This year's New Year's Day is the year when the Cuiwei Academy has the most organized staff.
Chen Cui had made plans ahead to have a great time.
She did everything herself, including cutting New Year meat, buying New Year goods, making rice cakes, steaming buns, and pasting window decorations. The young men couldn't bear to see her working alone, so they all rushed to help.
On the twenty-ninth day of the lunar year, there were many more visitors to the academy. They are all people living nearby who come to ask for Spring Festival couplets.
Spring Festival couplets only require some ink and paper, and they bring their own red paper.
With the constant sound of firecrackers outside and the strong New Year atmosphere, the teenagers couldn't study in peace in the classroom.
Chen Cui simply opened the main gate of the house and posted a notice offering free help in writing Spring Festival couplets, so that the young men could just practice calligraphy and save the Wei family's servants from having to answer the door from time to time.
On New Year's Eve, Cui Fei went home, saying that he would come back on the first day of the new year to wish Chen Cui and Lao Buyu a happy new year.
A Yao helped prepare the New Year's Eve dinner, and Shen Cui let her go back to reunite with her family.
Later in the evening, seven or eight hot dishes and several pots of fruit wine were placed on the table. Everyone had a lively New Year's Eve dinner, stayed up together, and set off firecrackers, which meant that they celebrated the New Year together.
The New Year was over, and the provincial school opened around the Lantern Festival.
The boys started going to the provincial school after breakfast early in the morning, just like the previous year, and returned in the evening.
In the spring, Principal Liu of Wenjun Academy was invited to give lectures at the provincial school as agreed before.
Places like the provincial school were not accessible to ordinary people, only the talented students who had entered the provincial school could enter.
But Principal Liu still remembered Lao Buyu, so he invited him to join him in the lecture.
Lao Buyu had nothing to do during the day, and he got along well with Principal Liu during the academy competition last year, so he went with them.
Now, Chen Cui is the only one left in the academy during the day.
Earlier, she took Mu Erpang back to take the county exam. When she came back, she saw Lao Buyu's lifeless appearance and felt that he looked like an empty-nest elderly person or a left-behind child.
Now it was her turn. After seeing everyone off in the morning, she would move a rocking chair to sit in the courtyard, brew a pot of tea, have a quick bite of lunch, and slowly while away the day.
But unlike Lao Buyu, Shen Cui has a system in her head that allows her to chat.
It was a normal day, Shen Cui was lying on the rocking chair and chatting with the system, when the servant of the Wei family came to the second gate and said that the Cui family had sent a letter.
The only person in the Cui family who wrote notes and letters to Chen Cui was Cui Wuniang. Chen Cui stood up to take the note and took a look. It was indeed from Cui Wuniang.
The only difference this time was that Cui Wuniang wrote on the post that she wanted to bring Miss Sun to visit together -
After the marriage between the Cui and Sun families was settled in the first month of the year, Miss Sun was kept at home by Madam Sun to learn etiquette.
She said before that she could count the number of times she went out throughout the year on her fingers, but now in the past two or three months, she has not been able to go out at all.
Cui Wuniang was very satisfied with her brother's wife. In addition, Miss Sun was thinking of Cui Fei and helped persuade the elders of the Sun family to agree to move up the wedding date, so she wanted to treat her better.
So she went to Sun's house and proposed to take Miss Sun out, saying that she wanted Miss Sun to take a look at everything for the wedding and let her make her own decision. She wanted to make sure she had a satisfactory wedding. In fact, she just wanted to take her out to play.
Cui Wuniang said this in person, which gave the Sun family enough face and also showed that the Cui family attached great importance to this marriage.
The elders of the Sun family also wanted Miss Sun to have more contact with Cui Wuniang - Cui Fei's mother passed away early, and Cui Wuniang was like half a mother-in-law, and she was also the head of the Cui family. If Miss Sun could build a good relationship with her, her life after marriage would naturally be smoother. So I agreed.
Cui Wu Niang would take one or two days out of her free time every month to take Miss Sun out, but she was almost a generation older than Miss Sun and had grown up among boys, so she had no experience playing with girls. In the past, she would take Miss Sun to visit clothing stores and jewelry shops.
