Shipin Dalizheng

Chapter 233 Selection

Rong Tang, who was despised, had no choice but to sit on the shaft of the cart and squeeze Xuan Que down. The main reason was that Xuan Que would rather tire his legs than look at that disgusting face.

Rong Tang muttered, "Am I really that ugly?"

Old Wen was speechless. Looking at the big mole that was almost oozing pus and blood, this was not an ugly thing.

They soon arrived at the palace gate and found that there were quite a few civilian accountants recommended by the officials this time, as many as a hundred people, and even Rong Tang's appearance was not the ugliest.

After a short stroll, Rong Tang saw many people like him, all disguised. Some wore fake beards, some smeared dust on their faces, and some covered their heads. It seemed that everyone had the same goal: not wanting to reveal their true identity before the truth was revealed.

Holding a letter of recommendation from the Zheng family and a fake identity card, Rong Tang followed the team in. The eunuch who led the way was He Daban's godson Xiaoji, who took more than a hundred people to a side hall, where they were said to be undergoing further examinations.

Each person has a low desk, a cushion, a set of writing brushes, ink, paper, and an abacus, which are all they need for the assessment.

Soon several officials came in, including the Minister of Rites Wei, the Minister of Revenue Luo, and the Minister of Personnel Wen. They were the examiners. After the test papers were handed out, a gong sounded and the answering began.

Because it was a math test, there were not many words on the test paper, and it was filled with long strings of numbers. For a while, the sound of abacus clacking was endless, and Rong Tang also immersed himself in calculating.

Suddenly, a pair of feet stopped in front of him and said, "Everyone else is using the abacus, why aren't you fighting?"

Rong Tang looked up and saw that it was Lord Wei, so he said, "Sir, I do my accounting differently from others. Others use an abacus, but I use a pen. Is that not okay?"

Lord Wei shouted rudely, "No, if you don't know how to calculate, what kind of account are you doing? Eliminate."

Rong Tang saw that Lord Wei was targeting him. He was sure that Lord Wei couldn't recognize him, so there was only one explanation: he was recommended by the Zheng family.

Not wanting to argue with him, I just randomly fiddled with it a few times with my hands. I wasn't familiar with it, so my movements were slow.

Lord Wen came over and said something to Lord Wei, who then walked away and never came to harass him again.

Rong Tang hurried to solve the problem.

The time was up and I handed in the paper on time.

In the final assessment, thirty people were eliminated, and Rong Tang was ranked among the fifty or sixty, barely passing.

The next step was to find loopholes. Rong Tang flipped through it twice and found several. Just as he was about to circle them with a pen, Lord Wen came up to him quietly and shook his head slightly.

Rong Tang couldn't figure out what he meant. Was he not going to let him circle? But if he didn't circle, wouldn't he be eliminated? There were many people on the scene who were unwilling to participate in the audit, only there to comply with the emperor's orders, but he really wanted to bring down the Liang family. What good would this do?

He turned his head to look around and saw that everyone else had started writing, and he couldn't hand in a blank paper, so he found it first and circled it first.

In the end, he found ten loopholes. According to the scoring rules agreed upon in advance, he would get one point for finding one and deduct one point for finding the wrong one. So the full score should definitely be ten.

As he was about to hand in his paper, he glanced at Master Wen and saw him shake his head imperceptibly. It was too late to do anything else, so Rong Tang followed his instincts and circled three more times before handing in his paper.

If nothing unexpected happens, he will first get ten points, then deduct three points, and actually get seven points.

But if you read the paper carefully, you will find that he found all the loopholes, just three more.

Sure enough, after this round of scoring, Rong Tang was not eliminated. He was even jointly recommended by the three examiners.

Several accountants who were dismissed seemed very angry, but they dared not say anything. In the side hall of the imperial palace, how could a commoner with no official position dare to offend several ministers?

Judging from their expressions, Rong Tang guessed that they were not wrong. Those with high scores, including himself, were all "half-bastards".

