At that moment, someone brought over a thick stack of white paper and began distributing several sheets to each table.
Others scooped water into the brush washers on every desk, for moistening brushes and grinding ink.
Once everything was distributed, the crowd waited quietly for a while. Then Lu Jiwèi appeared with a smile, together with Di Zang and Yu Qi. From the look of it, the puzzles seemed ready.
Everyone stood up, cupped their hands, and bowed. “Your Excellency the Prefect.”
“No need for so much courtesy. Sit, everyone sit down.” Lu Jiwèi was in a good mood. He repeatedly pressed his hands to signal them to sit, then gestured to both sides for the two masters to take their seats as well. He sat down first without hesitation and nodded to the chief official waiting nearby, indicating that they could begin.
The chief official bowed in acceptance. He waved towards the door. Immediately, someone carried in a large sack, opened it, and poured the contents onto a table. It was more than a hundred specially made small pouches.
Yu Qing stretched his neck to stare, his Adam’s apple moving up and down repeatedly. His eyes shone with anticipation.
Other candidates might not understand, but he recognised it at once. Those small cloth bags contained spirit rice, in the standard ten-tael portions.
Sure enough, after the person left, the chief official faced the crowd and announced loudly, “This is the additional prize from Master Di Zang, one hundred jin of spirit rice. The master ordered it to be urgently brought here just now. It is this year’s newly harvested spirit rice, picked from the spiritual crops less than a month ago. You can see how much Master Di Zang favours everyone.”
Zhan Muchun immediately stood up and bowed. “We thank Master Di Zang.”
This forced the other candidates to stand as well and bow together. “We thank Master Di Zang.”
Yu Qing was no exception, though inside he cursed a couple of times. This damn thing causes so much trouble, making everyone bend their backs over and over for no reason, as if you could actually get the reward.
Master Di Zang was already beaming. He raised both hands to indicate that no more courtesy was needed.
After everyone sat down, the chief official continued, “One hundred jin of spirit rice, divided exactly into one hundred bags here, with each bag containing the same amount. The reward rules are for the top six. First place gets thirty bags, second and third each get twenty bags, fourth, fifth, and sixth each get ten bags. Of course, the first-place winner also receives a special grand prize.”
He turned his hand to reveal a small metal bottle engraved with water ripple patterns, slightly larger than a goose egg. “This is the additional prize from Master Yu Qi, mysterious-grade Demon Revealing Dew, with a market value similar to these one hundred bags of spirit rice. Since this bottle of dew cannot be divided, after discussion between the prefect and the two masters, it has been decided to award this bottle of Demon Revealing Dew as the grand prize for first place. That means the first-place winner will receive not only thirty bags of spirit rice but also this mysterious-grade Demon Revealing Dew. Such a generous reward will surely become a fine story in Lie Prefecture. I must especially state that this bottle of mysterious-grade Demon Revealing Dew was personally refined by Master Yu Qi!”
As soon as these words came out, the candidates stirred. They had not expected the rewards to be distributed this way. The tilt was quite strong. For the first-place winner, it really was a heavy prize. If word spread, it would indeed make a good tale.
Yu Qing’s shining eyes fixed tightly on the small metal bottle. His lips could not help licking again and again. Inside, he felt an uncontrollable excitement.
If he could really take first place, it would not be a small sum of money. But could he really take first? Xu Fei could not help turning his head to look at Yu Qing. Seeing Yu Qing’s reaction, he was stunned. He was not sure if it was his imagination, but this fellow seemed somewhat excited. Could he actually have confidence?
If he said he could take first, he would take first. Honestly, Xu Fei was a little sceptical. But after Brother Shiheng had spoken to such an extent, it seemed there might be a possibility. If he had no confidence, he probably would not have said those words.
“Thank you, Master Yu Qi.” The top scholar Zhan Muchun stood up again to lead the thanks.
So the group had to stand once more and thank him together. “Thank you, Master Yu Qi.”
Yu Qi showed a slight smile on his face and pressed his hand to indicate they should sit.
Once the candidates were seated, the chief official waved towards the door again. Three people came in, unfolded three sheets of written characters, and hung them on the beams. The beams already had positions used during academy lectures for hanging calligraphy and paintings.
The three sheets were the prepared word puzzles, each in a different style with different handwriting. Clearly, they were written by Lu Jiwèi and the other two, but no one could tell which was whose. Most candidates had never seen the ink treasures of these three men.
Each sheet had ten word puzzles, for a total of thirty questions across the three.
The chief official lit an incense stick and placed it in a temporarily set incense burner. At the same time, he announced loudly, “Copy the puzzle exactly, one question one answer. Do not mix them up or leave them unclear, otherwise the answer will be invalid. Time limit is one stick of incense. If papers are handed in at the same time, the one with more correct answers wins. If the number of correct answers is the same, the one who submits first wins. If no paper is submitted when the incense burns out, it is considered a forfeit and will not be graded. Everyone here is a scholar familiar with writing. I am sure you understand the rules. No need for me to explain further.”
After speaking, he swung his hand down sharply and shouted, “Begin!”
The group of candidates immediately got busy. They dripped water into their inkstones to grind ink while examining the hanging puzzles.
Even the top six from the provincial examination, sitting in front, no longer paid attention to the prefect’s expression. They focused entirely on solving the puzzles.
Relatively speaking, those six felt more pressure. With their reputation at stake, if they performed too poorly in this quick-wit contest, it would be very embarrassing.
