Chapter 1223: Is This a Dream?

He didn't begin to answer the questions right away. He first closed his eyes, as if he were carefully considering how to answer. When his eyes opened, they shone brightly. He picked up the brush and immediately began to write down the first answer.

In the same moment that his brush touched the paper, a righteous, noble aura suddenly appeared within the city, causing colors to flash in Heaven and Earth. At the same time, in the Forbidden Palace elsewhere in the city, the emperor sat there holding a Go piece in his hand. Sitting across the game board from him was a Daoist priest, a smiling old man with the air of a transcendent being.

Suddenly, the Daoist priest's face flickered, and he looked in the direction of the exam grounds, an expression of shock on his face.

“One of the scholars taking the Imperial examinations provoked a righteous, noble aura! Which one?”

The Daoist priest waved his finger, causing water-like ripples to spread out over the game board, which vanished, to be replaced by an image of the exam grounds. [1. I found a cool picture of a model of how the Imperial examinations were set up in ancient China. Depending on the type of test, each test taker might have their own room, where they would take the test and even sleep overnight...