Love You Day and Night – CH 067

☆, Chapter 67. White and Black

That evening, the Regent was too busy with official duties to consider testing Yuwen Ke.

The next day was Saturday, and Fan Xiaoyuan and Yuwen Ke went to the district library together. He spent the day poring over the Four Books and Five Classics, while she worked on Math, Physics, and Chemistry.

Occasionally, he’d peek at her paper to point out her mistakes, but she’d slap him in the face and shove him away, “My dear prince, try not to multitask. You have something urgent to do!”

Yuwen Ke laughed heartily and returned to his study. Fan Xiaoyuan tilted her head to look at him, and suddenly, her eyes couldn’t move.

He looked so handsome when he was engrossed in his study.

She was captivated by his looks and suddenly called out, “Yuwen Ke.”

“Hmm?” Yuwen Ke tilted his head, and she suddenly realized she’d called out for no apparent reason—there was nothing wrong; she’d just suddenly felt like calling him.

She stuck out her tongue, turned her gaze back to the paper, and waved her hand. “It’s okay, it’s okay. I was just calling.”

“Haha.” Yuwen Ke smiled. After a moment’s hesitation, he pulled his chair over to sit next to her and put his arm around her waist.

Fan Xiaoyuan’s cheeks flushed. “Read your book carefully!”

“I know,” he said, continuing to read earnestly. “I’m afraid you’ll miss me.”

Who misses you!!!

Fan Xiaoyuan blushed silently in his embrace, then hesitantly leaned on his shoulder.

“…” Yuwen Ke glanced at her sideways. “Just focus on your homework.”

She continued writing. “I’m working on it. This way I won’t miss you and can focus on the formulas.”

Yuwen Ke sneered. The two of them were silent for a moment, then he said, “Hey… are your IELTS scores out too?”

“Oh, yes!” Fan Xiaoyuan paused, sighing. “Average score of 6, but only 5.5 in writing, a bit low.”

Good schools generally require an average score of 6.5, and sometimes even a 7 in writing. She’s still a bit far behind.

“I got 7.5 and an 8 in writing.” Yuwen Ke nuzzled her forehead with his cheek. “You can almost guarantee an A in Pure Math and Physics now. Start setting aside time for English practice tomorrow. I’ll accompany you.”

Fan Xiaoyuan nodded in agreement. That evening, when they arrived at Daxi, she once again witnessed Yuwen Ke’s academic prowess.

He was someone who could memorize even Physics problems to practice with her. Memorizing English writing questions, which were only three or five lines long, was effortless for him. Furthermore, his strength wasn’t his ability to get an 8 in writing, but his ability to score as high as he wanted below an 8.

So Fan Xiaoyuan wrote her essay with a brush while he wrote down sentence patterns that would easily earn her a high score. After she finished, he revised a few sentences using the high-scoring patterns and told her, “Now, this essay should get at least a 6.5.”

“Guess I need to memorize some high-scoring patterns!” Fan Xiaoyuan said as she looked at it. He handed her another sheet of paper: “Write this down too. Don’t write it on the exam.”

“What’s this?”

“The legendary ‘seeing an official’ phrase. It’s said that so many candidates write these phrases that the examiner gets annoyed when they see them,” Yuwen Ke said.

Fan Xiaoyuan took a look at the paper. It was filled with sentences that looked easy to mistake for good but were actually quite vulgar. For example, “Everything has its pros and cons, just like a coin has two sides,” and the pretentiously profound “I think this question is difficult to generalize.”

Fan Xiaoyuan’s face paled as she read through it. Yuwen Ke was stunned. “What’s wrong?”

Fan Xiaoyuan held her forehead with her hand. “Last time I took the test, I used about three or four sentences…”

“…Then you still managed to get a 5.5? The examiner was very lenient!” Yuwen Ke mocked her with a stern face. Fan Xiaoyuan punched him, and at the same time, a voice from outside said, “Your Majesty, the Regent has arrived.”

Their hearts suddenly trembled, and they felt as if they were facing a formidable enemy.

They hurriedly cleared the table of rice paper covered in English writing, and then Fan Xiaoyuan had the Regent come in. The Regent also held several sheets of rice paper, rolled into a tube for convenience, clearly well prepared.

Her beautiful eyes darted at Yuwen Ke unkindly. “Your Lordship, don’t you want to be an official? I’ve thought about it, and I don’t dare give you a position, even in such a crucial position. If you have the talent, try seeking a position in the Ministry of Works. This is the question the Minister of Works has given you.”

Fan Xiaoyuan thought to herself, “Miss, you’re really tricky!”

Compared to the Ministry of War and the Ministry of Revenue, the Ministry of Works, responsible for construction, might seem less important. However, the Ministry’s involvement in construction required considerable expertise, and even in modern times, architecture was still an independent discipline.

