DLERB -Chapter 207 All Three Questions Solved? The One Entering the Palace Was a Filthy, Oil-Stained Wild Girl!

The Qilin Hall.

Dead silence.

Today was the third day—the final day.

The massive cloth banner outside the Vermilion Bird Gate had become the greatest joke in Xianyang.

Not a single answer had been submitted.

“Your Majesty!”

An aged voice, trembling with tears, shattered the oppressive silence.

Kong Fu rushed out of the ranks and dropped to his knees, tears streaming down his face.

“This minister has a memorial to present!”

Behind him, dozens of Confucian scholars and doctoral officials all knelt in unison, forming a dense black mass.

“This is sorcery! This is not a consort selection—it is the omen of a fallen nation!”

Kong Fu struck his head against the ground with a dull thud.

“The Ninth Prince uses strange tricks and useless technical skills to judge the women of the realm, humiliating all court officials!”

“This act treats ritual and law as nothing! It treats the teachings of the sages as nothing!”

“If this continues, women will abandon virtue and beauty and instead learn arithmetic and technical crafts. Families will fall into disorder! The state itself will collapse!”

“Your Majesty, please abolish this absurd decree and punish the Ninth Prince!”

“Please punish the Ninth Prince!”

Dozens of voices cried out together, their wails echoing through the hall.

Ying Ziye stood there, not even lifting an eyelid.

He turned his head slightly toward the side.

“General Wang Jian.”

His voice was calm.

“Do you think the blade of the Xiongnu understands the words of sages?”

Wang Jian stepped forward, his voice like a bell.

“Reporting to Your Highness! The blade of the Xiongnu only understands a blade faster than it, and armor stronger than it!”

Ying Ziye then looked at Meng Tian.

“General Meng Tian, what about you?”

Meng Tian rested a hand on his sword hilt and answered sharply.

“Reporting to Your Highness! Poetry and songs cannot repel a starving wolf!”

These two replies landed like two loud slaps across Kong Fu’s face.

His cries stuck in his throat.

On the dragon throne, Qin Shi Huang had not spoken the entire time.

He only lightly tapped the black dragon armrest with his finger.

“Thunk.”

“Thunk.”

“Thunk.”

Slow, steady.

Each tap struck directly at everyone’s heart.

He did not look at Kong Fu, nor at Ying Ziye.

He was watching the show.

The atmosphere froze.

Then Li Si stepped forward.

First, he cupped his hands toward Kong Fu.

“What Grand Tutor Kong says does have merit. Women should indeed value virtue; this is the proper way of antiquity.”

Kong Fu’s expression eased slightly.

Li Si then turned toward Ying Ziye and bowed deeply.

“But what Your Highness considers is also a matter of state importance.”

“However… these questions are truly… far too profound.”

“Different skills serve different purposes. Why not give the noble ladies a chance, and change the examination to poetry, music, chess, calligraphy, and painting—what they are more skilled in?”

“In this way, Your Highness’s intention for the consort selection is preserved, and the court’s dignity is also maintained. A win-win situation—would that not be better?”

His words were flawless, soothing the scholars while also giving Ying Ziye a step down.

Many nobles secretly nodded.

As expected of the Chancellor—truly a seasoned statesman.

Ying Ziye looked at Li Si.

Suddenly, he smiled.

“Chancellor.”

He pointed toward the sky outside the hall.

“Do you think clouds in the sky know why they turn into rain?”

Li Si froze.

“Do you think the ground beneath your feet knows why it produces grain?”

Li Si could not answer.

“Can virtue increase the yield of farmland by one fold?”

“Can poetry build war chariots that travel a thousand li in a day?”

Ying Ziye stepped closer and closer to Li Si.

“My Crown Princess,” he said coldly, “is not someone who stays in the inner palace embroidering flowers.”

“She is someone who, when I go on campaign, can manage the finances and grain supply of an entire empire!”

“She is someone who can read the maps of the entire world—and point out where my next sword should strike!”

“Tell me—can what you speak of do any of that?!”

Li Si was forced back step by step. His face turned from red to pale, and he could not utter a single word.

Kong Fu and the others were just about to erupt again—

“Report—!”

A Imperial Guard commander stumbled into the hall, armor clanging violently against the threshold as he fell in.

He ignored the pain, dropped to one knee, and shouted with a voice sharp from extreme agitation:

“Report!!”

“Outside the Vermilion Bird Gate! Someone has answered the list!!”

The entire Qilin Hall went dead silent.

All movement froze.

Someone… answered?

Impossible!

The commander seemed to gather all his strength and roared out the next words:

“All… all three questions solved!!”

BOOM!

The hall exploded.

Li Si snapped his head up, instinctively looking toward his own family’s direction.

Ying’er…?

Had his daughter finally understood?

Wang Jian and Meng Tian’s usually unmoving expressions also changed drastically.

On the dragon throne, Qin Shi Huang’s tapping finger stopped.

He leaned slightly forward.

“Summon them.”

One word—carrying imperial authority—echoed through the hall.

The heavy palace doors slowly opened.

Sunlight poured in.

A thin figure walked in, backlit by the light, stepping into everyone’s vision.

Not a noble lady adorned with jewels.

Not a graceful court beauty.

But a girl dressed in rough linen cloth.

Her hair was tied casually with a strip of cloth, and her face and body were stained with oil that could not be washed away.

Her bare feet stepped onto the polished golden floor tiles, leaving a trail of gray footprints behind her.

“Hiss…”

A noble instinctively sucked in a cold breath, covering his mouth and nose with his sleeve.

“Where did this wild girl come from?”

“She’s filthy!”

“What are the guards doing? How did they let someone like this in?!”

Whispers rose like a swarm of buzzing flies.

The girl ignored everything around her.

She did not look at anyone—not the shocked ministers on either side, not the emperor on the throne.

She walked straight to the center of the hall.

BOOM!

She dropped a heavy wooden box onto the ground.

The craftsmanship was rough, but sturdy.

Because of the impact, one corner of the box popped open.

What was revealed was not bamboo slips of answers as everyone had imagined.

But a mechanical model composed of countless tiny gears, rods, and bearings—so complex it made one’s scalp tingle.

It shimmered in the sunlight with a cold, precise glow of metal and wood intertwined.

The girl raised her head.

Her oil-stained hand reached into her chest and pulled out a similarly dirty piece of cloth, a scroll.

She held it up toward Ying Ziye.

But Ying Ziye did not look at the cloth.

His gaze passed over everyone in the hall and landed directly on the open wooden box.

On that exquisitely intricate mechanism.

Then his eyes slowly moved to the girl’s hands—calloused, nails filled with black grime, yet steady as stone.

For the first time, the Ninth Prince—who had always remained indifferent to everything—

showed a clear reaction.