On March 28, the birthday of Emperor Dongyue, Zhao Ran and the Taoist priests from Heyuan set up an altar in front of Sanqing Hall to offer sacrifices.
There are many festivals in Taoism, and from a general perspective, there are hundreds of them officially announced by Fu Zhao. There are relatively few festivals in March, such as the birthday of Tan Zu Changzhen on the first day of the lunar month, the Christmas of Xuantian God, and the birthday of Xuantian God. The Empress¡¯s Christmas, Heavenly Master Zhang Da¡¯s real Christmas, God of Wealth Marshal Zhao Gong¡¯s Christmas, Sammao Zhenjun¡¯s Enlightenment Day, Emperor Zhongyue¡¯s Christmas, Wangzu Yuyang¡¯s real Christmas, Queen Houtu¡¯s Christmas, Sun Xingjun¡¯s Christmas, Descendants¡¯ Empress¡¯ Christmas, Queen Mazu¡¯s Christmas, Ghost Christmas of Master Gu, Christmas of Emperor Dongyue, etc.
" Almost every festival is a festival. If the Taoist priests worship the festivals one by one, they will be busy celebrating the festival all day long and do nothing. Therefore, different palaces and courtyards have different heads of worship. For example, in a jungle like Wujiyuan, there are only the birthdays of Tianshi Zhenzhenzhen, Zhongyue Emperor and Dongyue Emperor in March. As for the other gods, I'm sorry - we cultivators can only keep them in mind silently.
Dongyue is the first of the five mountains and controls life and death. Therefore, pilgrims who want to live longer or pray for longevity for their elders in the family have rushed to the Sanqing Hall one after another. After all the Taoist boys in Wujiyuan Sutra Hall finished singing, they rushed forward, lit incense and made donations. At this time, everyone was waiting in the living room and dianzhuo room, and they didn't care about the sutra boys - they were about to take the monthly exam this month.
This is Zhao Ran¡¯s first time to take part in the Jingtang monthly exam. While he is curious, he is also a little worried.
Twenty-three sutra-reciting Taoist boys all returned to the sutra hall and each sat on a futon. A small table equal to shoulder width was placed in front of each person's futon for studying ink on answer sheets.
There are only four Taoist boys who have been in the Sutra Hall for less than three years. Zhao Ran and Zhu Meng are two of them. Their test papers are B-grade. The assessment content focuses on the Tao Te Ching, Nan Hua Sutra, Chong Xu On top of the "Four Sons True Scripture" such as "Zhi De Zhen Jing" and "Tong Xuan Zhen Jing", the format of the examination questions is similar to that of secular imperial examinations, with nothing more than affixing to scriptures, ink scriptures, interpretations, etc.
Zhao Ran was confident. He roughly browsed through the questions, brushed his pen and started answering. In less than three sticks of incense, he had finished answering. I turned around and checked carefully. If there were no mistakes or omissions, I stood up and handed in the paper. He originally thought that because he answered the questions so quickly, he should be the first to hand in the paper, but when he stood up, he found that there were already two empty tables - they had already finished answering the questions and left. One of them was Ma Zhili, and the other turned out to be Ma Zhili. Zhu Meng, who lives in the same room, should be called Zhu Zhimeng, but Zhao Ran is still used to calling him Zhu Meng.
Liu Jingzhu collected Zhao Ran¡¯s test paper, turned it over, nodded, and without saying anything else, waved him to the side room on the east side of the Sutra Hall to wait for the interview¡ªthis was the second level of the monthly exam. If the results of the test paper and interview are consistent, it will be the grade of the monthly examination. The test paper part must be posted immediately in front of the sutra hall, so as to ensure relative fairness. If you cheat in the interview and get a first-class rating, but your answers on the test paper are terrible, then the trick will be obvious at a glance, so the interview examiner will basically not do such stupid things to slap himself in the face. .
Zhao Ran came to the east wing and walked in through the curtain. Sitting on the bench in the outer hall was Zhu Meng.
"Junior brothers, you are very fast. Are there too many questions that you can't answer, so you are embarrassed to continue answering them?"
"Junior brother Zhao is a bit slow. It took so long to answer such a simple question. You should still work hard to learn from it in the future."
It seems that it has become a habit for the two of them to fight each other as soon as they meet.
After waiting for a moment, Ma Zhili came out of the inner room, nodded slightly to the two of them, and then stepped out. Zhu Meng stood up and entered the inner room to be interviewed, leaving Zhao Ranku sitting and waiting.
After a while, when there were five or six Taoist boys sitting next to Zhao Ran, Zhu Meng came out of the inner room after the interview, raised his chin high, gave Zhao Ran a roll of his eyes, and walked away immediately, as if he had won the battle. The little cock is average.
