Chapter Eighty-Six: The River of Stars

The county school’s public examination arrived right on schedule at year’s end.

In the Jinshi Quarters and the Classical Scholars’ Quarters, all candidates sat the same examinations.

The Lecture Hall and the rooms on either side of its corridors had been set aside for the Jinshi candidates. As for the Classical Scholars’ examination hall, it was in the Dining Hall.

Just as the food in that hall was graded into first, second, and third quality, so too there were higher and lower ranks between the Jinshi and the Classical Scholars. But for people like Zhang Yue and Guo Lin, such distinctions had long since become familiar.

On the eve of the public examination, with the halls repurposed as test rooms, the students went straight to the Dining Hall to collect their food basins and then returned to their quarters to eat.

Zhang Yue and Guo Lin took their basins back up the mountain, where the quarters stood. Along the way they saw Jinshi and Classical Scholars alike carrying lunch boxes uphill, while others made their way toward the pavilion.

From the way everyone walked in sullen silence, it was clear that the pressure on them all was immense.

The two senior and junior brothers finished their meal in the quarters.

Guo Lin said, “Junior Brother, let us take a walk.”

Zhang Yue said, “Senior Brother, I thought you meant to keep reading half the night. Tomorrow is the great test.”

Guo Lin said, “After reading for half a year, missing one night makes no difference.”

“So be it!”

When the two brothers strolled in the rear mountains, night had already fallen, and lights had begun to glow in the mountain quarters.

Below, in the Buddhist temple, the monks had also begun their evening recitations.

That night was exceedingly clear. Who knew when they would chance to look up, only to find a river of stars hanging over their heads?

Zhang Yue thought to himself that in olden times the weather was truly kind; even in winter one could still see such a celestial river.

“Once the public examination is over, I shall go home for the New Year. I’m afraid I won’t be able to keep such company with you, Junior Brother, and look upon this night scenery on the mountain again.”

At this, Zhang Yue could not help saying, “Senior Brother, I feel cold.”

Guo Lin gave an awkward laugh. “What I mean is, I thank you, Junior Brother, for looking after me. Otherwise, I do not know how I would have made it through these past several months...”

“I am dull and unschooled in the ways of the world; I have made many a fool of myself, and everywhere I have relied on you to set matters right for me...”

“At first, I feared being looked down upon for eating third-grade food, but later I learned... the reason I feared being looked down upon was not the food at all, but me myself...”

Zhang Yue was taken aback at how talkative Guo Lin had suddenly become.

“Junior Brother, last month when I went to buy brushes, I ran into Third Miss.”

“Oh?” Zhang Yue was surprised. So, Senior Brother, you keep a very tight mouth indeed, he thought. “And then?”

“Third Miss is already married... I did not see her husband, but beside her were maids and an old nurse in attendance. Third Miss looked very well... I told her about having passed into the county school, and she smiled and said she had long known of it, and was most delighted for me. She said I was the most diligent scholar she had ever seen, and that heaven does not betray those who labor with devotion...”

Zhang Yue could not help but sigh. Third Miss Miao had married? Weren’t they supposed to drink wedding wine together?

“...At the time I could not speak, but what I truly meant was to tell her with my own mouth that I had been admitted to the county school... When I was of little account, only you and Third Miss treated me as you always had... Father said I was born with the fortune of a man favored by destiny. I did not believe it then, but after meeting you and Third Miss, I understood... both of you are my good fortune...”

Guo Lin spoke and laughed, yet kept wiping his tears and mucus on his sleeve.

Zhang Yue looked up at the river of stars, wondering whether Guo Lin was using this to ease his examination nerves.

“Now that Third Miss has married the man of her choice, she has at last gotten what she wished for. I am truly happy for her. And you, Junior Brother... you ought to get what you wish for as well.”

Zhang Yue hurriedly said, “Senior Brother, enough. As for my lifelong concerns... do not trouble yourself over them...”