There were only a few famous shops in the city, and after visiting them a few times, Cui Wuniang couldn't think of any good places to go.
Although Miss Sun did not show it, Cui Wu Niang noticed that she was not interested in any of these, so she took the initiative to ask her if she wanted to go anywhere.
Miss Sun thought for a moment and asked, "I heard Ah Fei mention earlier that their academy is different from other places. I wonder if it would be convenient for us to go there and take a look?"
Cui Wu Niang then sent someone to send a letter to inquire, but Shen Cui was bored at the time, and since Miss Sun was going to marry Cui Fei, she was not an outsider, so she immediately replied to the letter and said that they were welcome to come anytime.
The next day, Cui Wuniang brought Miss Sun to visit.
Shen Cui personally went to the entrance of the academy to pick them up and took them on a tour.
The actual area of the entire academy does not include the front back house and the back room, but only the area in the middle.
It only takes half a minute to walk around and you can finish the tour.
After the viewing, Shen Cui invited them to the main house for tea and snacks.
"The students are usually in the prefectural school, and the teacher has gone out for something. There's actually nothing interesting in the academy. It's my fault, I felt bored during the day, and I agreed to come when I heard you wanted to. Miss Sun rarely goes out, I'm afraid you'll be bored today."
As Chen Cui was talking, A Yao brought a tray with tea. Miss Sun immediately reached out to help take it, first placing it in front of Cui Wu Niang, then in front of Chen Cui, and finally taking her own cup of tea.
"Just call me Ruowei, Headmaster. I heard from Sister Wu Niang that Brother Afei received a lot of care from you in the past, so you are also my elder." After helping to serve the tea, Sun Ruowei continued, "And why am I bored? This place is very good, I can't really put it into words. But it just gives me a very warm feeling. Of course, there may be other differences that I haven't noticed, after all, I haven't been out much before."
No wonder Cui Fei likes her so much, and Cui Wuniang also loves her. This pretty Sun Ruowei is not at all spoiled, her voice is clear and crisp, and she speaks with a refreshing energy.
Even Shen Cui had a good impression of her when she saw her for the first time today. She even couldn't help thinking that if her fat son were to ask for a wife in the future, it would be nice to have someone with such a temperament. Then she would be like Cui Wuniang now, wishing she could pin the new bride to her belt.
Perhaps her thoughts were too obvious. Cui Wuniang smiled and took Sun Ruowei into her arms. "This is my precious sister-in-law. If you want one, go find one yourself. But seriously, your Hanshan is fourteen years old. It's time to meet someone."
Shen Cui covered her forehead and said, "Don't talk to me about this. It gives me a headache just talking about this."
Cui Wuniang said, "How could that be possible? His character, appearance and talent are all top-notch. If I didn't know that he had a bright future and that marriage had to be handled with great care, I would have wanted to help him find a match!"
Shen Cui smiled helplessly: "With him like that... forget it, let's just focus on our studies first."
At the end of last year, Mu Erpang went with Cui Fei on a blind date. After they came back, everyone was concerned about this matter and naturally asked about it.
Cui Fei was just busy laughing and couldn't ask anything. As for Mei Ruochu, they were of the same age and needed to avoid suspicion, so he couldn't just look at her casually, nor could he say anything more.
Mu Erpang is different. He is just a grown-up and doesn’t need to be shy about anything.
He was quite talkative. When asked, he said, "The plum blossoms in the courtyard are really beautiful, not worse than those in Shuxiang Temple. They also sell sugar cakes, candied haws, pea yellow, and bowl cakes... I don't know if you have seen the bowl cakes, but it was the first time I saw them. The stall owner said that it was a delicacy brought over from Guangdong and Guangxi. In the past, some people traveled thousands of miles to go there just to have a taste of it. I thought it was new, and after hearing the stall owner's praises, I spent three cents to buy one and shared it with Brother Mei. It was indeed smooth and delicious, very sweet..."
Shen Cui listened to him for a long time, and finally asked helplessly after hearing him finish: "Is that all?"
