After a comfortable sleep, she felt refreshed. Last night, Deng Yuan pointed to a room and said it was her room. Deng Xue helped her clean up and then she went to sleep. Now she had the chance to take a closer look at this small courtyard.
There are exactly four rooms in the small courtyard, as well as a kitchen, a toilet, and a stable.
There was an apple tree in the yard, now in bloom. The gentle breeze blew, sending the petals dancing in the air, a truly beautiful sight. Beneath the peach tree stood a stone table and bench, where Zhao Yiming sat, leisurely flipping through a book.
When I first met Zhao Yiming, he was dressed in shorts, carrying a bow and arrow, and looked cold and aggressive. Perhaps it was because he had been reading more books and not going hunting these days, but the aggressiveness had disappeared, and he exuded the elegance and gentleness unique to scholars.
"An An, is there anything dirty on my face? You've been staring at me." Zhao Yiming looked up and said to Tian An who was staring at him.
"Ah? Oh! No!" Tian An touched his nose awkwardly.
"Deng Xue has cooked breakfast, you should go and have some!" After saying that, he lowered his head to read again.
Deng Xue is not a very good cook, but she can make porridge and pancakes.
After breakfast, Deng Yuan accompanied Zhao Yiming to the government office to handle the examination procedures. Tian An took Deng Xue to pack up the things they brought and prepared a sumptuous lunch for Zhao Yiming's return.
After eating and drinking, Tian An decided to go out for a stroll. It would be a waste if he didn't go out for a good stroll after such a long journey.
"Be careful on the road and come back early." Zhao Yiming reminded Tian An, and asked Deng Yuan and Deng Xue to follow him before he felt at ease letting Tian An go out for a walk by himself.
The prefectural capital was much busier than their own county seat, Jinning County. Along the way, there were all sorts of small vendors selling everything. The streets were also wider than those in Jinning County. With the coming of the prefectural exam, the shops on both sides were constantly bustling with customers, making it quite lively.
Tian An walked and looked around, buying one or two interesting gadgets he saw and bringing them back to his two younger brothers. He also tried all kinds of cakes he had never tasted before.
Seeing that it was almost time, I asked people about the location of the vegetable market.
Tian An was walking past a stall where two women were selling chickens when he suddenly heard what they were talking about and stepped back.
"Auntie, how are you selling this chicken?"
Seeing there was business, the two women immediately greeted her with a smile, "Miss, our chickens are all free-range and fresh, the meat is tender, and the price is fair, twenty cents a pound, how many do you want?"
Tian An looked at the three large roosters in the chicken coop. The price was a bit higher than what they could get in their village. After calculating the price, she said, "I'll take them all at seventeen cents a pound."
The woman was stunned. "Miss, I don't bargain like that. These are all chickens raised at home. They are very good!"
Tian An smiled and said, "Auntie, the sun is about to set, and there are not many people buying vegetables. If you can't sell them, you will have to carry them back home."
The woman was unhappy about losing three cents and said, "I can come back tomorrow to sell it."
"Come tomorrow and you'll have to pay the booth fee again."
The woman was still hesitant, and the auntie who had just spoken to her also advised her, "Sell it! Roosters can't lay eggs, and keeping them is a waste of food. You'll have to pay the stall fee tomorrow and waste time watching over them. It's not worth it."
After a while, the woman gritted her teeth and said, "Eighteen cents. If you want it, weigh it. If you don't want it, forget it." Every extra cent she could earn was a penny she could earn.
Eighteen coins was the same price as in the village. Tian An said readily, "Aunt, please calculate how much it costs and I'll count the copper coins for you."
While the woman was weighing and settling accounts, Tian An began to ask the two about what they had just said, "Auntie, I just heard you say that a student who came to take the exam had an accident for no reason. What happened?"
The two women were stunned and looked at Tian An, not wanting to say anything.
Tian An looked at the two small piles of cabbage being sold by another woman and said, "Auntie, please weigh these cabbages for me too! You should sell them quickly so you can go home."
When the woman heard this, she hurriedly tied up the cabbages with straw and whispered to Tian An while tying them.
"We heard it from others. A lot of students have had problems recently! Some of them got upset from eating and went straight to the hospital.
Others were dragged into alleys and beaten while walking on the street.
There are also people staying in the inn who can fall down the stairs.”
The chicken seller chimed in, "I heard some people's houses were robbed, and their exam documents and money were stolen..."
Tian An was quick to sense something was amiss. After buying chickens and vegetables with the two women, he also bought a lot of pork, eggs, other vegetables, and seasonings.
After the three of them returned home with their bags, Tian An immediately went to find Zhao Yiming and told him what had happened.
Zhao Yiming glanced outside the courtyard gate and said, "Starting tomorrow, don't go out. Let Deng Yuan go buy anything. Let Deng Xue and Deng Yuan take turns to keep watch at night."
Tianan nodded, "Yeah! I know. I bought a lot of things today, enough for us to eat for a few days. I will cook the meals myself these days and won't give them any chance."
In the following days, people would always be seen at the gate of the courtyard looking in. When Tian An had nothing to do, he would ask Deng Yuan and Deng Xue to practice boxing at the gate, sometimes even using a hatchet.
Seeing someone looking inside, Deng Yuan carried his hatchet and went over to pull the person over, saying, "Brother, can you show me a few moves?"
The man's face turned pale when he saw the hatchet in his hand. "No, no." He turned around and ran away. He was so fast that it seemed as if a dog was chasing him.
This action scared many people who came to watch.
In a blink of an eye, on the sixth day of April, the provincial examination began.
As usual, Tian An and Deng Xue got up in the middle of the night to make breakfast and lunch for Zhao Yiming. When everything was almost ready, Zhao Yiming and Deng Yuan also got up.
By the time the four of them had eaten and packed up to go out, there was a long line outside the examination room.
Tian An and the other two kept their eyes fixed on Zhao Yiming as they walked towards the team, protecting him from front, back, and left. They didn't care what happened around them.
After waiting in line for about a quarter of an hour, I suddenly heard the candidate across from Zhao Yiming and the others yell, "What are you doing? Why are you putting paper balls in my basket?"
Then, before the noise could subside, Zhao Yiming stretched out his hand to block it, and a round ball of paper rolled out of the team.
Tian An frowned. He was still unwilling to give up! He wanted to trick Zhao Yiming again before the exam.
There are a total of twelve counties under Ming'an Prefecture, and each county has fifty students who come to take the prefectural examination, adding up to a total of six hundred people. However, in the end, only the top fifty are selected based on their scores.
In order to get on the list, some students from well-off families racked their brains to find ways to remove some stumbling blocks before entering the examination room.
After what had just happened, Tian An and the others became even more cautious, keeping their eyes and ears open. They only breathed a sigh of relief when Zhao Yiming successfully passed the inspection and entered the examination room.
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