Chapter 58
The two people soon left for home after visiting the graves of Gu Jiao"s parents.
Before that, the two of them took a lot of work to clean up the graves, making their whole body filthy.
Knowing that Xiao Liulang always liked to be clean, Gu Jiao said to him when they pa.s.sed by the lake, "Go and wash your hands."
"En." Xiao Liulang answered and limped toward the edge of the lake with his crutch.
Gu Jiao observed the way he walked. To be honest, the surgery was very successful, and he also worked very hard in his rehabilitation during this period. Despite that, he still couldn"t get rid of his crutch.
Was the intensity of rehabilitation insufficient?
Gu Jiao stroked her chin thoughtfully.
"Are you not going to wash too?" Xiao Liulang asked her after a moment.
Gu Jiao said mischievously, "Wash! Let’s wash together!"
It’s just washing your hands, why are you so active? It’s not like it’s taking a bath, right?
But right after asking that in his mind, Xiao Liulang remembered that this was the lake where she had fallen previously. He thought that maybe she was still afraid to approach this lake, and blamed himself for being talkative. He planned to wash his hands quickly, but Gu Jiao had already crouched down beside him.
The lake water was a bit ice-cold, but neither of them was a spoiled young master or a pampered young miss. They endured the coldness and washed their hands with patience.
However, at the moment they got up in succession, something suddenly fell out of Gu Jiao"s bosom and fell into the lake with a splash.
"My pouch!" Gu Jiao had never antic.i.p.ated this sudden accident, but it was too late for both her eyes and hands to catch it. Many small bits of silver were inside that pouch, making it so heavy that it sank in the water in an instant.
Gu Jiao jumped into the lake without a second thought.
Xiao Liulang’s complexion changed color!
Her diving into the water was more unexpected than her pouch falling into the water. Xiao Liulang failed to react at all and her figure disappeared in the water.
Xiao Liulang looked at the rippling water surface, and his toes moved.
He knew how to swim, of course. However, right now his leg hadn’t recovered yet, and he couldn"t be sure of saving people.
Just as Xiao Liulang clenched his fist and stared at the bottom of the water, Gu Jiao finally grabbed her pouch and swam to the surface, "I found it… I found it…"
Xiao Liulang hurriedly pulled her ash.o.r.e.
Gu Jiao knelt on the gra.s.s with water dripping from her and gasping for breath.
Xiao Liulang looked at the pouch in her hand with a frown and said, "It"s just a pouch. Just how much silver is worth your life?"
"It’s not silver." Gu Jiao shook her head, opened her pouch and poured out all of its contents. She didn"t look at the silver ovule ingots, but simply grabbed a palm-sized brown wrapping paper sealed with wax.
"Do you have a handkerchief?" She looked at Xiao Liulang and asked.
Xiao Liulang handed her a clean handkerchief from his bosom.
He thought she was going to wipe the water on her face, but instead, she carefully wiped the brown wrapping paper with the handkerchief.
After wiping the brown wrapping paper dry, she carefully peeled off the wax on the surface, and then opened the brown wrapping paper, revealing a piece of doc.u.ment with an official seal of the yamen.
The doc.u.ment was dry and intact.
Gu Jiao finally breathed a sigh of relief.
This was the county exam doc.u.ment sent by the Dean to Xiao Liulang. Xiao Liulang didn"t want to take the exam, so with a turn of his head, he just threw it into the pile of waste papers.
Gu Jiao, who always helped him clean up his room, found this doc.u.ment. She only thought that he had accidentally put it in there, so she carefully kept it for him.
Gu Jiao handed the doc.u.ment to him and said, "Take it, my body is soaked with water right now, I might get it wet."
Xiao Liulang: "Is this what you wanted to retrieve? I... " Won"t take the exam.
In this kind of weather, washing your hands in the ice-cold lake water was still fine, but if your whole person fell into the lake, the coldness was quite hard to endure.
The blowing cold wind made Gu Jiao shiver from head to toe. Her misty eyes were wide open as her little hand remained stretched out in front of him. Her cuffs were dripping with water, but she didn"t get the paper wet at all.
Those four words took a u-turn in Xiao Liulang’s mouth, and he was simply unable to say them. Instead, he said, "I can"t pa.s.s the exam anyway. Why do you bother?"