She looked nervously at Yuwen Ke, who strolled over, took the pages, and unfolded them, nearly laughing out loud!

The first question on the paper asked the Ministry of Works to build a canal in a southern region, using a nearby lake for storage. The lake’s depth was a known condition, but its shape was highly irregular. The approximate amount of water it could hold was determined.

Yuwen Ke calmly walked to the table, picked up a ruler, and drew a rectangular coordinate system.

He then used calculus to calculate the areas of the shaded regions in the four quadrants.

Adding them together gave the lake’s surface area.

Multiplying by the depth yielded the volume.

The second question involved two roads drawn in ink at right angles. The third road was painted with cinnabar, forming a triangle with the first two. Given the lengths of the first two roads, find the length of the third.

Isn’t this the Pythagorean theorem?

Her Lord Yuwen remained calm: “I’m not picking on anyone. This was a first-grade exercise back in our time…”

The third question asked about the palace’s main hall, which needed to be repainted. There were twelve possible shades of red, four possible golds, and seven possible blues. How many different combinations were there?

Yuwen Ke thought to himself, “Don’t think I won’t recognize you just because you’re in the imperial palace.”

This kind of problem had a separate unit in their Math textbook, called “Permutations and Combinations.”

Her Majesty was a terrible student back then.

So, the fourth question was basically a vector problem, the fifth a physical inertia problem, and the sixth a similar triangle problem. Yuwen Ke finished them all in less than half an hour. When he confidently handed the pages back to the Regent, the Regent frowned and looked at him for a few seconds: “Her Lord does seem very confident?”

Yuwen Ke nodded. “It’s not difficult at all.”

The Regent offered no comment, handing the document to a palace attendant, who then instructed the Minister of Works to judge.

The Minister of Works’s conclusion was not immediately reported. But that evening, Wen Xuan, returning from the Ministry of Revenue, rushed straight to the main hall.

Fan Xiaoyuan and Yuwen Ke were having dinner together and were startled to see him arrive breathless. He rarely lost his composure like that.

“What’s wrong?!” Fan Xiaoyuan asked, bewildered. Then, gesturing to the empty chair next to her, “Sit down and eat together…”

Wen Xuan sat down, sipped his soup, and after a moment’s rest, he looked at Yuwen Ke with a complicated expression. “What did you do today?”

“?” Yuwen Ke was bewildered. “I was in the main hall the whole time.”

Wen Xuan paused, then asked, “Didn’t you see the Minister of Works?”

“…No,” Yuwen Ke said truthfully. “But the Regent gave me a few questions to test me and then sent them to the Minister of Works.”

“No wonder,” Wen Xuan smiled wryly, glancing between the two of them. “This afternoon, I heard from Minister Sun that Minister Qiao from the Ministry of Works is clamoring to retire.”

“?” Yuwen Ke was surprised. He thought, “That’s not the case, is it?” He reasoned that while the questions seemed incredibly simple to him, they shouldn’t be difficult for the officials presenting the report, as they were all common questions.

But Wen Xuan said, “I asked around a bit, and they said… what special algorithm did you use? Your result is more accurate than their previous ones?”

Yuwen Ke: “…”

He thought about it carefully and figured it must be the calculus problem. The Pythagorean theorem was said to have been used in ancient China, and the permutations and combinations and other problems didn’t involve much precision. The only problem with the lake itself was that, using ancient methods, it would likely be an approximate estimate of capacity, similar to how Fan Xiaoyuan, when she didn’t know calculus before, would count squares.

Then he wiped his sweat from his forehead and asked sincerely, “She’s not really going to retire, is she?”

If this minister retired and recommended him for the position, he’d probably go crazy—he had some idea of ​​his abilities; Math, Physics, and Chemistry were his strengths, but the Ministry of Works was more than just calculations. It was obvious there would be a lot he couldn’t handle.

Wen Xuan sighed, “I don’t know. The Regent personally went to offer conciliation, but I’m not sure what the outcome was.”

That evening, the news spread.

The Regent successfully persuaded the devastated Minister of Works, Minister Qiao, and then, at Minister Qiao’s insistence, agreed to let Yuwen Ke join the Ministry of Works as a Deputy Director.

After hearing this, Fan Xiaoyuan lay on the bed, her feet crossed, counting on her fingers: “Minister, Vice Minister, Doctor, Deputy Director, Director, Director… You’re quite capable! Wen Xuan started at the Ministry of Revenue as Director and was promoted to Deputy Director for his excellent work in disaster relief!”

“Of course I must. I’m going to be the Emperor Consort!” Yuwen Ke said calmly.

Fan Xiaoyuan burst into laughter, then said in a gruff voice, “Then my beloved, go to bed early. You have to go to work tomorrow!”