Chapter 43: The Seventh of the Ninth Month: The Bai Lu Examination

After coming ashore, Zhao Xing and Xu Lao Ba returned to the river-dredger's stall.

He returned the token, got back one tael of deposit, and tipped Xu Lao Ba as well—clear accounts make light work, and now they were square.

It was only because it was so late now; otherwise Xu Lao Ba would have insisted on dragging people off to brag.

Zhao Xing checked the hour and returned to Gucheng.

"Wind beneath my feet~"

Wind rose beneath his feet, his pace quickening—each step covered two or three meters.

He made it home just before the end of the Hai hour.

"Today's haul wasn't bad. I only meant to make a small fortune, but I never expected to come away with so much in the end."

"Looks like my Yan-rank two luck really is extraordinary."

If it had been Yan-rank one luck, he would probably have brushed right past this fourth-tier pearl.

"With this haul, I won't have to worry about food and drink for a while, and my Qi Gathering speed won't be slow either." Zhao Xing packed the pearl away and locked it in a chest.

He still had some spare cash on hand, so there was no rush to sell—he had to get a good price for it.

An ordinary person who came into a windfall wouldn't sleep a wink, but Zhao Xing ate when it was time to eat and slept when it was time to sleep.

The next day he went to the Agricultural Bureau as usual to work and study.

Once Chushu passed, the old Agricultural Officer shifted the focus to theory and cut back on practical drills.

He told everyone straight out that the next solar term's exam would be on theory.

Reading became the top priority for the clerks of the Agricultural Bureau.

"Old Agricultural Officer, could you give us a hint of which classics will be on the exam? Circle the key points for us?" a clerk asked.

Xue Wenzhong smiled slightly: "Of course. Listen carefully. Grand View of Wood, Materia Medica Classic, Hundred Explanations of Heaven's Timing, True Chapters of the Four Agricultures, Monthly Ordinances and Phenology, Earth's Veins and the Three Lights, Myriad Treatises on Benefiting Things…"

Well, asking was the same as not asking—every last one of them was a key point!

Broad learning and a strong memory were the essential qualities of an Agricultural Officer. The nineteen provinces were vast and rich in resources; there were many kinds of heaven's timing and earth's advantages, not to mention all the various plants.

If the imperial court sent you to take up a post somewhere and you didn't even know what that place was suited to grow or when to plant it, what use were you?

The above were only the basic requirements—kneeling and begging the heavens for a living.

Many special environments required the Agricultural Officer to cast spells, alter heaven's timing, seek out earth's veins, and create a favorable environment before deciding what to plant.

"In the south of Guangling Province, there is a Yuanling County. In spring, one can plant the Five Excellent Grains—plant in spring, harvest in spring, and a single ear can feed five people."

"In summer, one can plant the Hundred Blood Vines—plant in summer, harvest in summer, and the vine fruit can replenish blood of a hundred types."

"In autumn… Qian Dong, what's it called in autumn?" Chen Ziyu tilted his head and looked at Qian Dong.

The latter spread his hands: "Why on earth are you memorizing such an obscure text as the 'Benefiting Things of Grotto-Heavens'? Surely you don't think you'll get the chance to take office in a grotto-heaven blessed land?"

"Fair point." Chen Ziyu was about to put the book down, but he heard Zhao Xing beside him say unhurriedly: "In autumn, one can raise the Golden Soybean—plant in autumn, harvest in autumn, gather Qi in three days, enter the ranked realm within a month, and its price rivals gold."

"In winter, one can dig the Bone-Mending Ginseng—ten days to mend bone, a hundred days for a severed limb to regrow."

Chen Ziyu flipped open the book to check and exclaimed sincerely: "Worthy of being our senior brother—your foundation is truly solid."

Zhao Xing said with a touch of nostalgia: "Not entirely. If you could go and live there for a few years, you'd know it inside out too."

"Senior brother, you speak as if you've been there yourself. Guangling Province is more than tens of millions of li from our Pinghai Province!"

"What, I can't have gone there in a dream?" Zhao Xing laughed.

"Sure, of course you can. Who told you you're the big brother?"

