152: The topic may be ordinary, but the content is extraordinary.

The entire hall was filled with the rustling sound of pen tips.

Lin Que did not stop writing.

He continued to write about that famous scene.

"I passed! I passed!"

"As he spoke, he fell backward, his teeth clenched tight, and he lost consciousness."

These words didn't seem like they were describing a joyous occasion; rather, they read like the account of a sudden stroke.

The students around him wore different expressions.

Some had their brows furrowed, while others scratched their heads in frustration.

They were either struggling with how to make a long-awaited reunion more sentimental, or hesitating over whether their logic was rigorous enough.

The "joy" under their pens was illuminated by red candles, accompanied by the clanging of gongs and drums—it was all the beauty in this world just as one wished.

Only in Lin Que's work was there a scent of decay churning up from an old, stagnant mud pond.

An elderly professor in charge of patrolling the exam hall walked slowly down the aisle with his hands behind his back.

He was a senior lecturer from the School of Literature at Haishi University, temporarily drafted to supervise the exam.

After walking the whole way, the old professor felt a bit bored.

Even if some openings had caught his eye, most of what followed was cliché.

It was either writing about grandparents suddenly recovering from long illnesses when no one was there to care for them, or about years of hard study finally leading to success.

It was the same stale gratitude, the same stale tears of joy.

He walked to Row 14 of Hall C.

He originally just wanted to glance casually at this examinee who was spinning his pen rapidly.

Just as he lifted his heel to leave, his gaze was hooked by a few words on the test paper.

Butcher, madman, lard.

A joyous occasion?

What did this topic have to do with slaughtering a pig?

The old professor stopped, pushed up the glasses on the bridge of his nose, and leaned forward slightly.

Lin Que happened to be writing about that absurd climax.

"Butcher Hu walked up like a fierce god and said, 'You deserve a beating!' and delivered a slap."

"The crowd and the neighbors couldn't help but laugh when they saw this."

"Fan Jin passed the imperial examination, but he went mad. The cure for his madness was, unexpectedly, a fierce slap from his father-in-law's greasy hand, which was usually used for slaughtering pigs and cutting meat."

The old professor's pupils contracted, and he instinctively narrowed his eyes.

Was this still joy?

This was clearly stripping the scholars of that era naked and exposing their distorted desire for fame and fortune to the scorching sun.

That poor scholar, who was usually timid and scolded as a 'disgrace' by his father-in-law, had passed the exam in one day and was so overjoyed that he lost his mind and rolled into a mud pond.

And the surrounding neighbors and relatives, who had avoided him the moment before, were now fawning over him like he was the center of the universe.

Looking at Lin Que's young profile, the old professor felt as if something had struck his heart.

He wasn't writing about that mad Fan Jin; he was writing about the nature of the world and the human heart.

Hidden beneath the extreme "great joy" was the ugliness and absurdity of human nature.

This tragedy wore the skin of a comedy, making one want to laugh, but after laughing, a chill would run down one's spine.

Lin Que did not notice the gaze behind him.

He finished the last paragraph.

"Fan Jin washed his face, changed his clothes, and wearing that pair of borrowed, tattered cloth shoes, walked away surrounded by the crowd. Butcher Hu stood behind, watching his son-in-law's back, his face covered in rolls of fat, overflowing with an unprecedented sycophancy."

At the end, Lin Que did not write about the future prosperity of Fan Jin.

He only wrote about those pairs of snobbish eyes and that swaying back in the wind, which seemed to still be going mad.

The period fell.

Lin Que put down his pen and shook his slightly sore wrist.

He looked up at the time on the big screen.

10:26.

There was still nearly an hour and a half until the exam ended.

But he didn't plan to move.

Even if he handed in his paper now and went out, he would just be standing there drinking the northwest wind; it was better to sit here where it was warm.

He looked at the ink-stained paper, and the image of that middle-aged man with a mud-covered face clapping and laughing appeared in his mind.

In this world without The Scholars, this piece, fan jin passes the imperial examination, was his most pungent mockery of a "joyous occasion."

The patrolling professor stood behind Lin Que for a full five minutes.

Only when Lin Que stopped writing did he snap back to reality, take a deep look at the examinee's admission ticket, and then walk away with his hands behind his back, his expression complex.

Time passed second by second.

