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In fact, after selling the herbs next time, he could save money to buy a bookcase, just like the kind the scholars used in ancient times.

It was usually woven with straw. It could carry pens, paper, ink, inkstone, and extra clothes.

Currently, he didn’t need it much, but when he had to rush to the country seat in February next year to give the Imperial examination, he would need it. 

For giving examinations in a distant place, a bookcase was much more convenient to carry than a basket. 

One could put different things in different partitioned areas.

In addition, they were somewhat waterproof, to prevent the contents from getting wet.

It was just that the bookcase could not be brought into the examination room. Only the simple book basket was allowed in the examination room.

Li Jin still arrived earlier.

Yesterday, Master Song gave Li Jin three books to copy, today he only gave Li Jin one book.

The “Four Books” was about forty thousand to fifty thousand words, and the “Five Classics” had ten thousand words each.

Yesterday, Master Song gave Li Jin only one-third of the article of the book, which was about three thousand words.

That’s why Li Jin was able to finish the copy in one night.

Li Jin thought that his speed of copying the article was about three thousand words in an hour.

Yesterday, it took Li Jin a little more than an hour to copy the article, and he was satisfied with his writing speed.

By this speed, it would at least take him more than a month to finish copying the “Four Books” and “Five Classics”.

Thinking about it in this way, it was really not easy for the ancient people to take exams. 

Only the most basic scholar’s exam required memorization of the “Four Books” and “Five Classics”, with the “Sacred Edicts”.

Before Master Song arranged today’s content to teach, Li Jin began to silently write about what he had summarized yesterday.

After understanding and summarising, memorizing would become much easier.

About half an hour later, Chen Xi Ran came.

As soon as he came in, he said, “Brother Li Jin, have you learned the book that you got yesterday??”

Li Jin smiled bitterly and said, “No, I just tried to copy it silently. I am trying to get familiar with it, but I haven’t remembered it yet.”

Chen Xi Ran also had studied this book before and he had a good memory, so he roughly scanned what Li Jin had noted down.

“You didn’t make any mistake when you copied it! I thought that my memory was good for reading, but today I found out that there are people outside of the world who are more talented than me…”

Master Song came a bit late today, and his face was bad, they didn’t know what had happened.

In ancient times, the power of the teacher was great. If he was angry, he might directly cancel that day’s class.

But Master Song obviously had better self-cultivation. 

Even if he was in a bad mood, he took out two books and gave one to Chen Xi Ran, and the other to Li Jin. It was the comments on the book that Li Jin had copied yesterday.

“Chen Xi Ran, you go and read by the window, and Li Jin, you copy it first.”

The two replied together, “Yes.”

Master Song taught students in accordance with their aptitude. He knows that Chen Xi Ran has a good memory, and had money to buy books at home, so he did not let him copy. Just let him go and read.

The comment-filled book was relatively thin, and Li Jin could probably copy it in the morning.

Li Jin knew the actual situation of his family and had no desire to compare it with others.

Otherwise, he would definitely feel the difference in Master’s treatment. The master asked him to copy the book, and let Chen Xi Ran only read the book. 

After Master Song left, Li Jin spent half an hour writing down the comment.

Among them, he saw the shape of a few rare characters, but he didn’t know how to write them out.

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