"Hahaha."

Time flew by, and in the blink of an eye the Bai Lu solar term was approaching.

Zhao Xing was also reading day and night to prepare for the exam. Once he became a ranked official and entered the ranks, he could not only join the imperial court's luck system—gaining fortune and lifespan—but also try his hand at many other things.

Take the Great Dream Academy, for instance—that treasure trove. After entering the ranks, he estimated he could try once more to obtain its benefits.

Becoming a ranked, full-fledged Agricultural Officer would also expand Zhao Xing's range of action and let him learn more spells, laying a more solid foundation for the future Revival version.

Zhao Xing wasn't striving to become a full official for its own sake—he was striving for longevity. If he'd been dropped into the even more distant Taizu version, he would have simply lain flat and given up.

But dropped into the Jing Emperor's era, he felt he could still push himself to hold out until the Revival version arrived.

That motivation was simple yet powerful. Think about it—if someone told you that starting today, if you worked out, kept healthy habits, and lived another twenty years, you'd live to see a technological breakthrough and achieve immortality, would you do it?

"No wife, no children—promotion in rank and the bestowal of lifespan mean the luck and fortune of life-extension won't be divided, but will all belong to the official himself."

"Also, any treasure that extends lifespan is best used as early as possible; otherwise the shackles will grow stronger later on, and the difficulty will only increase."

"When receiving a rank, it will bring along improvements in other areas as well. But if I've already reached the corresponding grade at the time of receiving the rank, all of it will go toward extending lifespan. So at the start of next spring, I'd best reach the ninth stage of Qi Gathering, so that the benefits of receiving the rank all go to my lifespan." Zhao Xing calculated in his heart.

Doing this had another benefit: even if he lost his post and was demoted in rank, the impact would be very small—perhaps even completely negligible.

It was equivalent to saying he had the ability to jump onto the Great Zhou's luck express on his own. The court didn't need to pull him along too much—only open the car door. When the time came and they tried to push him off, he'd have the ability to leap off without getting hurt.

"Heaven's fate is my fate, heaven's fortune is my fortune, heaven's lifespan is my lifespan—return fortune to the court? Not a chance." After calculating his future, Zhao Xing turned his attention back to the matters at hand.

The seventh of the ninth month—Bai Lu.

The Agricultural Bureau welcomed its first theory exam of the year.

The entire exam lasted two days. Late entry was not permitted, but one could hand in the paper early.

The chief examiner was still Xue Wenzhong, but the other Agricultural Officers had to review the questions together, and the content had to conform to Nanyang Commandery's thinking on setting questions—neither too wild nor too rigid.

After the papers were graded, they had to be filed and submitted to Nanyang Commandery for review. The results of other solar-term exams also had to be filed and submitted, but Nanyang Commandery generally didn't look at them closely—only spot-checking—unless someone reported a problem.

But theory exams were always reviewed in full, without exception.

It didn't matter much if a clerk's spells went awry, but if their theoretical thinking went astray, it could be very dangerous.

During the Taizu era, there had been an Agricultural Bureau clerk in Nanyang Commandery who, having read some crooked book somewhere, decided to show off during the exam and wrote out a theory of 'Severing Heaven and Earth.' The result was that he offended both the Heaven-Timing Sect and the Dili Sect at once, and was arrested and thrown in jail on the spot.

Even the Benwo Sect didn't deny the Heaven-Timing Sect and the Dili Sect—it only held that one was primary and the other secondary. But 'Severing Heaven and Earth' denied the current calendar, and even denied the Dao itself. It was outright heretical thought—not merely departing from the classics and rebelling against the Dao, but practically betraying and insulting the state.

The Great Zhou was relatively free when it came to speech. Later, after an investigation, this man was released after half a year in prison. He was fine, but the booksellers peddling those heretical texts had a disaster fall on them. After a strict crackdown and confiscation, their entire clans were executed.

"During the exam later, I must hold back when I write—don't come up with any overly advanced ideas. Being a tiny half-step ahead is already enough to earn a top grade." Zhao Xing reminded himself repeatedly, then walked into the examination hall.