Xu Fei, who had been secretly observing him from time to time, had no idea what he was writing so quickly. He guessed it could only be related to the riddles and nothing else. Because of this, when he sneaked a sideways glance, his eyes nearly popped out in shock. That fellow was writing blindly. He did not even look at the characters he was putting down. Occasionally dipping the brush in ink without bothering to look properly.
The key point was that he was still looking around everywhere, yet his brush hardly stopped. Could anyone really be this busy just solving character riddles?
Xu Fei felt ten thousand horses galloping through his heart, full of shock, doubt, and a bit of confusion.
He had originally intended to focus seriously. He did not want to rely only on Yu Qing alone. He wanted to try his best to solve some riddles himself. But Yu Qing’s actions kept disturbing him so much that he could not calm down and concentrate at all.
At this moment, Yu Qing no longer had any reservations. The more risky things had already been muddled through. It was now highly unlikely that anyone could catch solid evidence against him. Sitting here looking around, he could not see what others were writing anyway. Who could accuse him of copying? Writing blindly, so what?
Most importantly, he had no intention of competing for rankings. Even if someone noticed his unusual behaviour, without evidence or results, there was no reason they could do anything to him.
Fortunately, the invigilation was not strict, and there was no need for it to be overly strict. The real interest lay in the heart. Those managing the situation believed no one would easily let others copy from them.
Yu Qing’s unusual behaviour did not last too long either. After realising that what came after was mostly repeated content, he immediately stopped and began organising what he had written blindly.
The three men seated at the top, Lu, Di, and Yu, gradually stood up one after another and turned to leave the scene.
People of their level sitting here to accompany the candidates for a while was already quite decent. The time of one incense stick was not short, but making them sit quietly for that long was difficult. They could not speak loudly here anyway, so they might as well go out for a walk, stroll around, and chat casually. No one here could restrain them.
The door opened and closed. The three of them disappeared outside. Some of the candidates only glanced over a couple of times before refocusing and concentrating on solving the riddles again.
Xu Fei also noticed that Yu Qing’s unusual behaviour had stopped, but the shock and doubt in his heart remained.
Yu Qing occasionally looked up at the thirty riddles hanging above the hall, comparing them one by one with the draft he had written, then reordering them on another sheet of draft paper.
From left to right, he wrote out the answers to the thirty riddles in the order of the riddles.
After arranging them, Yu Qing discovered a problem. He was missing the answer to one riddle. He searched the first draft sheet thoroughly but could not find anything related.
Among the three sets of character riddles, in the middle set, there was one riddle with the characters “幻觉” (illusion), which called for a single character answer. There was no corresponding answer on the draft.
Yu Qing inwardly cursed. When he had just used the character-observing technique, he had seen so much repeated content. How could it be that only this one was missing?
“幻觉” to guess one character? Yu Qing tried to solve it himself but had no clue at all. In the end he could only curse the riddle setter for talking nonsense and gave up.
No choice. He started observing everyone’s reactions again. Whenever someone put brush to paper, he watched. As soon as he saw the first character appear on their draft, he knew whether it was the one or not. If not, he immediately switched to observe someone else. He went back and forth repeatedly, but the answer to “幻觉” never appeared.
He did not know if he had missed it. With so many people, it was inevitable there would be some oversights in the process.
He wanted to pass the twenty-nine answers he had already found to Xu Fei, but he did not dare get distracted, afraid he might really miss that one missing answer.
He glanced at the incense stick and saw it had burned less than one-third. He immediately steadied his mind.
He told himself inwardly to stay calm and keep his composure.
Since so many people had been pondering until now and still no one had produced this answer, it meant this was a difficult riddle.
Riddles that appeared early and were repeated many times indicated low difficulty.
By now, the frequency of candidates bowing their heads to write had clearly slowed down. This meant the easy riddles had mostly been filtered out. Everyone was now seriously tackling the harder ones. That meant the chance of the answer to “幻觉” appearing had become greater.
With a calmer mind, Yu Qing began to observe and analyse coolly.
Xu Fei completely could not understand Yu Qing anymore. He still had not received any answers from him after such a long wait. He sighed helplessly in his heart. He glanced at the three hanging riddle sheets and treated it as just looking for fun. After wasting so much time, his mindset had become chaotic. Since things had come to this, he adopted an attitude of not caring anymore.
Yu Qing, however, continued to concentrate calmly and observe carefully. A thin layer of sweat had appeared on his forehead. The continuous use of the character-observing technique really consumed a lot of mental energy. Outsiders could not possibly understand how tiring it was.
Just as the incense stick had burned past one-third, Yu Qing’s sharp gaze suddenly moved. He noticed someone in the front row slapping his own forehead, as if suddenly enlightened, with quite a strong reaction.
Judging from the back of the head and silhouette, it was actually the top scholar Zhan Muchun.
It was this guy. Yu Qing’s heart stirred slightly. Holding some expectation, he quickly focused on observing the fluctuations and signs produced by his brush strokes. When the calculated characters took shape in his mind, they were clearly “幻, 觑”.
Yu Qing immediately swept his eyes over the thirty hanging riddles. The only one starting with “幻” was the “幻觉” riddle.
In other words, “幻” was a shorthand for “幻觉”, and “觑” should be the answer to “幻觉”.