Zhao Ran sneered and entered the inner room, where he saw today's examiner, Jiang Gaogong.
Zhao Ran was able to accept the ultimatum, and Jiang Gaogong played a big role in it. But Zhao Ran paid a huge sum of money, so in the end no one owed anything to the other, and this kind of thing always needs to be forgotten afterwards, so no one said a word between the two. But after all, they had such a fate, and Zhao Ran felt that Jiang Gaogong was quite friendly.
Jiang Gaogong¡¯s attitude towards Zhao Ran was indeed very cordial. He inquired in detail about Zhao Ran¡¯s study progress in the past three months. His earnest advice and dedicated guidance were far more meaningful than a school exam, which made Zhao Ran feel warmer. Later, Jiang Gaogong casually clicked on the content of "King Mu of Zhou" in the "Chongxu Zhide Zhenjing" and asked him to explain it.
This scripture tells the story of King Zhou Mu, a super travel enthusiast, driving around in a luxury car. While strolling, he wandered to the Yaochi, where he had a banquet with the Queen Mother of the West and sang poems in the Qionglin Forest. Zhao Ran reads?During this period, I was deeply impressed and thought to myself that this is a model with good qualifications. He can become an immortal by eating, drinking and having fun. How can we, the general public, be so embarrassed?
After retelling this story, Jiang Gaogong asked Zhao Ran what he thought the story told. Zhao Ran pondered for a while and then replied that King Mu of Zhou was the emperor, but he was not bothered by state affairs and was not fettered by beauty. This was the true virtue of overcoming weakness, so he was free and happy, which coincided with the way of heaven and man.
Jiang Gaogong nodded after hearing this, and ended the interview without saying he was right or wrong.
Turning around, Zhao Ran rushed to the Sutra Hall excitedly and saw that the grades for this monthly exam had been posted in front of the Sutra Hall. There are seven people in the first class, 13 in the second class, and three in the third class. Zhao Ran was not disappointed. He found his name in the first class, and he was a little excited when he said it. But then he was a little disappointed, because he also saw the word "Zhu Zhimeng" in the first grade, and felt very unhappy.
Zhao Ran, who was unhappy, wanted to check his opponent's test paper, but when he carefully read it from beginning to end, he found that there were no errors in Zhu Meng's test paper! This is a bit unacceptable. I worked hard day and night to study the scriptures, and even added a golden finger. You were wandering around and studying and playing carefree, and in the end you ended up messing around like me. Full marks, is this justified? It¡¯s really annoying!
When he turned around, he saw that Zhu Meng had arrived in front of the sutra hall at some point. He was also frowning and looking at Zhao Ran's test paper. After reading it, he gritted his teeth and yelled: "This is unreasonable!"
He was unhappy, but Zhao Ran also felt helpless. The legendary foundation and qualifications really made sense. If he hadn't had the golden finger to help improve his physical condition, and study hard day and night, he might still be in trouble. I really can't beat Zhu Meng. If you are not careful, or if you slack off in studying the scriptures, you may be surpassed by this guy. Then this guy will definitely ridicule and ridicule you in every possible way.
In addition to constantly consolidating the existing scriptures, he also picked up various commentaries, compilations, interpretations and other books and read them desperately, trying to understand several important classics. .
While he was working hard, he also secretly observed Zhumeng. Zhumeng was also much more diligent than before, but he still didn't have as much time to read scriptures as Zhao Ran. At the same time, he also socialized a lot, so he had to have a rest day every ten days. Those who go down the mountain will occasionally ask for leave to go out.
On the other hand, Zhao Ran, the group of pyrotechnical laymen who worked in the clean house and the private house wanted to invite him to visit Guyang County many times, but he politely declined them all. The second brother Guan even had objections and went to Zhao Ran. Ran's residence, and asked him if he looked down on everyone after becoming an ultimatum Taoist priest, and if he planned to stay away from everyone in the future?
Zhao Ran had no choice but to spend a special holiday and pay for Guan Er and others to go to Guyang County to drink Huihua wine before giving up.
Except for Guan Er and others, he also went to see Yu Zhiyuan much less often. Fortunately, Zhiyuan seemed to be very busy recently and didn't have much time to talk to him, so as not to cause misunderstandings.
In the next three monthly exams in April, May and June, Zhao Ran and Zhu Meng were ranked first. From the ranking point of view, among the four monthly exams, Zhao Ran's name was only ranked in front of Zhu Meng once, and the other three times were all ranked first. After Zhu Meng, although there is no difference in order between the same levels on the surface, the differences are known to everyone. This also makes Zhao Ran very distressed, and he does not dare to relax even a little when studying.
Thanks to yangzhigang and brother billlee for the reward!
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