Finally, the bell for the end of the exam rang.

"Everyone stand up, stop writing."

More than a dozen invigilators, each holding a black handheld terminal, walked to every desk.

"Beep—"

A red light scanned across the test paper.

This was the input terminal for the sixth-generation grading system.

The text on the paper test was instantly scanned, recognized, encrypted, and uploaded to the cloud database.

The paper originals were quickly collected by the teachers and sealed into file bags.

The whole process was smooth and fluid, leaving no room for any cheating.

Lin Que walked out of Hall C with the crowd.

The air outside was a bit cold, but he felt exceptionally refreshed.

"Lin Que! Hey, Lin Que!"

A burst of hurried footsteps came from behind.

Lin Que turned his head; it was someone familiar.

The boy ran up, panting:

"Lin Que, I was just three rows behind you to the right. I saw that for a four-hour exam, you stopped writing after just over two hours? Are you that confident?"

Lin Que unscrewed his thermos and took a sip of water:

"Old Zhao, I suddenly had inspiration, so I naturally stopped once I finished writing."

The person who came was Zhao Zichen.

Just now in the exam hall, he was sitting diagonally behind Lin Que.

When he discovered Lin Que, he coughed and kicked the chair leg, trying to get this guy's attention, but the other party was like someone in deep meditation, leaving nothing but the back of his head the whole time.

Zhao Zichen raised an eyebrow, a hint of gossip flashing in his eyes:

"The topic this time is so simple, you must have written some shocking, unconventional 'joyous occasion' again, right? Did you write about national affairs, or that kind of especially touching family affection?"

Lin Que put the lid back on and said casually:

"It's not that complicated, I just wrote about a pig slaughterer and a madman."

Zhao Zichen was stunned.

A pig slaughterer? A madman?

What does this have to do with a joyous occasion?

Could it be... slaughtering a pig for the New Year?

Before he could figure it out, Lin Que had already waved his hand and walked toward the gathering point on the other side of the plaza.

"Lin Que! Over here!"

Zhang Ya and Li Bowen were standing under the steps, waving at him.

The three of them met up.

Zhang Ya's face was rosy, and she had clearly performed well:

"You scared me to death. I thought there would be some weird topic, but I didn't expect it to be 'Joyous Occasion.' I wrote a modern version of the wedding night, combining it with current views on marriage and love. I feel it went okay."

Li Bowen also pushed up his glasses, revealing a rare smile:

"I wrote about 'rain after a long drought,' but the entry point was researchers overcoming difficulties. I suppose I used the logic my grandfather taught me."

The two looked at Lin Que.

"What about you?"

"You didn't take an unconventional path this time, did you? If you went off-topic on this, it would be a huge loss."

Lin Que put the lid on the cup.

"No."

The voice was muffled in his scarf, sounding quite honest:

"I just wrote about success in the imperial examination."

Zhang Ya and Li Bowen looked at each other and breathed a sigh of relief in unison.

"That's good."

Zhang Ya let out a long breath, and the tension finally dissipated.

"Although many people write about success in the imperial examination and it's easy to fall into clichés, your writing is good. Getting a high score and entering the Semifinals definitely won't be a problem."

Li Bowen also nodded in agreement:

"Yeah, for such a big theme, it's all about basic skills. As long as your writing doesn't collapse, entering the Semifinals is a sure thing. In this kind of major exam, stability is the key."

Lin Que looked at their "you finally became sensible" expressions, and the corners of his eyes curved.

success in the imperial examination?

Yes, it was indeed success in the imperial examination.

However, this list was a bit hot to handle.

At this time, inside the C Hall exam room.

The invigilator responsible for collecting papers was organizing the sealed bags.

The old professor who had been patrolling earlier returned.

"That..."

The old professor pointed to the seat where Lin Que had just been sitting.

"This examinee's paper..."

Before he finished speaking, he realized it was against the rules and changed the question:

"Which group will this batch of manuscripts be sent to for review?"

The invigilator looked at the distribution code on the terminal:

"All manuscripts from Jiangcheng will undergo three rounds of blind review by volunteers from the Fudan Literature Society in Modu and professors from the School of Literature."

Upon hearing this, the old professor raised his eyebrows and nodded slowly.

Fudan, huh... Then there will be a good show to watch.