At the very least, Yu Qing still understood some basic character recognition. He immediately combined it with the riddle to interpret it. After a slight analysis, he almost excitedly slapped his thigh but forcefully held back and controlled his excitement.
He knew in his heart that he had finally found the only missing answer. He even inwardly praised Zhan Muchun fiercely. The top scholar truly deserved the title. It was not an empty reputation. He really had that kind of talent.
There was nothing to hesitate about. Yu Qing immediately picked up his brush and filled in the missing answer in the middle.
Then he quickly flipped up the right side of the draft paper, the side facing Xu Fei, folded over about two inches wide, and swiftly wrote a vertical line of characters on the folded strip: 口、脂、王、秦、回、赦、呸、早、侈、餍
These were the ten answers from the leftmost set of character riddles.
After writing, Yu Qing put down his brush. He propped his chin with one hand, pretending to be deep in thought, while actually secretly paying attention to the surroundings.
Xu Fei, who had already been wasting time, accidentally glanced over and saw that Yu Qing next to him had put down his brush. His heart immediately started pounding wildly. It seemed something was about to happen.
This was the signal Yu Qing had agreed on with him. Whenever Yu Qing put down his brush, it meant he was about to start passing answers to him.
He immediately arranged the draft paper in front of him properly. Right hand holding the brush and dipping in ink, left hand spread open like a palm and pressed on the left side of the draft paper.
This was also the agreed signal between the two. As long as his left hand was spread open like this, it meant he was ready to receive the answers.
Yu Qing received the signal. He paid attention to the surroundings. Taking advantage when no one was looking, his right index finger gently flicked, lifting the previously folded edge strip of the draft paper without making a sound, subtly exposing that vertical line of characters.
Xu Fei also secretly checked the surroundings. Taking advantage when no one noticed, he quietly peeked over and swiftly memorised the five characters “口脂王秦回”, then quickly wrote them down as a draft on his paper. After that he stole another glance and memorised the five characters “赦呸早侈餍”, then wrote them down as a draft again.
After confirming they were correct, Xu Fei clenched his open left hand into a fist.
This was also the agreed signal between them. Palm turning into a fist meant “all done”, indicating he had copied everything.
All the signals had been set by Yu Qing. Honestly, at first Xu Fei had some doubts in his heart. It seemed this Brother Shiheng was quite skilled at this kind of thing. He arranged everything with such confidence and experience, without the slightest guilt. He looked very practised.
He did not know if it was just his imagination.
At this moment Yu Qing had no such thoughts. After receiving the signal, he pressed the lifted edge strip back down completely. Then he folded another edge further back, picked up his brush again, dipped it in ink, and wrote another ten characters on the new vertical strip. These were the ten answers from the middle set of riddles.
The same procedure followed. The two exchanged signals. Yu Qing did it without drawing attention, and Xu Fei copied quickly and neatly.
In this way, neither of them could stop halfway. They swiftly transferred the answers from the last set of riddles as well.
After finishing all this, Yu Qing picked up his brush and dipped it in ink. The first thing he did was blacken everything out. He smeared over all the answers listed on the edge strips to destroy the evidence. Then he pulled a blank sheet from underneath and covered all his previous drafts. He did not want to appear too idle to outsiders, so he began seriously copying the three riddle sheets.
Xu Fei was not stupid either. Even though he had passed the provincial examination mostly by luck, he could still tell which answers corresponded to which riddles, especially since Yu Qing had listed them in order.
With a quick comparison, he immediately saw that these corresponded to the riddles, listed from left to right with perfect order.
Good heavens, he really solved all thirty? Xu Fei looked at the incense stick. It had burned less than half. He inwardly clicked his tongue in amazement.
He no longer hesitated and immediately pulled out a blank sheet from below and began carefully transcribing the riddles.
While doing this, he felt some regret in his heart. If he had known the fellow next to him could really solve all the riddles, he should have transcribed the riddles first. Then he could have directly filled in the answers and finished the competition much faster.
But this was only hindsight. As a candidate who had come all this way through examinations, he would not do that. Everyone had to draft first. What if he wrote wrong? He could not cross out. The consequence of crossing out was having to recopy everything, which was asking for trouble. So drafting first was basic common sense.
Next door, Yu Qing also noticed this situation. He inwardly cursed fiercely. What the hell was this big dumb black doing? He had not even copied the riddles during all that earlier time?
He felt extremely bitter inside. He even had the urge to kill Xu Fei. If he lost the first-place reward because of this, he would definitely spit blood!
After copying the riddles, Xu Fei finally began filling in the answers one by one.
After checking for any mistakes, Xu Fei solemnly wrote a line outside the questions: Hengqiu County, Xu Fei.
He put down his brush and let out a breath of relief. As he prepared to hand in his paper, Xu Fei started feeling uneasy again, a bit hesitant, and also a bit emotional.
In short, it all felt strange. How had it only been a short time since he met Brother Shiheng, and now he was already following him into this kind of crooked path?
He had never dreamed that one day he would be cheating right under the nose of Liezhou’s number one figure. What kind of guts did that take? He dared not even think about it!
At such an important moment as the provincial examination he would not dare act recklessly, yet here in this lesser occasion he had done it. If this were discovered, would it not destroy his entire future?
Thinking about it made him a little scared, and also a little puzzled. How had he followed along without the slightest hesitation?