Chapter 4
Chapter 4
1.4 – You can’t just casually turn bent!
The system that was called out to show himself by the host, only to be thrown downstairs, and then pinched by the neck by the general: “…”
My God, can this world be any good, abusing the system like this, are you not afraid of being struck by lightning?
Host, I’ve seen through you! You’re a jerk!
Its host supported his cheek and looked down at the general, laughing brilliantly.
The system couldn’t watch on anymore, even using a honey-trap for the sake of completing the task, following this host, things like high moral principle simply does not exist!
Fortunately, the general’s morals and state of mind could be considered pretty firm, although distracted previously, he recovered quickly. First staring at the shivering little white fox in his hand, then looking towards the man in red on the windowsill.
Today, the imperial examinations published a list of successful candidates, the person that can dress like this should be the one ranked first.
After the general examination, there were palace examinations. The emperor would appoint the number one scholar, but generally if there is no accidents, it should be this top candidate.
Although there is a youth in the general’s palace that is also taking part in this year’s imperial examinations, the general had been in the central government for so many years, and felt that it was all the same with or without the scholars that come up in the examinations every year, they were not indispensable. So this year, he hadn’t paid much attention to the situation, let alone the rankings. Looking at this person’s appearance, they should be rushing to the palace examination. Why…
Why throw the fox at him at this moment?
In fact, Xue ling wanted to down a flower, but after thinking about it, he thought that throwing a flower looked like too flirty. In case the general became angry, then it wouldn’t be worth it. Unfortunately, there was nothing suitable for him to throw, if he carelessly dropped the window support, whether or not it hit the general is not important, the key point is that Xue Ling himself felt all kinds of entanglement and indecision.
After all, the plot seems to be developing in the direction of Pan Jinlian and Si MenQing by the minute.
(cultural reference: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pan_Jinlian)
As he was thinking about it, the general rode under his window, Xue Ling directly called the system to show itself, grabbed it and threw it downstairs, almost scaring the system half to death.
Although it’s a bit not suitable, but the man has already laid eyes on himself, Xue Ling smiled leisurely, adjusted his sleeves and spoke: “Today is the palace examinations, but the person who came to inform me did not tell me how to enter the palace, since the General was riding by, this one can only respectfully make this decision, but also hope the general can be magnanimous enough to show the way.”
The general’s original intended words were directly interrupted by his remarks. He looked at the man with somewhat complicated eyes, brain turning countless thoughts that ultimately turned into a silent sigh. “What is the Emperor playing at this time?”
Xue Ling shrugged his shoulders, innocently saying: “I don’t know either, but I just need to find my way into the palace, which is giving me some headaches.” Although he was born gorgeous, but when he puts on an innocent expression, looking extremely pure, these two temperaments coinciding together on his body made the heart of Cong Hui, who is meeting this type of person for the first time, rather agitated.
“Thinking that since I have some connections with the general, the general should probably not refuse me.” Finally, Xue Ling added.
Cong Hui was taken aback, completely cannot think of how he had possibly intersected with this strange and fascinating fellow before his fox was thrown at him.
Seeing his rare astonishment, Xue Ling held back his smile, “Did the general forget? A few days ago, that painting that I held back the longest, that was requested for the most, entered the general’s palace.”
Cong Hui was surprised, eyes bright, directing a soul searching look towards Xue Ling, but unfortunately for a thousand year old fox spirit, this kind of frightening eyesight is not useful at all, and Xue Ling is still particularly calm. “It’s only been a while since your Excellency General took the painting away, and now you’re going to turn your face around and claim not to know someone?”
Recently, apart from dealing with military affairs, Cong Hui’s remaining time has been devoted to that painting, he had always wanted to find the painter to properly discuss it, but now that this person has appeared directly in front of him, he suddenly had a feeling of not knowing what to do.
“Your Excellency General?” Descending the stairs, he received the system he had thrown out. Xue Ling touched the head of the system and stroked its fur, the system turned its head and was unwilling to look at him.
“Come up on the horse.” A long wile later, the calm-faced general opened his mouth.
Xue Ling looked stiff, blinking a little confusedly: “This one, can’t ride a horse…”
Cong Hui looked the other in the face, the other side’s eyes completely different, being stared at like this, because he is really embarrassed, silently turned his head, ears showing a trace of red.
The system quietly complained in his heart, his host is really acting out a good play, it’s as if he really is very pure.
The general’s turned red, feeling like he was not quite right today.
“Then you ride behind me?” As the protagonist gong of the world, the general is usually lucky. Although he has a strange fondness for the person in front of him, he is not so good to speak with.
Xue Ling also disliked the general’s bothered appearance, couldn’t he use his brain a little? He also doesn’t really want to come into contact with the general, would he die if he agreed to his request earlier?
The reason why something like this happened today is actually very simple. The article Xue Ling handed in is a great article with many good things hidden. As long as one reads carefully, they can put together a lot of information from it. In his article, not only does he answer the topic clearly, making people who read it feel enlightened, wanting to talk to him about government affairs, he also hid some of his own life story, stating that he knows that there will be someone in the examination room writing the same article as him, hoping the emperor will give him a chance to chat with the person who copied his article during the examinations.
