After the Chinese New Year, Mu Wanqing was very busy. Not only did she have to take care of school affairs, but she also had to prepare for the snack plaza. She was in charge of everything from site selection to structural planning, design drawings, and decoration.
The snack plaza is located at the junction of the inner city and the outer city. It is built in the style of a shopping mall with five floors. Half of the first floor is a cheap fast food restaurant. You can pick your own dishes with your plate and pay before eating. There are many varieties of dishes, which are cheap, affordable and delicious. The other half is a food stall, mainly serving barbecue.
The second floor is for take-away delicacies, like milk tea, fried chicken, cold skin, roujiamo, grilled tofu, crabapple cake, peach cake, moon cake, mung bean cake, wife cake, shachima egg cake, etc.
The third floor is the food court, where various stalls sell a wide variety of delicacies, including casseroles, malatang, various kinds of noodles, pan-fried dumplings, wontons, dumplings, fried rice, rice with tofu pudding, etc. The prices are clearly marked, and you only have to pay, find a seat, sit down and enjoy the food.
Going up further is another staircase. The fourth floor has various restaurants, including a hot pot restaurant serving all eight major cuisines from the north and south, as well as a tea room, a Western restaurant, and a barbecue buffet.
The fifth floor is a high-end restaurant with high privacy. The ingredients are fresh and expensive, the decoration is magnificent, and the prices are naturally attractive.
It involved a lot of secret recipes, so the Mu clan members bought a group of servants who had signed death contracts and taught them step by step.
This is not something that can be learned in a short time, and decoration also takes a long time.
This part is controlled by Mu Ershiyi. Although her cooking skills are average, she has strong management skills. Mu Wanqing is very confident in handing the food and snack plaza to her.
Mu Wanqing's most important task was to prepare for the establishment of the Kapok Promotion Office. She wrote several plans and submitted them to the emperor, who summoned important officials of the court to discuss the plans repeatedly.
This concerns the lifeblood of the country and there can be no mistakes. The emperor has great expectations for it.
However, the ministers deliberately found fault and opposed just for the sake of opposing, which disgusted the emperor and made him want to clean up the bad practices in the court and put an end to factional strife.
Finally, the emperor became impatient and simply delegated power to Mu Wanqing, letting her take full responsibility.
The Prime Minister repeatedly tried to stop and persuade her because he didn't want Mu Wanqing's power to grow.
Because of the food court plan, the officials in the Ministry of Revenue were obviously more flexible and no longer united, and they all turned to Mu Wanqing.
In the face of personal interests, everything is nothing.
Mu Wanqing was no longer a commander without troops. His subordinates followed his orders in an orderly manner.
As for the Right Vice Minister of the Ministry of Revenue, he was the Prime Minister's man and had always been unwilling to stir up trouble. He was impeached by Mu Wanqing during the court. After the Emperor confirmed that he was innocent, he directly demoted the Right Vice Minister of the Ministry of Revenue out of the capital.
The two vacant positions of assistant ministers have caused various parties to get restless, and each has tried their best to seize these key positions.
These people even made overtures to Mu Wanqing, saying that as long as she supported them, everything would be fine.
Mu Wanqing knew that she would be won over, and she still complained that she came too late.
She kept repeating one thing over and over again: it was all up to the emperor to assign her, and as long as it was the emperor's will, she would fully support it. She was only loyal to the emperor.
This made all parties very angry. What kind of person is this? How could he be so lonely in his life?
Isn’t it good to play in a group?
In the palace, the candlelight flickered, as bright as day.
A faint voice sounded, "Did she really say that?"
"Yes." The man in black lowered his head, not daring to look up at the king's face.
Instead of being ecstatic, the young king frowned slightly, as if he was worried about something.
"What do you think of the Qingping County Master?"
The man in black said in a low voice, "I dare not make any comments."
He knew that the emperor just wanted someone to listen, not really an answer.
"Princess Qingping is extremely intelligent. Her character and abilities are top notch. She also seems to be quite loyal, but..." The king rubbed his brows, with a lot on his mind.
"I always feel that this loyalty is a little hollow. She doesn't seem like someone who strictly abides by the Three Bonds and Five Constant Virtues. She has too many ideas."
I have to say, his intuition is quite sharp.
Mu Wanqing received modern education and does not agree with the idea of the ruler being the ruler and the subject being the subject.
But she usually pretended to be very loyal and always acted like she was willing to go through fire and water for the emperor.
He always says that he wants to be a loyal subject to the emperor, but he is just deceiving others.
The emperor always felt that Mu Wanqing was not loyal enough, and he felt uneasy. Sometimes he wondered if he was using her too much.
The man in black hid his hands in his sleeves and pinched his palms, his face was very indifferent, "No one knows what she is thinking, just look at what she does."
His ordinary words shocked the emperor. After a while, he sighed softly.
"I am obsessed with it. As long as what she does is beneficial to the country and the court, that's enough."
Which king is not suspicious? The key is how to control this scale.
The man in black, Wei Shaohui, retreated quietly and stood in the cold wind, only to find that his back was already wet with cold sweat.
Princess Qingping, Mu Wanqing, she owed him a favor.
The triennial imperial examination was held as scheduled, and candidates from all over the country gathered in the capital.
Mu Wanqing delivered the test baskets to the students in Xiliang one by one, "Do your best in the exams. Whether you will be a dragon or a worm depends on this exam. But don't be too nervous. Keep a normal mind and believe in yourself."
The students were very excited after receiving the exam baskets. "Yes, County Master, don't worry, we will definitely take the exam seriously and strive to get good grades so that everyone can see the strength of our Xiliang students."
This is the class of Xiliang students that is closest to the imperial examination.
Mu Zicheng was actually very nervous, his hands were shaking, "Sister, what if I fail the exam?"
