This year's New Year's Day, Cuiwei's staff is still complete.
However, last year Shen Cui had organized a grand ceremony, but this year there was no need for that as the young men were studying at home - although the provincial examination was in August, so they would not miss out on the festive occasion, there was still another imperial examination before the provincial examination, which would be held in April or May.
The imperial examination is equivalent to a preliminary examination, and there is a ranking requirement. Only the top three scholars in the first, second, and third classes are eligible to take the provincial examination.
Although this preliminary examination was not difficult, Cui Fei worked hard three years ago and successfully obtained the qualification to participate in the provincial examination.
But the reason why Mu Erpang and his team have been able to get to where they are today is that they never take any exam lightly.
At the beginning of the year, the opera "Rouge's Immortal Cultivation Story" was performed, and Cui Wuniang sent several tickets in advance.
After Shen Cui asked around, Lao Buyu and a few other young men didn't really want to go because they weren't keen on going to operas. However, they also said that if Shen Cui wanted to go, they would be willing to accompany her.
This was the advantage of Chen Cui not telling them that she had written the notebook. Otherwise, if they knew the truth, they would have definitely put down the books and accompanied her.
Shen Cui originally planned not to go herself, but the boys all told her to go.
"It's Chinese New Year after all. Last year you gave us a day off to attend a poetry reading. This year I'll give you a day off too, so you can have a good day."
Later, Cui Wuniang knew that she was going to the theater alone, so she took some time out and went to pick her up with Sun Ruowei, and they went to the theater together.
The last time Shen Cui saw Sun Ruowei was the day she and Cui Fei got married in August last year. It had only been a few months since they last met, and Sun Ruowei seemed to have grown up. Her eyebrows and eyes became more relaxed and more beautiful.
As they talked, Shen Cui realized that because Cui Fei rarely went home, Sun Ruowei spent more time at Cui's house with Cui Wuniang. As a result, she can now help Cui Wuniang share a lot of work.
"It's all thanks to you," Cui Wu Niang couldn't help laughing when she mentioned this. "I didn't think Ruo Wei would be willing to help me before. It was also when we talked about publishing the storybook that time before. I tried to tell her the details in detail. Seeing that she didn't show any impatience, I made up my mind. It's just that Ruo Wei was exhausted. After marrying into our family, she looks a little thinner than before."
Sun Ruowei pursed her lips and said, "It would be better to lose weight. Besides, after getting married, other people just move from one house to another, and deal with trivial matters at home every day. They are also busy. I am much happier now than before."
She was in high spirits when she spoke, with joy in her eyes and brows, and it was obvious that she was very satisfied with her current life.
After talking for a while, the Cui family's carriage stopped outside the theater.
The theater was very busy at the beginning of the year, and it was no different today. When they went there, it was already packed with people.
There are three permanent opera troupes in this theater. One belongs to the owner, and the other two are recruited by the owner. The one that Cui Wuniang cooperates with is the Jifeng troupe of the latter.
Normally, there would only be one troupe on stage at the theater, but during the New Year holidays, there would be a full schedule of performances from three troupes, so you could watch any one you wanted.
The Jifeng Opera Troupe was ranked behind the troupe maintained by the garden owner and should have gone on stage at this time, but a fan in front of them was particularly generous and threw several gold ingots onto the stage. The garden owner was happy to give face to his own troupe, so he added a segment on the spur of the moment.
Seeing that there was still a wait, Cui Wuniang spent extra money to buy tickets for the extra show and led Chen Cui and Sun Ruowei into the garden.
There is a stage in the middle of the garden, with dozens of tables, chairs and benches in front of the stage. On the second floor are elegant seats separated by screens.
The encore was already halfway through, so the theatergoers were clapping and cheering.
Amid the cheers, Shen Cui followed Cui Wuniang up to the second floor.
However, what disappointed Chen Cui was that the play performed by the garden owner's own troupe today was about a scholar and a young lady. She personally did not like such a story, and she was not very keen on opera, so she felt a little drowsy while listening to it.
Cui Wuniang and Sun Ruowei were not much better than her, so they just picked up some words to kill time, "The imperial examination is coming soon. My son A Fei has passed it, and the other students in your academy will have no problem. They will definitely be qualified to participate in the provincial examination. What are your plans for the rest of the time?"
Chen Cui said, "I am planning to go there to accompany the exam. After all, no one in Linnan Prefecture is familiar with the place. Although Ah Fei has been there, we can't rely on him to take care of all the students in the academy."
Cui Wuniang guessed that this was her plan, so she was not surprised. "Yes, they look grown up, but they all regard you as their backbone. If you go with them, they will have confidence and will naturally perform better."
As she spoke, Cui Wuniang asked Chen Cui if she had enough money. The first 100 copies of "Rouge's Cultivation of Immortality" were sold out before the New Year, and the second batch was just printed. Cui Wuniang was planning to wait for the publicity effect of the new play to come out before putting it on the shelves.
