“Ji County scholar Fang Yun, requests to be chosen by the Holy Academy!”

Fang Yun’s clear voice echoed through the academy.

The Left Chancellor stared at Fang Yun in shock, unable to react for a moment, and then became furious. “How dare you, you insolent brat!” he exclaimed, glaring at Liu Zicheng.

But Liu Zicheng lowered his head, a malicious smile on his face.

“You scoundrel!” the Left Chancellor muttered under his breath, not sure if he was cursing Fang Yun or Liu Zicheng.

Gao Minghong let out a soft sigh, admiring Fang Yun’s decisiveness, and he couldn’t help but think of the history of “requesting to be chosen by the Holy Academy.”

During the early days of the academy, a major incident occurred.

In the Yon Province of the Jia Kingdom, a talented scholar with a promising future had his admission to the academy revoked by the local Left Chancellor after offending him, and the scholar’s mother was driven to death by the Chancellor.

The scholar filed a complaint against the Chancellor, but the officials protected each other, and the matter was suppressed by the local authorities.

The scholar endured humiliation and hardship, worked hard to study, and after becoming an Imperial Scholar, he returned to the Yon Province and wiped out the entire family of the Chancellor, including 141 people, and committed suicide in public.

This incident shook the ten nations. Some lamented the loss of the more than one hundred people, while others lamented the possible loss of a great scholar to the human race.

The Holy Academy sent a team of Legalist Semi-Saints to investigate the case, and all high-ranking officials who had served in the Yon Province and the Jia Kingdom at that time were investigated. Anyone who had sheltered the Chancellor was executed, and their families were banned from taking the Imperial Examinations for three generations.

To prevent such incidents from happening again, the Holy Academy established “requesting to be chosen by the Holy Academy.”

If someone who believed they had great talent was rejected by the academy, they could request to be chosen by the Holy Academy and be personally assessed by a Semi-Saint.

Since “requesting to be chosen by the Holy Academy” was introduced, there have been five requests, all of which failed. This was because the Semi-Saints had high standards and even deliberately set simple questions. If the answers were not good enough, they would not be approved.

The literary palaces of the five failed candidates were greatly affected and they all faded into obscurity.

The last time someone dared to request to be chosen by the Holy Academy was over two hundred years ago, and there were no longer any people who dared to do so.

The two hundred years of peace and tranquility made the Left Chancellor not associate Fang Yun’s forced departure with “requesting to be chosen by the Holy Academy.”

Regardless of Fang Yun’s success or failure, the court would surely send someone to investigate the Left Chancellor, who was a member of the Left Chancellor’s faction. He was not afraid of investigation, but if “requesting to be chosen by the Holy Academy” happened to him, it would be a problem of reputation, and even the Left Chancellor could not promote him.

If Fang Yun succeeded in requesting to be chosen by the Holy Academy, the Left Chancellor’s problem would not be his reputation, but a problem of infamy that would last for thousands of years. At that time, the Holy Academy would surely send someone to investigate, and even ten Left Chancellors could not save him.

The Left Chancellor was full of hatred, regretting not letting Fang Yun enter the academy and finding ways to harm him. But now it was too late.

More than half of the students were boiling with enthusiasm. They originally admired Fang Yun’s talent and thought he would swallow his pride. But now that they saw Fang Yun choose to go down in flames with the Left Chancellor, they admired him even more.

Some older people shook their heads and sighed, feeling sorry for Fang Yun. Once he failed to request to be chosen by the Holy Academy, he would be denied by the Semi-Saints, and even those with extraordinary talent would cause the literary palace to collapse.

Liu Zicheng’s accomplices smiled knowingly, confident in their impending victory.

Amidst the crowd, Guan Yaoyuan sneered with relief. “The day you shattered my and Yan Yue’s literary palace, today you will taste the same bitter fruit. No, if the Semi-Saint’s words shatter your literary palace, you will be ten times more miserable than us! You will become the laughingstock of the ten nations!”

Fang Yun’s voice echoed through the Holy Academy and finally reached the Holy Temple in front.