He cared too much about this imperial examination. His family had high hopes for him, and he wanted to help his sister even more as it was too hard for her to fight alone.
Mu Wanqing gently took his arm and said, "Then stay in Beijing and help me work while studying. Then you can bring your sister-in-law over."
Mu Zicheng touched his sister's head and said, "But I still want to help you in the officialdom. I heard that the Prime Minister is always targeting you. Is he getting old and confused?"
Mu Wanqing raised the corner of her mouth with a mysterious smile, "He is not confused, he is as smart as a thousand-year-old fox, he smelled something."
"What do you mean?" Mu Zicheng didn't understand.
Mu Wanqing calmly dropped a heavy bomb, "I am the most likely person to take over the position of Prime Minister."
She hadn't thought about it that way at first, but the Prime Minister's behavior was so abnormal that she had to think about it carefully.
There is only one possibility that could make the Prime Minister so anxious to suppress her: she made him feel threatened.
What threat? Physical threats were out of the question, so the only threat was to his position.
Logically speaking, he is the first-rank prime minister and she is the second-rank minister of the Ministry of Revenue, so they do have the conditions.
The problem was that her resume was too shallow and she was too young, so she couldn't possibly be a threat to him.
The five grand secretaries in the cabinet were the ones with the greatest chance of promotion, but he did not target these people, but only made trouble for her, which was even too disgraceful.
She thought about it over and over again, and finally came to a conclusion.
That is what the Prime Minister himself discovered.
"Prime Minister?" Everyone gasped. No way?
Mu Zicheng knew that his sister was very powerful, but being the Prime Minister? She really wanted to dare.
"I know you are very capable, but the Prime Minister is the head of all officials. The Emperor will not allow a woman to be the Prime Minister."
All this is just Mu Wanqing's guess. "I'm just saying, there is a possibility."
Mu Zicheng just smiled and didn't take it seriously. After this interruption, he was not so nervous anymore.
It turns out my sister was helping me to calm down, that’s great.
Mu Wanqing had no idea that he had misunderstood. She personally sent them to the examination room and watched them go in before she let out a long sigh of relief.
She has done everything she can, and now it depends on how they perform.
"Let's go back to the Ministry of Revenue."
As the carriage was passing a road, it suddenly saw a group of people gathered in front of a store, blocking the road.
Mu Wanqing poked her head out and took a few glances. "Go and ask around."
The guard came back after a while and whispered, "Let's start the betting for this year's top scholar. The one at the top is Lin Bingwen, the eldest son of Duke Cheng'en. The others are all top scholars from various places."
Mu Wanqing became interested, "What's my eldest brother's ranking?"
The guard was silent, "No."
Mu Wanqing laughed. Was he looking down on the Xiliang students? "Go, bet my eldest brother 10,000."
The guard placed a bet of 10,000 silver notes, and the boss pointed to the name on the board and asked, "Who do you want to bet on?"
"Mu Zicheng from Xiliang."
The boss was stunned for a moment, "Why haven't I heard of this candidate?"
The guard waved the banknote in his hand and asked, "Do you want to take this business or not?"
If you don't take the money delivered to your door, you are a fool. The boss kept shouting, "Take it, take it."
He didn't believe that this unknown Xiliang student could be the top scorer in the imperial examination? Who doesn't know that the literary style in Xiliang was not popular?
Young people only know how to act on impulse and give him money for nothing.
On the other side, Mu Zicheng entered the examination room. His luck was not very good as the room he was assigned was a bit close to the stinky room, not to mention the sour smell.
He took out some refreshing balm and rubbed it on his temples and nose. The cool smell covered up the bad smell.
The small cubicle contained an examination table, a toilet, a wooden board for sleeping, a candle, and a basin of charcoal.
Mu Zicheng looked at the crude examination tent made of wooden boards and reed mats and felt a little worried. If it rained, it would be doomed as it would definitely leak.
He took out a piece of oilcloth from the examination basket and fixed it above his attic with a rope. He moved quickly and finished the job in a short while.
The candidates sitting opposite were stunned. Oh my god, how can this be possible?
The exam started and the test papers were handed out. Mu Zicheng took it in his hand and looked through it first. He did not rush to write, but thought for a long time and then picked up the brush to start writing on the draft.
He didn't know how long it was, but after he finished writing, he realized that his stomach was growling with hunger. He quickly took out the small stove, opened a pack of instant noodles and started cooking. After a while, the overbearing aroma spread, and countless people smelled the aroma and looked over, their eyes red with envy.
Mu Zicheng put an egg and a handful of dried vegetables in the instant noodles, and then took out some thinly sliced braised beef and put it on top. It was so delicious.
The students around me were not interested in the exams, so how could it smell so good? I really want to eat it.
After Mu Zicheng finished eating, he cleaned up, took out the test paper and started the exam.
As it was getting darker, Mu Zicheng looked at the sky, carefully placed the answer sheet in a bag, placed it at the bottom of the exam basket, and covered it tightly with oilcloth.
He had self-heating rice for dinner, which was delicious and particularly satisfying.
While others were still lighting candles and studying at night, he had already laid down and gone to sleep.
My sister said that if I have a good rest at night, I will have enough energy to answer questions during the day.
He was sleeping soundly when he was awakened by a shrill scream.
"It's raining. My test paper is ruined. All ruined."
Mu Zicheng stood up. Oh my god, it suddenly started raining in the middle of the night, and the rain was quite heavy.
It was a tragedy for the candidates who were not prepared at all. The test papers placed on the board were wet by raindrops and could not be used, so they were wasted.
Mu Zicheng looked at the oilcloth above his head and had only one thought in his mind: if he listened to his sister, he would have meat to eat.
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Mu Zicheng: Sister, can I become the top student in high school?
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