He had made his intentions so obvious that the emperor found that besides feeling that such a genius must be used for himself, he also had no complaints at all about him playing such a game in the examination.
But the emperor is still the emperor at the end of the day, it is obviously inappropriate for him to listen to Xue Ling’s words so casually, leading to today’s events.
Although the students were notified that they needed to enter the palace to retrieve their robes, they were not given any tools or personnel to guide them.
Duan Xuyang in the General’s Palace had no such worries. Although the general had not returned yet, once he explained the situation to the housekeeper, the housekeeper arranged a carriage to bring him to enter the palace.
Although there was no one following in the open, in fact, people were sent to secretly observe. All the candidates’ reactions were in the hands of the emperor. Among them, Duan Xuyang, the earliest one, and Duan Qian, who was led in by the general, were the two the emperor cared the most about.
The emperor was amazed when the officials who reviewed the papers first brought them to him. After reading Duan Xuyang’s papers, he felt that the younger generation will surpass the older (后生可畏), but after reading Duan Qian’s papers, the emperor could only sigh that some people were born with genius.
Although the two papers have different signatures and handwriting, they both share similar views. Only one article stopped after discussing the issue from a shallow surface perspective, letting the emperor appreciate (赞赏), but not admire deeply (叹服).
In addition, the old elder in charge of marking Duan Qian’s papers had in his possession a piece of his calligraphy, after the emperor read the two together, he was even more amazed. The talent of this young man as a national scholar was unparalleled, and the emperor had already begun to think about where he could assign him to best use this talent after he was awarded the championship.
In order to quickly cut through this mess, Xue Ling has already gone all out, and has reached the stage of serious OOC. The system indicates that it doesn’t even want to look on, good things will not happen because its host is too eager to succeed!
Cong Hui ultimately can not persist under his shameless acts, after the other party scratched his head in embarrassment and finally promised him another painting, the general was finally satisfied and arranged for people to prepare a carriage, and he personally sent the youth to the palace.
In a sense, the general’s behaviour is really quite like that of a rogue.
All the way through the palace gate, but to go further without the emperor’s call, even if it is the general, it is not easy to enter, and so he can watch as the small champion goes in step by step.
The funny thing is that the young champion seems very unhappy that he took advantage of the fire to rob, so he has no good expression to show the general, jumping out of the carriage and only leaving a snort of contempt to him before leaving.
The general frowned slightly. How did he feel that the little champion’s face seemed to be even paler than before?
Xue Ling was being led along the way, all the while complaining to the invisible system: “This body is really terrible, just riding in an ordinary carriage, going a little faster, a little bit bumpy, and blood is already surging. Not vomiting blood on the floor just now, is already something to thank the heavens for.”
The system is also helpless: “There’s no other way, the power that the Ten Directions World can provide to help improve your physical fitness is limited, and I can only choose to use your future life force to exchange for your current current lively state. That’s why even though I didn’t stop you even though I don’t agree with you about speeding up the process. You’d better hurry things up. This body won’t last long.”
Xue Ling pouted his lips. Now he is already using his fastest speed to face slap. As long as he can see the protagonist shou in a little while, he can be considered half done. After that, the protagonist’s luck will be drawn away by the Ten Directions World, and in return, he can exchange it to support this body for a period of time in order to change the fate of the protagonist gong.
Xue Ling knows very clearly that as long as the other party did not like the protagonist shou, there would not be so many matters dragged in in the future, which is why he dropped the system downstairs today, as well as the reason why he had specifically advised Xiao Qing to sell the painting and calligraphy to the general.
Every step of that Xue Ling takes is full of calculation, and the little white fox system that is stuck with him does not even know how it should disparage him.
It’s hard to find such a dedicated host nowadays. What kind of deal did the Lord Majesty make with him?
But he is still too confident… Why do would he think that as long as he sees him, the protagonist gong will not have good feelings about the protagonist shou anymore? Although this is not a high-level world, and the mandatory plotline is not so strong, but for the protagonist to deviate is not so easy ah…
The emperor’s audience hall is resplendent and magnificent, the emperors of this dynasty have worked hard to govern well, and it is also because of this setting that the general can live so well in the court, and not be regarded as an enemy by the throne due to his power. When the emperor really began to worry about military power in his old age, because the general and Duan Xuyang loved each other, and had no children, even though he had military power, there was no reason to usurp the throne, so they were never regarded as thorns in the side.
Xue Ling was the last one to arrive. When his name was called up, Duan Xuyang obviously wavered for a moment, however he was very good at acting and knew that he should not make any foolish moves in the emperor’s audience hall, so he bowed his head and said nothing. Rather, the other candidates looked at the hall door with some curiosity, wanting to see the demeanour of this top scholar.
And then they were all amazed.
A youth dressed in red clothes, as handsome as ornamental jade, upright posture, lips hooked in a slight smile, a pair of good-looking eyes sweeping around the hall, wherever his eyesight touched, candidates blushed and felt their heartbeats speed up, feeling that something is not quite right with themselves.
How terrible, the impartial attack of the first prize scholar is too strong for them to fight.
omg. i just realized that even at 1 chapter per day, there’s 206 chapters + 2 extras, which is going to take the better part of a year. owo i’ll try my best! also, i don’t have an editor, so please feel free to point out/tolerate any grammar or writing mistakes…