So Chen Cui hasn't received any dividends from the storybook yet.
"It's enough. I save money every day. And with Ah Shu and Ah Fei here, I'm afraid we'll have to compete to pay the money, and I may not be able to win over them."
Cui Wuniang didn't ask any more questions.
After a while of chatting, the extra play finally ended and it was time for the Jifeng Opera Troupe to go on stage.
Shen Cui was shocked and saw many people in the theater standing up.
The waiter happened to come over to replace the tea for the group. Seeing that she had taken a few more glances at the situation, he explained, "Madam, don't be surprised. This is the first day that the Jifeng Opera Troupe is performing "Rouge's Journey to Immortality". Many opera fans always ask what the story is before buying tickets. This new story doesn't have any romance in it. It's just about Rouge's journey to immortality and exorcising demons, helping the poor and needy... If the protagonist of this story was a man, it wouldn't be like this."
Shen Cui was speechless after hearing this.
Cui Wuniang reached out and gently patted the back of Chen Cui's hand, indicating that she had anticipated this situation.
As some drama fans stood up, many new customers soon came in.
Most of the new guests were women. Looking down from the second floor, Chen Cui vaguely saw two familiar faces. One of them was naturally the young aunt from the Sun family. Sun Ruowei and Cui Wuniang immediately stood up to greet her and invited her to sit with them.
The other one was the woman who bought ten sets of storybooks at one time that she met at the door of the bookstore last time. When she bought the storybooks that time, Shen Cui could see that she was irritated by those gossipers, so she acted like that.
But the fact that she was willing to come and listen to the opera at this time also proved that she watched it after buying it, and really liked the story.
Shen Cui felt a little relieved, as a new play was about to begin on the stage behind her.
Chen Cui is still a layman in listening to opera, but Mei Ruochu's singing part is really well written. When sung by the heroic-looking female role, it makes people feel as if they really see the fragile yet strong Yanzhi!
Before she knew it, Shen Cui had finished watching the entire show. During the show, she, Cui Wuniang, Sun Ruowei and the others didn't even think about speaking. Some even felt a little unsatisfied after watching the show.
Even she, an amateur, was like this, and those who knew how to listen to opera were even more fascinated. Some immediately bought tickets at the back, ready to listen to the opera two or even three times!
Looking at this lively scene, Cui Wuniang became more confident. She separated from them and only asked Sun Ruowei to take Cui's servants to send Chen Cui back, while she herself had to go back to the bookstore - she felt that the extra 100 copies would definitely not be enough to sell, and she would have to ask people to work overtime to print more!
…………
In February, Shen Cui received her first dividend, a full twenty taels!
Cui Wuniang said that this was just the beginning. As more and more books of the same type were printed, the cost would become lower and lower, and the profit would be greater.
As she said, Shen Cui received another thirty taels two months later.
After this sum of money was received, the dividends gradually decreased, because after all, the city was so small, and the number of rich ladies and wives who could afford the storybook and liked the story was about the same.
If you want to make more money, you have to wait for Cuijia Bookstore to print the sequel.
However, at this time, most of Shen Cui's attention was on another thing - she had been training as a female worker on and off in the past few years, and now her upgrade progress had reached 950/1000.
The provincial examination would not be held until August, so there was still plenty of time for Shen Cui to do another fifty needlework exercises.
But in order to prevent the rules from playing tricks - for example, even the preliminary exams like the subject test would deduct Mei Ruochu's luck points, Shen Cui still planned to upgrade her needlework skills before the annual test.
After working for half a month, Chen Cui's needlework skills were successfully upgraded. She then made a batch of new things for Mei Ruochu to wear.
Mei Ruochu hasn't had any bad luck in recent years. Occasionally, there would be some small accidents, but to Mei Ruochu, who has a very high psychological endurance, they were just trivial matters not worth mentioning. But if Chen Cui asked him to wear it, he would wear it obediently.
Moreover, after Shen Cui's needlework skills were upgraded, the things she made were much better looking than before. Although they were comparable to the ready-made clothes sold or those made by tailors, they were not particularly ugly.
His luck value was raised to 90. Judging from the value alone, it was almost the same as Mu Erpang's.
Later, he did encounter some good things, such as his dropped purse was not picked up by anyone, and he went back the same way and picked it up easily, or the leg of a chair in the government school suddenly broke, but he happened to stand up and avoided falling.
After returning to the academy, he shared these things with Shen Cui and others as interesting anecdotes. However, Shen Cui did not find them interesting after listening to them. She only felt that these things were like bad omens.
Sure enough, it wasn't long before the exam started. Just as Chen Cui guessed, the plane rules did not even let him off during the pre-examination, and directly caused his luck value to drop by 45 points.
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