Inside the bridal chamber, Cui Fei lifted the red veil of the bride, the bridesmaid said a lot of auspicious words, and the evening banquet was set outside.
Cui Fei came out to greet the guests after a while.
As the groom, he first came to the banquet hall where the female guests were to toast.
There were many unmarried girls among the female guests, and it was not convenient for others to accompany him. Mu Erpang was the most suitable candidate, following behind him to help him hold the wine jug.
He hadn't seen Chen Cui the whole day, so when Cui Fei was chatting and toasting with people at the main table, Mu Erpang came to Chen Cui and asked her, "What did you do today, mom? Are you bored?"
Shen Cui smiled and said no, "Your sister Wu Niang accompanied me all day, and even went to the opera in the afternoon. It wasn't boring at all."
As Mu Erpang spoke, he looked at the bone plate in front of Shen Cui, which the maids had not yet taken away. Seeing that there were many small bones on it, he knew that Shen Cui was indeed eating well, so he felt relieved.
When the other female guests at the main table saw him, they laughed and said, "Is this your 14-year-old scholar? Earlier you said your son only knew how to study, but I think he is more insightful and filial than many adults!"
As they were talking, an older woman finished Cui Fei's toast. She had drunk a lot before, so she smiled and said with a little drunkenness: "What a handsome young man, he is so lucky. If he grows up a few more years, I don't know how many girls will fall in love with him just by his face."
As soon as the words came out, the young man next to the middle-aged woman reached out and pulled her sleeve, then looked at Shen Cui apologetically and said, "My mother drank too much and this happened, please don't be offended, Shanzhang."
If other teenagers of the same age heard this, they would definitely feel embarrassed, but when Mu Erpang heard this, he just knew that the other person was praising his good looks, so he smiled back and said, "Thank you for the compliment."
The other party didn't expect this reaction and was slightly surprised. The matchmaker settled Sun Ruowei and also took out a lot of peanuts and longans from the box.
These peanuts and longans were placed in the bridal chamber and then distributed to everyone, to share in the good fortune and to wish for the birth of a son soon.
With this interruption, everyone asked the newly married young people in each family to go and get the peanuts and longans.
The bride happily distributed food to everyone, walked up to Mu Erpang, and asked him with a smile: "Young Master, do you want to grab a handful too?"
The bridesmaid did this only because she saw that Mu Erpang was good-looking and wanted to tease him mischievously.
If any other young master was teased like this, he would definitely blush.
Mu Erpang was not stupid. Seeing that the young women were the ones who were distributing the gifts, he guessed that they must have good intentions, so he shook his head and said frankly and sincerely, "Give it to them. I don't think I need it for the time being."
"Pfft..." No one knew who started laughing, but everyone started laughing.
It happened that Cui Fei had already finished toasting at the main table, so Shen Cui asked him to follow Cui Fei quickly.
"Mr. Shen is right. Your son is still not smart in that aspect, so you are not in a hurry to get married!"
"Yes, I was thinking that maybe Chen Shanchang had a high vision and was thinking about waiting for the future... Now I see that he really didn't lie at all."
Shen Cui also smiled helplessly. However, after this incident, there was no need for Cui Wuniang to help her block people's conversation. Everyone stopped talking about marriage and focused on asking her how she raised such a well-behaved and filial son.
The wedding banquet was lively until before curfew, when Shen Cui took Cuiwei and the others back to the academy.
Lao Buyu, who had only drunk fruit wine in recent years, finally had a legitimate reason to drink, so he was particularly drunk.
Without Chen Cui's instructions, Mu Erpang, Mei Ruochu and others assigned the tasks among themselves. Some were responsible for boiling water and making tea, while others were responsible for finding clean clothes for Lao Buyu.
Afterwards, everyone took a rest and no one mentioned it.
On the third day after Cui Fei got married, he accompanied Sun Ruowei to her parents' home in the morning, reported to the provincial school in the afternoon, and returned to Cuiwei in the evening.
Shen Cui was a little surprised to see him coming over. After all, newlyweds are always in love, especially Cui Fei and Sun Ruowei, who are in love with each other and their relationship is better than that of ordinary couples nowadays.
However, Cui Fei said that it was Sun Ruowei who asked him to come to the academy as soon as possible, saying that husband and wife are one body, and they will have plenty of time to spend together in the future, and now is the time for them to study hard.
When he mentioned Sun Ruowei, his eyebrows and eyes were filled with joy from the bottom of his heart, but when he turned around to study, Shen Cui stared at his concentration value and found that he was not distracted, so she felt relieved.
A few days later, when the provincial school was closed, Cui Fei went home directly after school the day before, while the others continued their usual routine and studied hard in the academy.
Chen Cui's daily routine that day was to inspect the classroom, so she stood up and stood in front of everyone.
She does this every now and then, so everyone gets used to it and goes on with their own business.
When she walked to Mei Ruochu's side, Shen Cui discovered that he was not reading books, writing poems or articles, but doing something else.
From time to time, he would take on some work for poetry clubs or bookstores to earn some money. Moreover, he was highly qualified and sensible, and taking on work did not affect his regular studies, so Shen Cui was used to it.
But today she couldn't help but take a few more glances, because Mei Ruochu had a pomegranate red book cover next to him, and what he was writing at the moment was the play script adapted from "Rouge's Cultivation Story" that Chen Cui and Cui Wuniang had mentioned at the wedding banquet before!
