. Any exam papers with flaws or poor handwriting were pushed backed on the ranking. At last, after all examiners argued endlessly again, the ranks were settled and it was time for the last part, revealing the names and copying them out.

In terms of the outstanding papers in the imperial examination this time, each examiner had exam papers that they favoured more, thus they argued fiercely. However, there was one exam paper that not a single person questioned. It was immediately ranked first by everyone. There was no other reason than the fact that it was too outstanding, no one could pick at it.

When everyone had finished ranking the papers, the revealing of the names was for the head examiner, Fang Chengyue, to do.

Fang Chengyue was actually quite willing to do this. Firstly, the imperial examination was for the sake of selecting scholars to become officials, something honourable. Secondly, even though these people would become imperial scholars[2] after the palace examination, as the head examiner, he too would be treated quite favourably and receive many benefits. Thirdly, after having toiled for so long in the exam centre, he was also very tired and only wanted to quickly end this arduous task.

Most of the people here probably had the same thoughts, their expressions relaxed and comfortable. Only the government clerk was at the side with a pen in the air, planning to record down the rankings.

Fang Chengyue did not delay either. As he uncovered the first sealed name, he smiled at everyone, “The results of the general examination are right here. Thank you everyone for your work these few days. After this is done, we can all return to take a good bath and rest well.”

Everyone hurriedly said a few words of modesty, but all their eyes were pinned on that paper with the sealed name —— before this metropolitan exam[3], they had heard of some outstanding people from various regions. Now, they wanted to know whose work exactly was this paper that won over every other paper!

However, as Fang Chengyue uncovered the sealed name, everyone stood dumbfounded on the spot.

Because under the seal was a snow-white blank, there was no name or birthplace there at all!

Although all of them had gone through all kinds of situations in the court before and seen many strange things in the exams, every examiner there could not help but widen their eyes, as though they could not believe what they were seeing. Only after a long while did someone say in a trembling voice, “This, this person is actually careless enough to forget to write their own name?!”

Once these words were spoken, everyone was shocked back to reality, including Fang Chengyue, whose expression was very bizarre. However, fortunately, the metropolitan exam had three parts and there were many papers, every paper had the participant’s name and birthplace written on it. If only one answer booklet had no name it would not be a big hindrance, it would just make everyone’s impression of this person poorer —— at this moment, he had completely forgotten, if even the name had not been written, how had the papers from all three parts been arranged here?

However, regardless, Fang Chengyue still looked through it quickly. In the end, the first, second and third paper from the first, second and third round all did not have names written on them. Other than those words formed by the vigorous strokes of a brush, they were unable to identify who these exam papers originally belonged to.

Now, how could Fang Chengyue not notice something fishy about this?

Before anyone else could react, with a solemn expression, he passed the papers to a trusted subordinate beside him and instructed in a low voice, “Check this, compare it with the name list of participants in the imperial exam, see who this paper belongs to!”

Dealing with this was troublesome, thousands upon thousands of papers had to be compared one by one and then checked to see if there were any papers that had been overlooked. However, anyone could see that there was something strange about this, and with the imperial examination involved, it was not a small matter. If there really was fraud in this matter, it was likely that not a single one of them currently present would get anything good out of it and Fang Chengyue, the head examiner, would bear the brunt of it.

Thus, when Fang Chengyue gave the order to keep their lips sealed, everyone chose to keep silent. Heaven knew that when they turned around, the back of their clothes were all soaked with cold sweat. When blown by the cold wind of early spring, they could not help but shiver. 

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Qi Yang had already appointed someone to keep watch over the exam centre, so when Fang Chenyue brought the exam papers into the palace to meet the emperor, she was one step ahead and went to Xuanshi Hall. Even earlier than her was the crown prince, who smiled at her when he saw her.

The two siblings stood together. The crown prince then quietly asked her, “Sister, do you want to help?”

Qi Yang knew that the crown prince was doing all this because he favoured Lu Qipei and wanted to express his goodwill in advance. She obviously would not brush off the crown prince’s goodwill but as of now, there was no need for him to interfere, so she similarly replied in a low voice, “I can deal with this, I will not trouble Elder Brother any more.”

The crown prince looked at her, then knew that she was not deliberately alienating herself from him. After some thought, he considered that if he was implicated in the matter of the imperial examination, it would be rather troublesome as well, so he decided not to speak further on the matter.