At first, nothing changed, but after a moment, an invisible force shot up from the Holy Temple, breaking through the clouds for miles around and forming a shockwave centered on the Holy Temple, sweeping in all directions.The branches swayed, dust flew, clothes rustled. Everyone except Fang Yun had to squint and turn their backs to the Holy Temple.

“Boom!” Several houses closest to the Holy Temple collapsed with a loud explosion, and several trees were uprooted.

There was a large bell on the left side of the Holy Temple. Although no one had struck it, it suddenly made a loud sound.

“Dong…”

The sound of the bell spread in all directions.

The sound reached the State Academy, and the bell of the State Academy’s Holy Temple also rang, emitting an even grander sound and spreading far into the distance.

The spread of the bell’s sound was far faster than that of ordinary sound. Starting from the center of the Dayuan Prefecture, the bells of the surrounding county towns’ Holy Temples rang one after another, followed by the bells of the entire Jiang State, and finally, the bells of the Holy Temples in all the National Academies of the Jing Kingdom rang.

People all over the Jing Kingdom discussed it.

“What happened? Is it a Demon Barbarian invasion?”

“No, the bell of a Demon Barbarian invasion would be very urgent, long-lasting, and continuous. This time, the bell only rang once. I don’t know what happened.”

“Could it be an accidental strike?”

“The bell of a Holy Temple cannot be rung unless the Holy Temple itself has the talent to do so.”

“I hope it’s not a bad thing.”

Inside the Jiang State Academy, Li Wenying stood up abruptly upon hearing the bell, pressed his official seal, and looked at everything in the Prefecture Academy.

“To actually force Fang Yun to request the Holy Selection, how audacious and despicable! Come here!”

As Li Wenying spoke, a white paper flew to the front of his desk, and immediately, words appeared on it. Then Li Wenying picked up his official seal and pressed it on top.

A bailiff quickly came in and said, “What are your orders, Your Honor?”

“Take my official decree to the Prefecture Academy. Regardless of Fang Yun’s success or failure in the Holy Selection, give him this decree. From now on, he is a student of the State Academy.”

The bailiff was stunned for a moment upon hearing the three words “Holy Selection,” then quickly apologized and left with the decree.

As soon as the bailiff left, Zhou Zhubu rushed in.

“What happened, Your Honor? Did he request the Holy Selection? Who?”

Li Wenying said in a gloomy tone, “Fang Yun.”

Zhou Zhubu punched the door frame in anger and shouted, “How could this happen? How could this happen! He has the qualifications of a Great Scholar! Is it the traitorous Left Chancellor? No one else can force Fang Yun out. The Holy Selection is not a child’s play. It is a question set by the Sage, and Fang Yun will surely fail! I will write a memorial right away. While the traitorous Left Chancellor is still in power, I will participate in it. I will not rest until he is dead! I will not rest until he is dead!”

Zhou Zhubu was so angry that his eyes turned red, and he could hardly imagine how much damage Fang Yun’s shattered literary palace would cause to the Jing Kingdom and the human race.

Li Wenying remained silent.

Suddenly, Zhou Zhubu gritted his teeth and cursed, “Destroying our Jing Kingdom’s Great Scholar and breaking our human race’s backbone. I will take my sword and kill that old man! “

“Come back!” Li Wenying stopped him with his Grand Academician’s authority, keeping Zhou Zhubu in place.

Li Wenying sighed lightly and said, “It’s all my fault. I was afraid that Fang Yun’s literary fame was too great, and his talent rose too suddenly, and he was also criticized by others. This led to the instability of his literary palace and his courage to write. So I let him stay in the Prefecture Academy to hone his skills. But I never expected that the Lord of the Prefecture would be so selfish as to kill a great talent of the human race. If Fang Yun has any mishap, I will kill him to uphold the law of the nation and uproot the Left Chancellor’s party in Jiang State! He may be half of the Jing Kingdom, but there is Wenying in Jiang State!”

Li Wenying’s last sentence was powerful, shaking the entire house.

Zhou Zhubu angrily asked, “If Fang Yun’s literary palace is shattered, is there any remedy?”