Lu, Di, and Yu sat on the platform, whispering and chuckling about something.
While grinding ink, Xu Fei glanced at Yu Qing from time to time. They had agreed on a signal. He wanted to see how the so-called “Brother Shiheng”, who claimed to be good at word puzzles, cracked them one by one. But he noticed something off again. Yu Qing looked distracted, glancing around everywhere, completely different from everyone else’s reaction.
Xu Fei suddenly felt uncertain inside.
Yu Qing was also grinding ink. When he saw the smoke rise from the incense burner, its swaying and fluttering made his nerves tense. He could not help looking left and right, occasionally glancing towards the window where a slight breeze came in.
When he noticed some candidates had already picked up their brushes, dipped them in ink, and started drafting, he suddenly felt anxious.
Seeing the pile of spirit rice on the big table in the hall and the bottle of Demon Revealing Dew placed there, he finally hardened his heart and made a risky move.
He put down the ink stick in his hand. Taking advantage of the slight breeze blowing in from the window, he flicked a sheet of white paper with two fingers, secretly using inner force to send it flying.
The paper whooshed into the air. Yu Qing pretended to rise in a panic, reaching and grabbing with both hands. His fingertips touched the paper repeatedly, using clever force to keep flicking it further. To outsiders, it looked like the wind had blown the paper away.
Xu Fei, who had been watching Yu Qing from time to time, was stunned. He sat at the table next to Yu Qing. Although he also felt the breeze from outside, was the wind really that strong?
He could not help suspecting that this “Brother Shiheng” who claimed to have confidence in taking first was planning to cheat by peeking at others’ answers.
But then he dismissed the thought. The contest had just started. People nearby were still pondering the puzzles. There should be no answers to copy yet.
He felt he might be judging a gentleman with a villain’s heart and overthinking it. Surely the man would not use such a lowly method to cheat.
Among the seated scholars, one suddenly stood up and made such a big fuss with reaching and grabbing. The three men on the platform, Lu, Di, and Yu, were not blind. Of course they saw it.
Yu Qing took two steps forward to catch the flying paper, then sat back down with an embarrassed nod and bow as if apologising.
The candidate at the table in front was almost bumped into. Nearby candidates who noticed, even those with paperweights, instinctively pressed their papers down. They were all affected by Yu Qing’s actions, subconsciously afraid the wind would blow their papers away, even though it was only a light breeze.
Back in his seat, Yu Qing’s heart was secretly tense. He did not know if this sudden trick would work.
He did not have to wait long. Lu Jiwèi on the platform frowned slightly and gave a response. He made a silent gesture, raising his finger to point at the doors and windows around them.
Someone immediately understood, silently accepted the order, and sent a few people to quickly walk along the walls and close all the doors and windows. The light in the hall suddenly dimmed quite a bit. Fortunately, the hall was designed with good natural lighting, so normal vision was not a problem.
Candidates sitting further forward had not seen Yu Qing’s actions behind them. They were too focused and did not know what happened. Only when the light dimmed did they notice the doors and windows were closed, but they did not think much of it.
Success! While continuing to grind ink, Yu Qing secretly breathed a sigh of relief. He saw that the smoke in the hall no longer swayed easily. Feeling that half the plan had worked, he felt a little excited inside. This was the first time he had pulled off such a sneaky trick in front of someone of Lu Jiwèi’s level, and it actually succeeded. It felt quite thrilling.
At this moment, he had completely forgotten the heavy trust placed on him by A Shiheng. For the sake of ten thousand or so taels of silver, he took this risk. If Lu Jiwèi or his subordinates noticed anything wrong, the trouble would be huge.
The incense smoke gradually spread through the hall. Yu Qing held his brush in a thoughtful pose, but his eyes kept darting around, constantly watching the movements of the other candidates.
Suddenly he saw someone start writing. His sharp eyes immediately locked onto the subtle changes in the smoke around that person.
When that person paused, lifted his head to look at the puzzle again, the traces of smoke fluctuation from his writing had already formed into a line of text in Yu Qing’s mind.
The puzzle was “Spring and Autumn are cool”, and the answer was the character “Qin”.
Yu Qing’s brush also moved. He quickly jotted down “Spring Qin” in abbreviated form. It was enough to mark which of the thirty questions it answered and the corresponding solution.
He noticed someone else bowing their head to write. Yu Qing’s gaze quickly fixed on them. He got the content. The puzzle was just the single character “Crowd”, and the answer was the character “Chi”.
With more than three hundred people, writing movements began to rise one after another. Yu Qing handling so many at once was a bit overwhelming. Moreover, his observing actions could not be too obvious. He still had to act. It was tiring. To save effort, when he found repeated content, he immediately skipped it and watched others.
In short, this time he planned to use the combined quick wit of all the candidates to take first place in this word-puzzle contest.
He refused to believe that any single person here had quicker wit at solving word puzzles than the combined intelligence of everyone present. If there really was such a genius, he would accept defeat.
The reason he caused the doors and windows to be closed was that facing so many people at once would create too much interference when observing the subtle changes in smoke. His cultivation was not high. The mental effort required for the character-viewing technique would be too much for him to handle.
This was not like other tasks. He had to deduce the strokes of the characters. The more detailed the deduction, the greater the mental strain.
If he were observing only a few people or things, he could manage easily. There would be no need to take the risk of prompting the closure of doors and windows to block the interference from the breeze.