Fang Chengyue came quickly. He was a little astonished to see both Qi Yang and the crown prince in the Xuanshi Hall and momentarily did not know whether he should speak in front of these two people. Seeing this, the emperor also glanced at Qi Yang, his gaze signalling that she should leave for now, though to the crown prince he did not say anything.

Qi Yang, however, had long since thought of an excuse. She glanced at Fang Chengyue’s bulging sleeve pockets and said, “Senior Fang is the head of the imperial examination, now that he has the time to enter the palace, the results of the imperial examination must be out, right? Don’t chase the prince away either, Father, he can stay here to hear the rankings.”

Hearing this, the emperor could not help but smile, “What are you listening to this for? Could there even be people you recognise in the ranking of the imperial examination?”

Qi Yang obviously knew a few people, like those noble descendants in the capital, all of whom she had heard of before, no matter how little. However, in terms of friendly relations with them, it really couldn’t be considered as such.

However, once he said that, without waiting for Qi Yang to respond, the emperor looked like he just thought of something and said, “Come to speak of it, you care quite a lot about this imperial examination, at the beginning of all three rounds you came to ask for the test questions, and now you want to hear the rankings…”

The emperor was not suspicious of this, after all, Qi Yang had always asked for the questions only after the exam had started in the exam centre. He only thought of how he had spoken with Qi Yang a few days ago about the selection of a prince consort, so it must be because of this that Qi Yang cared so much about the imperial examination. Thus, his tone even sounded a little teasing.

However, regardless of whether the emperor was teasing his daughter or not, Fang Chengyue couldn’t tell. Hearing these words, countless thoughts immediately popped up in his head. He looked at Princess Qi Yang, then looked at the crown prince standing upright beside her. He thought of how the two siblings had always been close and waited here together today… Could it be that the crown prince had long since known of what had happened in the exam centre and had specially come to support his younger sister?

But what’s up with this? The princess couldn’t meddle in court affairs and was even more unable to meddle with the imperial examination!

Fang Chengyue’s heart was pounding like a drum and the bulging exam papers in his sleeves felt a bit scalding. However, as he thought about it, he still did not dare to suppress this matter. After all, the revealing of names had been done in front of everyone. Too many people knew what had happened. He simply could not hide this exam paper away.

On the other side, the emperor had teased his daughter. Thinking of how his daughter was concerned about the matter of the prince consort, he was no longer eager to chase her away. He turned to ask Fang Chengyue, “Subject Fang, have you come to the palace today for matters regarding the imperial examination?”

Fang Chengyue restrained his thoughts and bowed his head to speak respectfully, “Your Majesty, it is in fact for matters regarding the imperial examination.”

Once he heard this, the emperor didn’t concern himself with Qi Yang anymore and smiled, “Has the ranking come out? Pass it to me, let’s see how many good talents the imperial examination has added this time.”

However, upon hearing this, Fang Chengyue suddenly kneeled. Only then did he take the exam paper out of his sleeve and present it to the emperor. At the same time, he said, “Reporting to His Majesty, the ranking has indeed been finalised, but during the uncovering of the names, there was an error. This paper is what we subjects have finalised as the first place, but when we revealed the name, we realised that there was actually no name or birthplace on it. When a comparison was done against the list of participants, we realised that… that this time, there was an additional answer booklet.”

He forcefully tried to say everything in one breath while his whole back had already been soaked with cold sweat.

The emperor was not a fool either, though he was stunned when he heard this, he very quickly shifted his surprised gaze to the son and daughter pair standing at the side. That gaze merely swept past the crown prince and quickly landed on Qi Yang.

Qi Yang did not avoid it either. She immediately stood up and bowed, admitting, “Father, this answer booklet was sent to the exam centre by someone under the orders of this child.”

The author has something to say:

Qi Yang (rolling up sleeves): Before meeting the parents, I still have to help them have a good impression…. feels like the prince consort is now a step closer.

The crown prince (complicated emotions): Why is it that I feel that Sister is so eager to be married off? It must be an illusion!

[1] ‘Palace examination’: the highest level of the imperial examination, presided over by the emperor

[2] ‘these people would become imperial scholars after the palace examination’: Imperial scholars refer to people who are awarded the highest and final degree, Jinshi, in the imperial examination

[3] ‘metropolitan exam’: Graduates of this round can move on to the palace examination