“He has great talent and can make up for some of it by writing good poems and essays. He also has the literary talents of two towns and can make up for it by entering the Saint’s Tower. If he can also go to the Holy Academy for ten years of nurturing, his literary palace may be restored.”

Zhou Zhubu remained silent.”It’s too late to stop it now. I just hope his literary palace is strong enough to withstand the impact.” Li Wenying sighed, knowing that Fang Yun was bound to fail.

After the strong winds of the Prefecture Academy, the sky became even clearer. Then a strange force enveloped everyone. The force was oppressive, yet it made people feel warm. It was arrogant, yet it was like a gentle breeze.

The force was too complex, making it difficult for many to adapt.

“Is anyone asking for the selection of the Saints?”

The voice seemed to come from the sky, and everyone involuntarily saw a towering mountain in their minds.

The officials sitting on their chairs all stood up and bowed towards the Holy Academy, just like everyone else.

Fang Yun said, “As a Child Scholar from Ji County, I believe that the Lord of the Dayuan Prefecture Guard Academy is unjust. I specially request the selection of the Saints to clear my name.”

“I know of your literary talent. Your poetry and prose are excellent, so it would be unjust to test you on those. However, you are only a Child Scholar, so it would be improper to test you on the classics. I will test you on a few couplets first. If you cannot answer within one hundred breaths, you need not answer the rest.”

“I respectfully request the question from the Sage.” Fang Yun said respectfully. This “Sage” did not refer to the position of a Sage, but rather a saint among people.

Fang Yun thought to himself that one breath was the time it took for a person to inhale and exhale once, which was very close to one second. In other words, he had to answer the second line of the couplet within one minute and forty seconds. It was indeed a difficult test for a Half-Sage.

When Gao Minghong and the others heard that it was a couplet, they became even more worried. If it were a poetry or prose question, they could control the content themselves, as long as they did not go off-topic. However, couplets were different.

The second line had to rhyme with the first line and had to consider the rhythm. Ordinary couplets were fine, but if the first line was a pun or a palindrome or had embedded words, it would be difficult to answer even after a hundred breaths, let alone a hundred hours.

Ordinary people’s couplets might be easy to answer, but even if the Half-Sage intentionally lowered the standard, it would still be extremely difficult.

The voice said, “Listen carefully. The first line is ‘The green of pine leaves and bamboo leaves is verdant.’”

Gao Minghong almost fainted when he heard this. He blurted out, “This is a repeated character couplet. Why is the first question like this? Are you testing a Child Scholar or a Presented Scholar?”

“Why, do you dare to question the Sage?” One of the people beside Liu Zicheng sneered.

“Silence!” Wan Xuezhen scolded angrily, not wanting Fang Yun to be disturbed by others.

Everyone frowned and thought that it was too difficult to come up with the second line within one hundred breaths. On the other hand, the people around Liu Zicheng were all gleeful, believing that Fang Yun could not even answer this couplet.

Fang Yun furrowed his brows and looked around. Generally, when it came to couplets, people would use the surroundings as inspiration to give a specific impression, and then think of the second line.

The first line was about pine and bamboo leaves, and there were indeed bamboo trees in Dayuan City, but only the small mountain outside the city had pine trees. Fang Yun couldn’t help but whisper, “There are no pine trees in Dayuan Prefecture.”

The Half-Sage said, “Look at the world through the eyes of a Saint.”

Liu Zicheng and the others became even more delighted.

Fang Yun lowered his head and thought. Many students sighed, having completely lost faith in Fang Yun.

Just as sixty breaths had passed, Fang Yun suddenly looked up and said loudly, “The green of pine leaves and bamboo leaves is verdant, and the autumn sound of geese is cold with every sound.”

As soon as Fang Yun finished speaking, Wan Xuezhen couldn’t help but whisper, “Well done!”

Many students nodded in agreement. This second line was extremely exquisite.

“Is there an autumn day in Jingzhou?” The voice seemed to be laughing, targeting Fang Yun’s previous doubts.

Fang Yun immediately replied, “Scholars experience the four seasons.”

The students secretly praised him.