Noticing that Chen Cui had been standing in front of him for a while longer, Mei Ruochu explained softly, "The bookstore I worked with the most was A Fei's. This morning, I went to hand in the copied books, and I happened to hear the clerk say that his family was looking for someone to adapt the storybooks into drama scripts. They said that they had found a few scholars who did daily work, but the head of the Cui family was not very satisfied. Although I have never written a drama script, when I was a child at home, my mother loved to listen to operas, and I also listened to a lot of them, so I tried to take on this job."
Shen Cui was not surprised by this process, but she did not expect that after all the twists and turns, it was actually someone from the academy who did this.
However, when this job was handed over to Mei Ruochu, even though he said he was just trying to write it, Shen Cui still had great confidence in him and felt that he would definitely be able to do a good job.
After that, Mei Ruochu handed the book cover in front of Chen Cui, "I have finished reading this storybook. I have to say, no wonder the Cui family master values it so much, it is indeed very innovative. I remember that Shanzhang also loved reading storybooks in the past, but he has not read them much in recent years. Do you want to read it too? Anyway, I will remember it in my mind after reading it once, so I don’t need to check it all the time when writing the script."
Chen Cui said no quickly. She was thinking about telling Mei Ruochu that she wrote the storybook, but then she heard Mei Ruochu say, "Yes, Patriarch Cui is close to the headmaster, so I think he has given it to you. Although this storybook is not very literary, it is easy to understand, full of wonderful ideas, and contains many incisive principles of life. This 'Fangcaoke', judging from her name, should be a woman. It is not easy for women to live nowadays. She has such insights, which is really admirable..."
Mei Ruochu's praise made Shen Cui swallow back the words that were on the tip of her tongue - she was really embarrassed to admit it!
In just ten days, Mei Ruochu completed the script in his spare time and handed it in.
Just as Chen Cui thought, his talent was more than enough for adapting a play script. Cui Wuniang was very satisfied. After paying him ten taels of silver as wages, she immediately took the play script to discuss cooperation with the troupe.
It must be said that this script with beautiful words and excellent singing adds a lot of color to the story itself. Some opera troupes were not very interested in the original story, but after reading the script, they changed their minds and were willing to cooperate.
Cui Wuniang originally thought that she would have to pay some of the "publicity expenses" that Chen Cui mentioned in order to convince them, but later she realized that the wind had changed, so not only did she not have to pay any money, she even made a small profit.
Finally, Cui Wuniang chose to cooperate with a popular opera troupe in the capital. It took time for the troupe to rehearse and make costumes, so no results were seen for the time being.
This incident also made Cui Wuniang smell a new business opportunity. Before the play was staged, Cui Wuniang selected other scripts that were selling well in the bookstore and whose authors had sold out to the bookstore, and gave them to Mei Ruochu to adapt.
Relying on this, Mei Ruochu soon became rich.
Winter came in a blink of an eye. Cui Wuniang wrote to Shen Cui and told her that the opera troupe had given her a guarantee that the play would be rehearsed almost completely before the New Year and would be performed just in time for the New Year.
During this period, Chen Cui also wrote the sequel and sent it to Cui Wuniang along with the reply letter. Let Cui Wu Niang decide for herself when to give it to the young aunt from the Sun family to read.
After she finished her work, Mei Ruochu also stopped the work she was doing because the annual examination was coming again.
Because everyone knew that this was the last annual examination presided over by Liu Xuezheng, the atmosphere in the provincial school was not particularly solemn this time.
Mu Erpang, Shen Aoshuang and other classmates joined the ranks of old students after a new batch of new students entered the provincial school not long ago, and began to give guidance to the new students from time to time.
This year, Liu Xuezheng finally showed some "kindness" and did not make any weird changes in the test questions. The poem topic was just an original sentence from the Four Books.
With such simple questions, no one will make mistakes in reading the questions or be unable to figure out the source even after scratching their heads, so it only tests the students' true level.
Mei Ruochu still sits firmly in the first place, Wei Xi is second this time, Mu Erpang is third, and Chen Aoshuang is fourth. Wei Shu also made a small progress and ranked tenth in the first class.
Cui Fei has become more motivated after getting married. This time he performed very well and was ranked at the bottom of the first class.
After the results came out, the school was filled with joy.
Even the scholar who didn't pass the first-class exam burst into tears and said, "Three years, three years!"
Needless to say, what he meant was that after three years, Liu Xuezheng had finally been driven away!
There were many people who shared his idea. After seeing their results, many of them, as long as they did not do too badly, made plans to go out and celebrate. Even when they went to class the day after the New Year, Mu Erpang clearly felt that there were fewer people in the classroom than usual - many people had taken their leave to go home early to celebrate the New Year.
Although Mu Erpang had previously criticized Liu Xuezheng for asking tricky questions, as if he was deliberately making things difficult for others.
But it must be said that with him in control, the learning atmosphere in the prefectural school is indeed very strong all year round.
Now that he is about to step down, many people have felt relieved and their true colors are beginning to show.
There is definitely no such person among the young men in Cuiwei. They still attend classes and study hard as usual. The provincial examination is just around the corner. Who among them dares to slack off at this time?
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