"Zhu Ping'an, you can come in, but that fat pig is not allowed to come in."
Just when Zhu Ping'an was looking at a certain red-nosed fat man with a pained face, the door of the study opened, and the black-bellied girl Li Shu poked her head out from the door, pouting her lips reluctantly and shouted to Zhu Ping'an, her face full of reluctance.
"If daddy hadn't told you to use the study before he left, I wouldn't have let you in!" The sinister girl pouted and rolled her eyes at Zhu Ping'an.
A fat man whose head was caught in the door, upon hearing this, looked back and forth between Zhu Ping'an and the sinister girl with his obscene and sparkling eyes.
"Then you wait outside for me."
Zhu Ping'an didn't want to leave the fat man alone, but when he saw the fat man's behavior, he immediately left a message and patted his butt and left. Although the black-bellied girl had a stinky face, she was beautiful, which was much better than the fat man's wretched face. What's more, he was here to return books and borrow books, so he should be more practical.
Zhu Ping'an went into the study to return the book, then quickly borrowed two books. When he was about to leave, he was stopped by the sinister girl.
"Is there something wrong?" Zhu Ping'an asked the sinister girl.
"Nonsense, why would I stop you if there's nothing wrong!" The black-bellied girl looked at me with disdain, "Next time you come to borrow a book, you must bring me a story of 5,000 words, no, at least 6,000 words. You have to copy it, and the handwriting must be neat. I'll treat it as calligraphy practice for you."
After the scheming girl finished speaking, she looked at Zhu Ping'an without blinking, waiting for his answer.
"Okay, I'll try my best." Zhu Ping'an nodded.
"What do you mean by try your best? It means definitely!" The black-bellied girl was dissatisfied and showed her little fangs.
On the way back to Zhu Ping'an's home from Li's house, the fat man's face was full of gossip, and he kept asking about why the study was the place for your tryst, and what you did in the study for so long...
"You were really born in the wrong era." Zhu Ping'an glanced at the fat man with a gossipy face and said lightly.
"Huh?" The fat man was puzzled.
"It can only be understood but not expressed in words." Zhu Ping'an shook his head, pretending to be mysterious.
"Heh. You're just trying to change the subject. You guys were in the study..." The fat man started gossiping again.
The croaking of frogs, the chirping of birds, and the gossip of the fat man echoed along the way...
By evening, the head of Xiahe Village led two young men into Zhu Ping'an's house carrying rice, flour, oil, meat, etc.
"Village head, what are you doing?" Zhu's father came out of the room upon hearing the voice. He was very surprised to see what the village head and the two young men were carrying.
"Brother Zhu, this is not what I want to do. This is the stipend that the county has allocated to your second son."
The head of the village smiled and waved to the young man behind him to put the things in the yard of Zhu Ping'an's house.
"This is a lot of stuff." Mother Chen came out of the room. She looked at the rice, flour, oil, meat, etc. carried by the two young men and couldn't help smacking her lips. This was a bag of rice, a jar of oil, a small bag of flour and a large piece of meat, enough to eat for a long time.
Zhu Ping'an, Fatty, and his elder brother Zhu Ping'an came out later. When the village head saw Zhu Ping'an, he smiled and bowed his hands to congratulate him, saying, "I haven't congratulated Mr. Zhu yet. The emperor has shown great grace and has opened the imperial examination. Mr. Zhu can try his skills again."
"Oh, I almost forgot. This was sent from the county to the town, and the town asked me to pass it on to Mr. Zhu." The head of the village slapped his head as he spoke. He took out a piece of red paper with a seal from his sleeve and handed it to Zhu Ping'an.
"Thank you, village head." Zhu Ping'an took the red paper and bowed to express his gratitude.
"No, no, it's just a stop on the way." The head of the village shook his hand with a smile on his face.
After a brief exchange of greetings in the Zhu family yard, Zhu Ping'an left. Zhu Ping'an opened the red paper in his hand and found that it contained the specific information of this year's Enke. In front of it were a lot of words praising the merits of the emperor, such as Qilin, etc. In the back was the specific time of the Enke, which was the fourth day of the eleventh month.
