Nightwatcher

# 262. Two Poems

"Guess exam topics?"

Xu Erlang asked in confusion but quickly understood what Xu Qi’an meant. He calmly poured his elder brother a cup of hot water, wrapped himself in an extra layer, and sat down in a chair. "No need," Xu Xinnian replied, "the great scholars of the academy have already predicted the topics for us."

After the establishment of the Imperial Academy, students' minds became confined to the Four Books and Five Classics, losing the creativity of their predecessors. One consequence was that poetry and prose faded away in the Great Feng. But there was one advantage: predicting exam topics became easier.

The so-called predicting topics was akin to Xu Qi’an's past life when teachers would underline key points before an exam. With limited content and set answering methods, the imperial examination topics could be somewhat “pre-determined”.

Aside from topic prediction, there were also shady practices—buying questions.

Even worse than buying the topics was the “prearranged candidate” practice. Such individuals could pass smoothly even if their writing was utter nonsense, all thanks to prior arrangements with the examiners.

The method was simple: bribing the examiner and agreeing on a secret code in advance. For example, the last word of the first line would be "old," the last word of the second line would be "bloke," and lines four, five, and six would be "666." When the examiner saw the code, they would know this was their candidate.

The name-concealing and transcription procedures couldn’t prevent such cheating.