Mu Erpang nodded and said, "No more. I wanted to buy some back for everyone to try after I finished eating, but the stall owner sold out in the blink of an eye."
Wei Shu was almost speechless. "When Shanzhang asked about 'out of stock', he didn't mean whether the bowl cakes were sold. He meant what you saw and heard. Are they out of stock?"
Mu Erpang scratched his head. "The snacks nearby are quite common. The lake in the yard is also frozen, so there is nothing good to see."
You're accompanying someone to a blind date and only caring about enjoying the scenery and eating snacks, and you're still talking about marriage? I don’t know when I will finally get it!
Shen Cui changed the subject and continued talking to them.
Like Cui Wuniang earlier, Sun Ruowei was also very curious about how Shen Cui, a peasant woman, was able to open an academy.
When Cui Wuniang asked about it, Chen Cui was not familiar with her yet, so she only told her a small part.
Now that everyone was no longer a stranger, she revealed a little more.
When they heard that she had defeated Lao Buyu with her poor cooking skills, Cui Wuniang and Sun Ruowei laughed so hard that their cheeks hurt.
Sun Ruowei was particularly curious and asked, "Is the stinky tofu you make really that stinky?"
Her thoughts were written all over her face, and she really wanted to see it.
But it is definitely not possible to see it now, because Shen Cui's cooking skills have been upgraded by 2 levels, and she can no longer make what the system has evaluated as the "Ultimate Failure".
Sun Ruowei felt quite regretful. After spending some time with Chen Cui, she knew that she was very kind, so she asked, "Just now I saw a notebook spread out in the classroom..."
"Oh, you mean that? That's not what they read. They don't like to read these things on a daily basis. They are very diligent and only read books related to the imperial examination. That's mine."
"I was saying, if you weren't so kind, I wouldn't have dared to ask you, for fear that you would be unhappy if I asked you. It was you who read it, and I don't think I've seen the book outside. Can you lend it to me?"
After asking this question, Shen Cui felt a little embarrassed.
Because she wrote that book.
Long before she was still in the village, she had thought about writing her own storybooks, but she didn't have much knowledge and couldn't write in the flowery style used in today's storybooks.
In the past few years, she has also made up for a lot of "cultural courses" and finally wrote something that is somewhat decent.
Her storybook tells a story about cultivating immortality.
Different from the current vernacular novels, there is not much romance in it, and the protagonist is not a man, but a woman.
Before getting married, the woman found out that her fiancé had fallen in love with someone else. Instead of thinking about how to take revenge on the man, she readily broke off the engagement and got the opportunity to pursue immortality.
After writing it, Shen Cui took advantage of her free time during the day to visit several bookstores to inquire.
As a result, several bookstores rejected my request, saying that there was no problem with the writing style, but the story... was destined to lose money.
Nowadays, when people read storybooks, they tend to prefer those about love, and the ones about scholars and ladies are the best. If we don't talk about love, but about cultivating immortals, the protagonist is also a man, and it would be best if there is a brief romance with a fox fairy or a sexy ghost in the middle. They also gave suggestions and asked Shen Cui to make modifications in this direction.
After hearing this, Cui Wuniang's face turned serious. "We have known each other for a year and a half. I regard you as a close friend. Why don't you come to me first when you want to publish the book, but go to someone else instead?"
Chen Cui explained hurriedly: "It is because we are so close that I have to ask others first. It is not good for you to publish something that is 'destined to lose money' just because of our friendship."
Since things had come to this, Shen Cui went to the classroom to get the notebook and showed it to Cui Wuniang.
Cui Wuniang has been running a bookstore for many years and is extremely fast at reading storybooks.
Miss Sun was also curious about the contents, so she and Cui Wuniang leaned against each other and read it together.
After reading it, Cui Wu Niang said, "Who said it's destined to lose money? I think it's pretty good."
Sun Ruowei also nodded in agreement, "In the past, I occasionally read a few storybooks at home. Most of them were stories about poor scholars and rich ladies. It made the rich ladies seem to be worried about getting married, which was very boring. In my opinion, it was just written by poor scholars to satisfy their own fantasies. This one is very good!"
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