The fourth day of November
When Zhu Pingan first saw the time, he was a little confused, because the number four has always been an unlucky number in our country, and it is taboo among the people, not to mention the court. However, after thinking about the character of Emperor Jiajing, Zhu Pingan was relieved.
Emperor Jiajing was fond of alchemy and cultivating immortality, and he also liked to ask gods for help on some good and bad luck. His method was very special. He wrote the questions on paper, sealed it, and had a eunuch give it to a Taoist priest, who burned it for the gods. Then he set up two tree branches on a sand table, and had two eunuchs press the branches with their fingers. When the gods appeared, the two eunuchs closed their eyes, pressed the branches and scribbled on the sand table. Then Emperor Jiajing studied the gods' will according to the "heavenly book" displayed on the sand table.
Maybe the fourth day of November came from this way.
When the fat man saw the time, he was so anxious that he yelled, "Why is it this year? I thought it would be early next year. Doesn't that mean I have to go back to prepare for the exam?"
The imperial examination mentioned by the fat man refers to the examination held by the education official in the year of the big exam, that is, the year before the provincial examination, to select students from the students who will participate in the provincial examination. Generally, the education official will hold the imperial examination after the annual examination, but Zhu Ping'an and his friends are special. They are students this year, so they only need to participate in the imperial examination. The imperial examination is divided into six grades. Generally speaking, the education official will give the third grade. There are very few people below the third grade, or even no people. Only the first and second grades of the imperial examination can participate in the provincial examination.
The reason why Fatty was so nervous was because there were also quotas for the first and second place in the imperial examination. Each county government had a fixed quota, and if I remembered correctly, it would take about five or six years for this dynasty to limit the quota according to the proportion of the number of admissions in the provincial examinations in previous years.
There were about 2,300 or 4,000 quotas in the entire Southern Zhili, which were allocated to each county, with only about ten people in each county, no more than a few hundred. Each county had at least a hundred scholars, but only about ten of them could participate in the provincial examination.
Even the qualification examination for the provincial examination is difficult, but according to convention, the top candidates can definitely pass the imperial examination and take part in the provincial examination.
Therefore, Zhu Ping'an is not very worried about this.
Soon, the guard who brought Fatty to Xiahe Village the day before yesterday also arrived in a horse-drawn carriage. He received a message from Fatty's family in Fengyang Prefecture, which was sent by express horse overnight, asking Fatty to go home quickly to prepare for the imperial examination.
Fatty was reluctant to leave the Zhu family...
“Godmother, those pickled cucumbers…” I have to say, the fat man’s way of being reluctant to part with them was also very special.
"Godmother will give you a whole jar." Mother Chen took a whole jar of freshly pickled food from the yard and put it on the fat man's carriage. She also liked this chubby godson who had lived in the Zhu family for only a few days from the bottom of her heart.
"I'm so sorry..." The fat man said this, but his hands were not slow. In no time, he moved the jar of pickled cucumbers that his mother Chen had placed on the carriage into the carriage.
"What's wrong with that? We can pickle another jar in a few days." Mother Chen waved her hand indifferently.
“Godmother, those dried mushrooms…” The fat man pointed at the dried mushrooms in the yard and was reluctant to leave. The chicken soup stewed with mushrooms by godmother last night was so delicious.
"Godmother will pack it up for you..." Mother Chen was very generous.
"Godmother, then..." The fat man collected the mushrooms and was reluctant to leave...
"Are you done yet? At least leave some for me!" Zhu Ping'an stepped forward and pushed the reluctant fat man into the carriage.
Zhu Ping'an's actions made Chen laugh and scold. She picked up a lot of Fatty's favorite food from home and stuffed them into Fatty's carriage, which made Fatty so happy that he winked at Zhu Ping'an.
"You are childish. Don't just eat and sleep. Read more books to avoid embarrassing yourself in the provincial examinations."
Zhu Ping'an complained disdainfully about the fat man's childish behavior.
"Is this fat man going to lose face? Just wait till you see me in a new light." The fat man held his fat face high and rode away in the carriage. (To be continued)