Gu Jiao said with great sincerity, "How can you know you can’t pa.s.s it if you don"t take the exam? Even if you really did fail this time, wouldn"t there be a next time? If you still can"t pa.s.s it next time, there‘s still another next time. You will be able to pa.s.s it one day!"
Xiao Liulang replied, "If one can"t pa.s.s the exam all the time, they will never be successful..."
"Who said people will never be successful if they’re unable to pa.s.s the exam? There are thousands of roads in life, and studying is just the easiest way out. If you don"t like it, you can do something else." Gu Jiao suddenly thought of something, and looked at him carefully, "You... shouldn’t dislike studying, right?"
Xiao Liulang looked into those deer-like eyes br.i.m.m.i.n.g with expectations, as if she would get hurt if he said he didn’t like studying.
Xiao Liulang let out a soft sigh and took the doc.u.ment.
"You’re really foolish, aren’t you?"
His voice was very low and soft.
Gu Jiao tilted her head and looked at him, "Hm? What did you say?"
"Nothing." Xiao Liulang turned his back to her and took off his academy uniform, then he turned around again and leaned forward, putting the uniform on her, "Let’s return home."
Gu Jiao fell ill after falling into the water, and she still had a fever on the day Xiao Liulang would take the county exam. In spite of that, she still got up very early, made breakfast for Xiao Liulang with her dizzy little head, and packed up some dry food for him to take with him to the examination hall.
The county exam had a total of five rounds, with each taking place every other day, and each exam took a whole day to take. Eating, drinking and answering the call of nature were all done in there.
The first round was referred to as the princ.i.p.al exam, and it was a must to take it. After pa.s.sing it, you could then proceed to the second round. If you pa.s.sed all five rounds, you would be eligible to partic.i.p.ate in the prefectural exam next month.
After the prefectural exam was the college exam, and after pa.s.sing the college exam, one would then become a Xiucai of the State of Zhao.
Of course, Xiucai had ranks too.
The first rank of Xiucai, who had the best results, were called Linsheng, and they got to receive government-issued rations every month. The second was Zengsheng, who didn’t get to enjoy the provision of food, and lastly was Fusheng.
Gu Dashun was a real Linsheng, a fact the Gu Family had been proud of for a long time.
Gu Jiao thought that her husband didn’t have to become a Linsheng like Gu Dashun; a Fusheng was already quite good! She was not demanding. Anything was good as long as he pa.s.sed the exam. But if he really couldn’t pa.s.s the exam, that didn’t matter either. She would raise him even without that imperial examination.
Gu Jiao was sitting on the oxcart, and her little body was trembling in the cold wind. A small snot bubble hung from her nostril as she said in a low m.u.f.fled voice, "Don"t be nervous. Just take the exam casually, think of it as simply going through the formalities. I"ve already gathered info about it. There are five rounds in total. It doesn"t matter if you don"t do very well in the first round, there are still four rounds after that. I will accompany you every day... Achoo! Achoo! Achoo!"
At the end of her speech, Gu Jiao sneezed three times in succession, and her two eyes saw stars.
Xiao Liulang cast her a deep look and said nothing.
After entering the examination hall, the examiner distributed the examination papers to each examinee.
The only reason why Xiao Liulang was sitting here right now was that someone almost lost her life for the examination doc.u.ment that he had thrown away.
But this did not mean that he would take the exam seriously.
He intended to hand in a blank paper.
"Achoo!" The examinee at the next examination cell let out a sneeze.
An image of someone violently sneezing on the oxcart suddenly flashed across Xiao Liulang"s mind. Her little face was flushed with high fever, her eyes were also blurred and distracted, and her small body was on the verge of collapse, and yet she refused to go back.
Thinking of someone dragging her sick and feeble body to wait for him in the oxcart all day, Xiao Liulang impatiently lifted his pen!
Xiao Liulang didn’t go again after taking the first exam.
This news quickly reached Gu Dashun"s ears.
Generally speaking, there were only two situations wherein the examinee only took the first exam: the first was, he did too well on the first exam, was immediately deemed as the top scorer, and was already recommended for the prefectural exam; the second was that his scores where too poor to enter the next four rounds.
The first case was rare. After all, even if you did well in the first round, there was no guarantee that no one would catch up to your scores in the next four rounds. Not to mention it was Xiao Liulang, a bottom-ranking loser in Earth Cla.s.s B. It was simply impossible for him to become the top scorer even if he went through all rounds.