Guo Lin wiped his tears and said, “Junior Brother, then do your best in the test. You are different from me; when I read for three to five days, it only equals one day of your study. Back when you said you wanted to leave Fujian, I always believed you! I think you will get what you wish for.”

Zhang Yue said, “You too, Senior Brother. Let us encourage one another with a saying from Prefect Wang Jiefu.”

The two came to a patch of gravel.

With his foot as a brush, Zhang Yue wrote: "Having done all within my power and still not reaching the goal, I may have no regrets; who then could mock me for it?"

He lifted his face to the sky and said, “This is what I have gained!”

Guo Lin was silent for a moment, then said, “Junior Brother, you truly adore his prose!”

Zhang Yue laughed. “Not only his prose. If I cannot leave Fujian in this lifetime and see Prefect Wang Jiefu in person, it would be a true sorrow indeed!”

The first day of the public examination began with the first session: the Analects.

The second session: the Book of Changes.

The third session: the Rites of Zhou.

Coincidentally, these were all subjects Zhang Yue knew best.

It was a fine beginning.

The food in the Dining Hall had also changed to steamed cakes, buns, and stuffed rolls, along with a large bowl of rice gruel so thin one could see the bottom.

The Classical Scholars stood in the Dining Hall, some upright, some squatting, drinking porridge while gnawing on cakes, buns, and rolls; others gulped down the clear gruel as though by the bucket.

Seeing this, Zhang Yue could not help thinking: If they drink their porridge like that, won’t they be rushing to the latrine all day?

After everyone finished, they tossed their basins into a basket, wiped their mouths, and carried their book cases into the Dining Hall to sit the exam.

In the hall, each candidate sat a full yard apart from the next.

As soon as they took their seats, they ground ink in haste and took out their examination papers. These papers had to be supplied by the candidates themselves.

Since the county bore the cost of the public examination, and the miserly government would not pay this expense for you, candidates had to provide their own paper.

The paper had to be taken to the county office before the exam to be stamped with official seals and then returned to the candidate, who would bring it out again at the time of testing.

This was not only the rule for the county school public examination, but also for the provincial qualifying examinations.

However, the qualifying examinations used sealed-name procedures, and the papers had to be bound together. Candidates were required to paste their personal statement to the front of the first roll, after which the government would apply its seal. In short, the regulations were complicated beyond measure.

Candidates could not handle it themselves; usually, the bookstalls would do it for them. Bookstalls in the Song dynasty came in two kinds: one sold books, while the other was something like a modern notary office, also responsible for binding candidates’ papers, though with far greater complexity and all manner of abuses.

For example, in sealed-name examinations, the scripts had to be closed and sealed by the authorities. The bookstalls would tamper with the binding so that the personal statement did not adhere properly, causing the government seal to be incomplete; then someone bribed inside the examination hall would switch the candidate’s paper with another.

The county school’s public examination did not use sealed names, so there was no need for the bookstalls to handle it.

Still, all papers had to be stamped by the government before the exam. If even one sheet was missing, there would be no telling how one might weep later.

Because there were eleven sessions, the stack of paper in Zhang Yue’s case was exactly enough for the eleven sets of answers he had to write.

Seeing so much paper, anyone else would have drawn a sharp breath. Let alone memorizing it, even copying so many sheets would be hard to finish in three days.

Before long, the exam sheets bearing the questions were distributed.

The opening questions on the classics could be answered directly on the question paper, but the textual explanations and grand discussions had to be written on the candidate’s own sheets.

Zhang Yue first looked at the opening question on the Analects.

Zigong asked, “Which is more worthy, ____?”

In the Analects, Zigong appears often enough, though he asks only a handful of questions.

Without the slightest hesitation, Zhang Yue wrote: “Shi and Shang.” Shi was Zizhang, and Shang was Zixia. Writing “Shi and Shang” was easy enough, but some would omit the final “and.”

His brush moved on. Each session contained one hundred copied-classic questions, fifty textual explanation questions, and ten grand-discussion questions.

