Finest Servant

Chapter 32 Passing Three Trials (Part 1)

Lin Wanrong's forehead was slightly sweaty. He was a brilliant student from Peking University, but his expertise lay in the sciences. He was a genuine prodigy in the field of science, and solving complex calculus problems came easily to him. Reading, writing, and even reciting a few ancient poems were no issue for him. However, asking him to write the Three Character Classic from memory was truly a challenge.

In this world, aside from knowing a few poems, Lin Wanrong essentially belonged to the "illiterate" category. At this moment, he was deeply grateful for his father, a primary school Chinese teacher, who forced him to memorize a few Tang and Song poems since childhood. Otherwise, he might have been genuinely illiterate in this world.

It's not that I don't understand, it's that the world is changing too quickly. Lin Wanrong sighed inwardly as he picked up the calligraphy brush. The last time he practiced writing with a brush was during a tutoring class when he was ten years old. He could only remember the first twelve widely known characters of the Three Character Classic.

Cursing Old Wei in his heart, Lin Wanrong had no choice but to bite the bullet. Fortunately, he had thick skin and never backed down in difficult situations. He picked up the brush and quickly wrote the twelve characters on the rice paper: "At the beginning of life, human nature is inherently good, natures are similar, but habits make them diverge." Then, with a gentle flick of his right hand, the brush fell into the inkstone.

Under his agitation, the strokes of the characters were crude and crooked. Individually, they were barely recognizable. Yet, when viewed together, they exuded an unrestrained and unruly flavor.

"I can't remember the rest," Lin Wanrong said to the man without a hint of embarrassment.

Throughout the day, there had been eighty or ninety applicants for the servant position. Yet, none had the "bold" temperament of Lin Wanrong.

The servant found Lin Wanrong's arrogant attitude displeasing and scolded, "When writing, one should handle the brush gently. Hasn't anyone taught you? This is a fine Anhui inkstone; if you break it, you won't be able to afford it."

Lin Wanrong didn't care about the inkstone, but seeing the servant's hostile tone, he snorted and said, "Assistant Manager Pang only told me to come in for an interview, he didn't mention anything about the Anhui inkstone. It seems I've learned something new from you, brother."

Upon hearing the mention of Assistant Manager Pang, the servant's expression changed immediately, and he forced a smile, "Brother, were you introduced by Assistant Manager Pang?"

It's because of the silver I paid that I'm here, Lin Wanrong thought with a smirk, as long as Mr. Pang has taken my silver, I'll make sure to squeeze every last bit of value from him.

"Indeed, I do have some acquaintance with Assistant Manager Pang. However, when I came in, he specifically instructed that you should adhere to the principles of openness, fairness, and impartiality, and not engage in any favoritism." Lin Wanrong seized the opportunity and simply sold the favor of Assistant Manager Pang, who wouldn't dare to say anything anyway.

"Naturally, naturally." The servant in charge of recruitment grinned and handed the nameplate back to Lin Wanrong, "Young Master Lin, congratulations, you've passed the first round." He then pointed to the two flabbergasted fellows beside him and said, "You two, have been eliminated."

He had only written twelve characters, and that was enough to pass? Lin Wanrong couldn't help but laugh and cry, knowing that the servant was doing this to save face for Assistant Manager Pang. Without thanking him, Lin Wanrong took his nameplate and entered the second room.

The two eliminated men cried out, "It's not fair! It's not fair! Why can he pass, but we can't?"

The recruiting servant sneered, "Do you know who he is and who you are? Can't you tell the difference? Can you write these characters?"

He threw the paper with Lin Wanrong's writing on it in front of the two men. Although there were only twelve characters, crooked and twisted, it was already outstanding compared to the servants from poor backgrounds. The two eliminated men had written fewer than eight characters between them.

Lin Wanrong didn't care whether they objected or not. Victory goes to the winner, defeat to the loser, and passing the trials was the ultimate goal. After walking a few steps, he arrived at the second room, where several fellow applicants were also deep in thought, their furrowed brows seeming as if they could wring out water.

An examiner took Lin Wanrong's nameplate and handed him a wooden box with an opening, emotionlessly saying, "Draw a question from the box."

"What kind of question is it?" Lin Wanrong didn't want to proceed blindly like other candidates. He wanted to understand the situation first.

"Just draw one, why so much nonsense?" This servant seemed to have had a poor-quality intimate life the night before, and was quite irritable.

"It's a question-and-answer test. You need to answer it correctly to pass to the next round." A fellow servant candidate who was anxiously about to pull his hair out overheard Lin Wanrong's question and subconsciously replied.

So, that's how it is, Lin Wanrong understood. This was an on-the-spot Q&A test, examining the intelligence of the servants.

He pulled out a folded piece of paper from the wooden box and unfolded it, only to see two lines written on it: "A man crosses a single-log bridge, with a wolf in front of him and a tiger behind him. The man quickly makes it across. How does he do it?"

My god, do people in this world also enjoy playing riddles? Lin Wanrong laughed inwardly but deliberately pretended to be deep in thought for a while before answering, "Could it be— he fainted?"

"Correct!" The servant examiner glanced at him and thought that this young man must have seen the question somewhere before; otherwise, he wouldn't have answered so quickly. He's quite lucky.

"I object! I object!" Just as the servant examiner was about to announce Lin Wanrong's advancement to the next round, he heard another candidate servant raise his voice. There were three candidates in the room, including Lin Wanrong; one had just answered his own question, and the other was the fellow who was now shouting in objection.

"What are you objecting to?" the servant examiner snapped, "Is there anything for you to object to here?"

Seeing that he was about to be eliminated for not being able to answer the question, the candidate wanted to make a final struggle and said hastily, "What I object to is, why did he get such an easy question while I got such a difficult one? As long as he can answer my question, I will accept my elimination willingly."

The servant examiner roared, "These questions were randomly drawn by you. Are you clearly suspecting that the examiner has tampered with the process?"

"No harm, no harm." Lin Wanrong laughed and said, "But I wonder, dear fellow, what question do you have in your hand? Let me have a guess."

The man picked up the paper in his hand and read aloud, "When a medium-rare steak meets a medium-well steak, why don't they greet each other?"

"Because they're not familiar with each other, dear fellow." Lin Wanrong laughed helplessly. Was there any need to think about such a small question?

Oh, the dissatisfied candidate couldn't say anything else. Was he really that stupid? He was greatly discouraged and couldn't bear to stay any longer, so he left with a gloomy face. The remaining candidate servant was full of admiration for Lin Wanrong.

Having breezed through two rounds with ease, Lin Wanrong chuckled inwardly, thinking that the selection process of the Xiao family's servants really liked to show off. It involved identifying and interpreting characters, as well as brain teasers. Were they trying to turn servants into scholars as well?