Xiaoji finally got a passing list and went to report to His Majesty. Of course, Emperor Xuanning didn't know that this was a second-rate list obtained by eliminating those who calculated accounts the fastest and had the highest scores in finding loopholes.

Emperor Xuanning glanced at the list and lowered his eyes. "Send them all to the Ministry of Revenue."

Xiaoji went to convey the emperor's oral instructions again, and the three ministers each said a few words of encouragement, which roughly said that the accounts should be checked carefully and the calculations should be accurate, and that if they made meritorious deeds they would be rewarded by the emperor.

More than 30 of them were dragged into the Ministry of Revenue like animals and taken to a large courtyard heavily guarded by soldiers. There was a long row of houses with signs at each door indicating that these were all accounts from previous years.

Just when the group was dizzy with hunger, someone came over with a few buckets of rice, knocking on the rims and shouting, "Eat, eat, it's time to start in the afternoon."

The accountants gathered around to get their lunch. There were no bowls, so each person got two black steamed buns the color of dead rats and a piece of salted radish.

Some people immediately quit, saying that the food was not even good enough to feed pigs, and that they didn't want them to work properly. They started arguing fiercely.

The person serving the meal yelled, "You lowly people, if you want to eat good food, go back to your own homes. We, the servants of the Ministry of Revenue, all have the same food. We will give you whatever the masters eat. If you are not satisfied, get out."

Most of the accountants regretted and blamed the masters who recommended them behind the scenes, saying that they brought the people here but did not treat them well. But now they were under someone else's roof and had to bow their heads.

Another group of people arrived shortly after noon. There were about fifty or sixty of them gathered together. Several other officials in charge of this matter arrived late.

They each had a subordinate holding a small fan, casually directing the crowd to a specific room. Rong Tang only knew that Zheng Changzhi had said there were arrangements, but now he had no idea what to do, so he followed the soldier who led them to the entrance.

"This room belongs to you guys."

The soldier pointed them into the door, and the moment their figures crossed, a small piece of paper fell into his hand.

"Investigate carefully. If you find out, the court will reward you."

The soldier said this, then went out and locked the door.

One person shouted, "Why is the door locked?"

The answer came from outside: "Don't make any noise. Four people share a room. Eat, drink, defecate and urinate in there. We'll let you go when we're done checking."

Not to mention how frustrating the answers outside were, Rong Tang pointed at the person asking the question and asked, "Are you...safe?"

Rong An was anxious and wiped the sweat off his face with his sleeve. Half of his fake beard fell off and the black powder on his face also faded.

"I...you..."

Rong An recognized the familiar voice, and the two looked at each other in silence for a moment.

There was a loud thud, and the other person who had come in with them fell to the ground, twitching violently, startling the two of them. They saw that person's teeth were clenched, white foam was flowing from the corners of his mouth, and he was shaking non-stop.

Rong An was shocked, "What happened to him?"

"It's hard to say. It looks like poisoning, but also like an illness."

Think about it, this person came in the same car as him and ate the same food, so he would have been poisoned.

"Maybe he's having an epileptic seizure."

Rong An knocked on the door hard, and finally the soldier unlocked it and dragged the man out.

"Hurry up, don't dawdle. The sooner you finish checking, the sooner you can get out."

There were only three people in the room at this time. Rong Tang took the opportunity to take out the note he had received earlier, read the content on it, and sure enough, he saw what he needed to check on the corresponding shelf.

The two smiled at each other and moved the account books downstairs.

Another person in the room took a few books covertly. Seeing them start to move, he slowly approached and said in a gruff voice, "Can I help you?"

His voice was so strange. Although everyone who came in was more or less disguised, he was the first one to wear a black gauze hat.

Rong Tang asked, "May I ask, who are you? Which adult recommended you here?"

The man timidly said, "Thank you, thank you for the letter of recommendation, Master."

He was not paying attention when he spoke, so Rong Tang heard the soft voice in the words. With a wave of his hand, the man's hat fell to the ground, revealing a big afro.