Usually, all were to be completed within two hours, though if you did not finish, you were still allowed to continue writing.

The questions were not difficult; one merely had to catch the examiner’s occasional little tricks. The real challenge was how to finish them all, along with the strain on body and mind.

Zhang Yue was utterly unhurried.

While the scholars to his left and right were all scratching their heads, he handed in his paper half an hour early and even checked it once more.

The other candidates were astonished.

“This year’s Analects really is too hard. Even Zhang Sanlang can’t do it?”

“What are you thinking? Is he the same as you?”

“Sanlang is truly formidable!”

“Could it be that in the Nine Classics and eleven sessions, he means to place first in every one?”

“My heavens, why is there such a gulf between person and person?”

The first session, the Analects, was finished.

Zhang Yue quickly returned to the quarters, ate some ring-shaped cakes, drank a ladle of cold water, and then lay down briefly on the bed. In a little while, Guo Lin would wake him for the next session.

When the afternoon drum sounded for the Book of Changes session, Zhang Yue was already seated in the examination hall in full vigor.

The Analects was mandatory, so there were many candidates. But for the Book of Changes there were far fewer, and for the minor classics there were not even one-third as many.

Zhang Yue still wrote furiously, and halfway through, he heard someone cough softly behind him.

He then heard a fellow student whisper, “Sanlang, do me a favor. Move your hand a little, and I’ll be grateful for the rest of my life!”

Zhang Yue shook his head and paid him no mind.

Just as the classmate was about to feel disappointed, he saw that once the inspectors had moved away, Zhang Yue turned over one finished paper and laid it aside.

“Sanlang is truly a righteous man!” the other said gratefully.

Zhang Yue said nothing.

Another half quarter of an hour passed, and Zhang Yue laid out yet another completed paper.

As Zhang Yue wrote furiously, School Inspector Hu had already accompanied Assistant Tutor Sun to the Dining Hall examination room.

“Assistant Tutor Sun, this fellow is Zhang Yue, Zhang Sanlang! In these classical-scholars’ quarters, he alone is taking eleven sessions,” Hu said to Sun.

Sun thought: Nonsense. Of course I know him.

He studied Zhang Yue and thought to himself that, though only half a year had passed since he last saw him, the young man was more composed than before, and seemed far more confident and steady.

“Shall we go over and have a look?”

“As you wish.”

Sun and Hu skirted around the others and came straight to Zhang Yue’s desk.

With Sun and Hu making their appearance, the students below naturally became a flurry of frantic movement: some were gathering up cheat sheets and books, some returning other people’s papers, some swallowing scraps of notes into their bellies...

Hu’s face was dark with anger, yet there was little he could do.

Sun knew well that the strictness of the county school’s public examination could not be compared with the provincial qualifying tests, not even with the county school’s own admission examination.

Still, for them, the most important thing in the public examination was to select the best. If they truly caused a few to fail and had them expelled from the county school, it would bring shame upon everyone from top to bottom.

Zhang Yue had noticed the descent of Sun and Hu long ago and privately cursed under his breath, but he calmly gathered his papers back together.

Yet the two did not go elsewhere. They walked straight to his side and took up the papers he had already written, reading them on the spot.

Zhang Yue did not mind and continued writing.

Sun and Hu each took one of Zhang Yue’s papers and read. Not long after, they both looked up and exchanged a glance, then lowered their eyes to the papers again.

By then Zhang Yue had finished his own paper. He looked up and thought: Damn it, why are these two still not gone?

Hu said solemnly to Zhang Yue, “Finished? Review it again.”

Assistant Tutor Sun wore the same expression.

Zhang Yue was full of suspicion. Had they seen me letting others look at my paper? Surely not enough to warn me like this.

At last the two clasped their hands behind their backs and walked outside the Dining Hall. Sun stopped, turned back, and asked Hu, “How did that boy’s Analects go this morning?”

Hu replied, “To report to you, fully correct!”

“Fully correct?”

“Fully correct!” Hu answered with complete confidence.