In the Princess's Mansion, in the Embroidery Tower.

Li Mingyue sat on the brocade couch bored, hugging her knees with her hands, her light body swaying from side to side like a tumbler.

Zhang Xiaojing, who was sitting on the other side of the brocade couch, felt dizzy.

"Miss, can you please stop shaking? I can't do my homework properly."

"What's there to do?" Although Li Mingyue stopped shaking, she took the "Geometry Glimpse" in front of Zhang Xiaojing and looked at it from all angles and said, "This is clearly a heavenly book. It's not fun at all."

"Didn't you insist that I accompany you to overcome scientific difficulties?" Zhang Xiaojing said with a smile: "Why did it become a heavenly book again?"

"Well, I've been reflecting on myself recently," Li Mingyue said sincerely, "To be honest, it's not science that I like, but the person who talks about science."

"Pfft..." Zhang Xiaojing couldn't help laughing. She leaned over and pinched her creamy little face and said, "Are you really in love with him?"

"Yes." Li Mingyue nodded generously: "Not just a little, not some, but a lot."

As she spoke, she began to sway her body from side to side, pouting her lips and saying, "It's been almost a month since I last saw Brother Zhao. Has he almost completely forgotten about me?"

"No matter how much you like her, you can't talk about it all the time." Zhang Xiaojing reached out and flicked her forehead and said, "Girls, you have to be reserved."

"Why should you be so reserved?" Li Mingyue said disapprovingly, "My mother said that if you see someone you like, you should grab it first. If you wait and see, you don't know who will snatch it away..."

"Ahem..." Zhang Xiaojing almost choked on her own saliva when she heard this. She widened her beautiful eyes and said, "Your Highness is still teaching you this? How old are you?"

"You just mentioned it to me recently." Li Mingyue lowered her head a little embarrassedly and said, "I feel embarrassed when I hear that."

"Well, it's right to be shy." Zhang Xiaojing breathed a sigh of relief.

"But I think my mother is right." Unexpectedly, Li Mingyue raised her head and said, "If you like it, you like it. If you don't like it, you don't like it. You should make it clear and fresh!"

"Okay." Seeing that the county lady had made up her mind, Zhang Xiaojing stopped trying to persuade her and asked in a low voice, "Then... does he like you?"

"I don't know..." Li Mingyue lowered her head dejectedly, buried her head in her legs and said, "Brother Zhao is good in everything, but he doesn't seem to have much interest in girls. I think he would rather play with his brother Gao and those disciples."

"How old is he? He still hasn't figured it out yet." Zhang Xiaojing hurriedly comforted the slightly hurt county lady, "My mother said that boys are slower to figure out than girls. Some of them don't know anything at the age of sixteen or seventeen."

"Yeah, that's what my mother said too." Li Mingyue nodded, and then rekindled her fighting spirit and said, "It's okay, I will keep an eye on him and wait until he gets the hang of it."

"Uh, okay..." Zhang Xiaojing nodded and continued to deal with the geometry problem in front of her.

~~

In bed.

Lady Liu was humming a tune silently while sweeping away the dust on the coral tree with a feather duster.

Zhao Shouzheng hadn't shown up for almost a month, and she finally didn't have to worry anymore, so she was naturally in a very good mood.

Even though His Highness seemed to be suffering from lovesickness, lying listlessly on the couch...

"What day is it today?" The eldest princess asked this question for the nth time today, playing with the reunion jade pendant in her hand.

"Your Highness, today is the sixth day of the first lunar month." Lady Liu replied hurriedly and respectfully.

"It's only the sixth..." The princess sighed in disappointment and counted on her fingers: "I'll enter the exam on the ninth, fill in the beginning of the exam on the eighth, and I'll have to leave on the seventh at the latest..."

After saying that, she sat up with a start and shouted excitedly, "Isn't that tomorrow?"

"Uh, so fast..." Liu Shanggong's eyes went dark, as if she saw the dark days coming again...

I wasn't paying attention and I almost pushed down a coral tree that was half a person's height.

She quickly hugged the coral tree with both hands, and did not dare to let go even though her hands were pricked and the skin was broken.

A blood jade coral of this quality is worth thousands of taels of silver. She can't afford to pay for it if she smashes it.

Fortunately, fortunately, I didn't fall...

Liu Shanggong held Shanhu steady, and rubbed her body with her hands, grinning.

"Let Cheng'en go and invite his uncle over tomorrow. I'll do my best to cheer Zhao Lang on his journey." The princess rubbed her hands, feeling unbearable with lovesickness.

"Your Highness, please think twice." Liu Shanggong hurriedly advised: "Why did Zhao Xiaolian retreat? Isn't it to calm his mind? The exam is in two days. If you invite him here again, I'm afraid it will disturb his mood."

"Ah, is that so?" The eldest princess' expression tightened when she heard this and said, "I didn't think of this."

"Of course he will. If Zhao Xiaolian fails the exam again because of this, even if he doesn't blame Your Highness, Your Highness will still feel bad, right?"

"Well, well... Zhao Lang's Spring Examination is more important." The princess sighed and said, "I will wait until after the Spring Examination to meet him."

"Oh, that's right." Liu Shanggong breathed a sigh of relief, thinking that she could live in peace for another ten days or half a month...

~~

What the princess didn't expect was that Zhao Shouzheng came out of confinement today.

In fact, Zhao Hao had planned to end his retreat two days earlier to give his father a few more days of rest.

But my dad is always striving for perfection and has been dragging his feet until today... Well, the truth is that Mr. Zhao was very proud of himself after passing the imperial examination, and without his nephew to push him along all day, he has slacked off in his studies in the past few months.

Naturally, I no longer had the same enthusiasm I had before the provincial examination. As a result, my thinking became slow, my writing became sluggish, and the articles I wrote were naturally ugly. I had to spend a lot of time adjusting my state before I dared to write.

In fact, this is also human nature. After twenty years of studying hard and being looked down upon, once you get on the shore, everything changes dramatically. Few new candidates can maintain their mentality. Therefore, most of them cannot make persistent efforts and pass the imperial examinations... They have to fail once or twice, change their minds and become a new person, before they can pass the examination.

But our ancestors only know the questions for this year.

After the fifth year of Longqing, Zhao Hao only had a general impression of the palace examination questions and never paid attention to the examination questions...

If Mr. Zhao fails the exam this year, he will probably have to waste another ten or eight years... After ten or eight years, at his age, there will be no need for him to take the exam again.

"But so what?" Zhao Hao thought happily:

"Now that I have a mother, I don't expect my father to achieve much."

But he still hoped that his father would succeed this time. If he knew that he couldn't pass the test, it would be too unreasonable.

Therefore, Zhao Hao was very anxious in the last ten days. He worked very hard for his father and pushed him hard. Only then did Mr. Zhao finish the work three days ago.

Zhao Shouzheng spent another three days memorizing it thoroughly, and then Zhao Hao threw all the ink in the study into the charcoal stove and burned it clean. Then he said to Master Zhao, who was about to faint from exhaustion:

"Father, please take a good rest these two days. I will call you when I go to the Ministry of Rites to fill in the beginning of the examination paper."

"Hmm..." Mr. Zhao nodded, lay down on the kang on his back, and immediately started snoring loudly.

ps. Third update. Please give me monthly tickets and recommendation tickets~~~