Fat Orange crouched by the hand, leisurely swishing its tail. “You’ve misunderstood. Given your talent in driving tests, the Command Center has innovated a new points system for you.
For the written exam, each wrong answer counts as one question’s deduction per exam standards. However, if you pass the mock test, it counts as full marks directly.
For the practical portion, hours are calculated—every forty minutes counts as one session, and completing one session earns you one hundred points.
Scores from mock tests are calculated per exam standards—deductions are counted as they are.
The purchasing power of all points is the same as silver in Great Chu—one point equals one tael of silver…”
“Wait, the practical portion counts deducted points?!”
Yun Jiuqing flashed a sly smile. If she messed up ten or eight times, wouldn’t she just coast to victory?
Just as she was feeling smug, Fat Orange said with an inscrutable look, “Don’t get too excited yet. The Command Center will monitor your status throughout.
If they catch you deliberately making mistakes, all your previous points will be wiped clean, and you’ll receive additional punishment.
What exactly that punishment is, I don’t know either.”
Yun Jiuqing let out a cold laugh. “I knew those old skinflints wouldn’t let me off that easily.
Scram, I need to start grinding questions!”
Opening the Subject One question page, Yun Jiuqing suddenly remembered something. “Oh right, the time for logging hours can be intermittent, right?
Given my current situation, sitting still for forty minutes straight is clearly unrealistic!”
Her surroundings weren’t much better than a vegetable market, and with all those officials staring at her, if she got delayed because of the system task, she probably wouldn’t even survive the journey to Bei Huang.
Fortunately, this time the boss graciously nodded. “Yes, the Command Center can detect your consciousness at any time. As long as you’re genuinely working on the system tasks, it’s fine.”
Satisfied with the answer, Yun Jiuqing decisively started grinding questions.
Everything she’d thrown into the Space was gone—if she didn’t hurry up and grind questions to earn points, she’d be like an old fox roasted over fire—fur gone, claws bare, nothing left to her name.
However, upon learning she could accumulate hours through intermittent grinding, she also diverted a portion of her Shenshi to the outside.
As luck would have it, the moment her Shenshi spread out, she heard that guard named Xuan Lie fuming, “Prince, I think their talk about the relay station catching fire and arranging us at Nangu Ying is complete nonsense.
They want to trap us in this dilemma, force us to act, so they can wipe out you and the Zhenhun Army in one fell swoop!”
That was a bit alarming. Yun Jiuqing quickly poked her head out and said in a soft voice, “Um, I’m not trying to interfere in your affairs!
I just wanted to ask—what’s the problem with this Nangu Ying?”
She was also one of the exiles. If Nangu Ying had issues, she’d need to prepare early.
The others all thought she was asleep and jumped at the sudden voice.
Xuan Lie snapped angrily, “None of your business! Go back to sleep!”
Yun Jiuqing shot him a glare from the corner of her eye, then turned to tempt Xie Ciyuan. “The Prince has limited mobility—things like using the restroom must be quite inconvenient, right?
I have a way to control your bowel and bladder timing without any medicine.”
She stopped mid-sentence, leaving it hanging. Xie Ciyuan flushed crimson with embarrassment, but he truly didn’t want to be plagued by the call of nature. He gritted his teeth and said, “What are your terms?”
Yun Jiuqing raised an eyebrow triumphantly. “Tell me what’s strange about Nangu Ying, and I’ll help you.”
“There’s nothing strange about Nangu Ying—what’s strange is the Emperor.”
Seeing Xie Ciyuan relent, Xuan Lie gritted his teeth and explained, “Nangu Ying is the Prince’s old unit. When we lost the battle, Nangu Ying happened to be away from Bei Huang, so the Emperor had no excuse to target them.
The Emperor deliberately arranged for us to stay overnight at Nangu Ying, trying to force Nangu Ying’s brothers to come rescue the Prince.
If they act to save him, that’s defying imperial orders and committing treason—the Emperor can then legitimately disband Nangu Ying.
If they don’t come to the rescue, Nangu Ying becomes an unrighteous army that betrayed its master for glory.
No matter what they do, the Emperor will paint them as unjust.”
And once Nangu Ying was disbanded, Xie Ciyuan would be completely cut off from Chu Jing.
Even if he later cured his chronic ailments, returning to Chu Jing wouldn’t be so easy.
Nangu Ying wasn’t just a thorn in the Emperor’s side—it was also the crucial pillar for Xie Ciyuan and his group to rise again.
“So the Emperor is playing catch-and-release with you all?”
Yun Jiuqing suddenly understood. “What about you then—do you have a plan now?”
Silence fell over the room. Their enemy was the most honored Emperor of Great Chu.
He had come prepared, while they’d long been stripped of all their weapons. What plan could they possibly have?
After a long silence, Xie Ciyuan spoke in a low voice, “Nangu Ying has merit in guarding the capital. As long as there’s no concrete evidence, the Emperor can’t touch them.
Xuan Lie, go tell them—no matter what commotion occurs today, they must not leave the camp even half a step.”
As long as Nangu Ying’s soldiers didn’t leave the camp, the Emperor would have no grounds to trouble them.
“But after we leave, the people of Chu Jing and the other soldiers in the army will curse Nangu Ying’s brothers to death, won’t they?”
Xuan Lie naturally hoped that his comrades would come through unscathed, but Xie Ciyuan’s approach didn’t seem to fully resolve their predicament.
Yet under these circumstances, Xie Ciyuan couldn’t think of any foolproof solution either.
He said mournfully, “Staying alive is what matters most. Everything else can be discussed at length later.”
Yun Jiuqing was in the middle of grinding through her written test practice questions when she heard this. Her eyes darted around, and a mischievous idea popped into her head.
“By the way, how far is this place from the soldiers of Nangu Ying?”
The atmosphere was too oppressive, and Xuan Lie couldn’t be bothered to bicker with her at the moment. He instinctively replied, “Not far at all—just a wall’s distance, really. Otherwise, how would we pull anything off here?”
“Exactly. Even if the distance were a bit greater, the brothers of Nangu Ying could still claim they had no idea the Prince passed through this area.”
The old steward’s face was scrunched up with worry. “This place—if you sneezed in the courtyard, the brothers of Nangu Ying would probably hear it. If the Prince truly ran into danger, how could the brothers possibly turn a blind eye?”
Clearly, whoever had arranged this route had already accounted for every factor and had no intention of leaving the soldiers of Nangu Ying any way out.
Yun Jiuqing had failed her road test seven times. After her first complete failure, she’d signed up again, which meant she’d taken the written test twice as well.
Thanks to the practice she’d done for both written tests, the written exam was a piece of cake for her, so while she was grinding through questions, her clever little mind was free to wander.
Hearing the Prince Yan and his retainers lamenting to the point of pulling their hair out, she blinked slyly. “I do have an idea that could spare Nangu Ying from that impossible bind, but you lot might have to take a bit of a hit. Do you want to hear it?”
Xuan Lie and the old steward instinctively looked toward Xie Ciyuan. Though he couldn’t see, he turned his eyes in her direction. “Go on, let’s hear it.”
Yun Jiuqing grinned wickedly, gathered them all in close, and whispered a flurry of words, successfully making the three masters and servants twitch at the corners of their mouths like they had Parkinson’s.
Xie Ciyuan looked utterly baffled. “You’re the daughter of Minghui Junzhu, the foremost talented woman of Chu Jing. And while Yun Daowei may be a bit of a hypocrite, he’s still someone who can hold his own in polite society.
Why is it that your head is filled with such vulgar and underhanded schemes?”