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It was neither good nor bad, it was on the cusp.
Zhao Su thought that that person looked familiar, as he approached, he realised it was Feng Bao.
When Feng Bao saw him, he looked utterly hopeless, he said in a quiet voice: “You finally came out, the little princely heir is in there……Consort Li has gone to the ancestral temple to pray, the Prince has also gone out to meet some friends. The little princely heir has been fussing a lot to go out, I could only inform the Princely Consort and bring him here.”
The Princely Consort that he was talking about, was the one who spent all year round in the Xiang Hall, abstaining from eating meat and chanting sutras as if she was an invisible Princely Consort1, Consort Chen.
Zhao Su forced out a little laugh. He’d gone to the Prince of Yu manor countless times now and had become very close with the family. Because the Prince of Yu was not favoured and he was also relatively easy-going by nature, he was quite lax on customs and etiquettes. There are not too many rules and restrictions in the manor, and Zhu Yijun was able to go out quite often.
When he lifted the curtain of the carriage to see what was inside, he couldn’t help but have a head full of black lines.
The carriages of the Prince of Yu were naturally very spacious and comfortable, but…
There were a few quilts that were piled up in a mess in the carriage. In the middle of this messy pile, Zhu Yijun was laid there in a deep sleep, and the pillows next to his head were soaking wet.
What should he do now? Zhao Su turned around and looked inquisitively at Feng Bao.
He’d just have to play it by ear. With him there, Feng Bao sighed a breath of relief, pretending like he had something else to do.
In his opinion, if Zhao Su can pass the court examination, and obtaining jinshi was almost a certainty, plus the Prince of Yu had the intention of making Zhao Su the little princely heir’s tutor. The most important thing was that the little princely heir really liked him so if he didn’t curry favour with him now, when would be a better time?
Zhao Su: “…We should take him back to the manor.”
Feng Bao smiled: “That’s a good idea, it’s already late, the Prince and Consort will not be returning tonight, perhaps Zhao gongzi would like to stay for dinner at the manor.”
Zhao Su shook his head: “That wouldn’t be proper.”
The Prince of Yu was not there, the manor had only maidservants and eunuchs present, as a grown man, it was easy for people to create gossip. Feng Bao thought about it and agreed so he didn’t say anything else.
At this moment, the sleeping child turned over, rubbed his eyes. He looked a little confused.
“Susu…?”
“En.” Zhao Su’s expression softened and he entered into the carriage, holding out his hand.
The child naturally took his hand, and sat up, then jumped into his embrace.
“Hold me.”
Zhaosu seized the opportunity to educate him: “How old are you, if you don’t go by yourself people will mock you, and say that the little princely heir of the Prince of Yu manor can’t even walk for himself.”
Zhaosu looked all around the carriage, pretending not to have heard him and acting very cute.
His threat had no effect, Zhao Su couldn’t help reaching out and pinching his chubby little cheeks.
The child let out a little yelp, followed suit wanting to pinch Zhaosu, but the latter moved quicker and moved his head to avoid him, resulting in the little kid grabbing Feng Bao who was behind Zhao Su.
Feng Bao: “….”
Zhao Su couldn’t help laughing out loud: “Yongting-xiong, it’s getting late, let’s take the little princely heir home first.”
Zhu Yijun was not someone who liked to be left alone, hearing him say that he immediately shouted: “I’m not going home! I want to go to your house!”
Zhao Su had a headache: “My house doesn’t have any snacks, nor do I have any toys. I don’t have enough blankets so it’s not comfortable at all at night.”
Zhu Yijun pouted: “I’m not going back, father is not at home, it wasn’t easy to leave the manor, I want to sleep at your house!”
Zhao Su could understand, when he was younger and he went over to his relative’s homes, he’d often want to stay over to play, even if it wasn’t as comfortable as his own home, there was a sense of novelty in it. However, with Zhu Yijun’s status this of course was not possible, and he would not have ever experienced something like this.
Feng Bao was suffering internally but could only stay calm. The child had made up his mind, and nothing could change that.
In the end, Zhao Su and Feng Bao could only give in —— there was no way they could drag an unwilling and sobbing child back home.
To compromise, they decided Zhao Su would first take Zhu Yijun to his home, whilst Feng Bao went back to the Prince of Yu manor to report back and at the same time grab some change of clothes. As there were imperial guards accompanying them, safety was not an issue.
Zhu Yijun had been to Zhao Su’s house quite a few times，he was very familiar with the place, he’d basically played and investigated every nook and cranny, so much so that the cat on the roof detoured when it saw him.
As they arrived home, Zhu Yijun complained that he was hungry, Zhao Su went in the kitchen to take a look, he had enough ingredients there, and he decided to make dumplings.
Dumpling skins were easy to make, and there was already flour. There were also two strong guards who could help knead the dough. Zhao Su chopped up the pork, shredded mushrooms, and mixed with coriander to make the stuffing.
Mushrooms were an all-purpose ingredient, you could put it in anything and the taste was limitless. When Zhao Su had just arrived in this time period, he often went up the mountain to pick up some wild mushrooms for Lady Chen to cook, he would sell any surplus to Hui Chun Tang. But normal mushrooms didn’t sell for much money, because since the Song dynasty, there was already a method for farming mushrooms.
Places like Beijing would often have people selling dried mushrooms, they just needed to be boiled in hot water and then chopped up, plus the fragrance and richness of these dried mushrooms could be kept longer even through the winter.
When Zhao Su arrived in the Capital, he had spent half of his money on renting this house. He’d taken out another portion to help Zhao Nuan open up a shop. After the second-hand goods shop was opened, Zhao Nuan was imprisoned. Zhao Su could only as Lisong and Zhao Nuan’s pageboy to help with the upkeep of the shop, he would go there to take a look from time to time and take stock. Without Zhao Nuan, the shop lost quite a bit of incoming business and was running into red.
Seeing that there was no income and he had to prepare for the exams, Zhao Su could only rent out the shop space.The rent money was relatively low but it was better than nothing. He had a carriage to pick him up and take him home when he went to the Prince of Yu manor and he sometimes was asked to stay for dinner by the Prince so he didn’t spend much money in a month.
Chen Zhu was from an influential and wealthy family. The Chen clan in Changle was a larger clan than even the Zhao clan. Although Chen Zhu was also a son of a concubine, he was not mistreated like Zhao Su, everything that he had was comparable to the legitimate heir.
So this time coming to the Capital, his family had of course arranged enough money for him to live well. Chen Zhu felt that with Zhao Su’s family background, life was bound to be very difficult, so he was always rushing to pay, and even the old lady who cooked for them refused to let Zhao Su pay.
Chen Zhu, who was usually kind natured, was stubborn when it came to this, he believed that friends shouldn’t need to think about money. Since the two were friends, they didn’t have to worry so much about who was paying for what. After several times, Zhao Su didn’t bother to fight him any longer.
This way, Zhao Su had almost no place to spend money. As a man he wasn’t so particular about clothing, but because of his previous life, he paid more attention to food. Sometimes when the old lady was cooking he would give her some guidance from the sidelines, and over time, even my old lady’s cooking skills improved.
Yuan Shu once joked that he was not a gentleman, because a gentleman never enters the kitchen, Zhao Su had replied: Governing the country is like cooking a small fish. 2
Yuan Shu was rendered speechless by his response.
Today, Yuan Shu was not at home and Chen Zhu was taking the court examination and hadn’t come back yet. Zhao Su and the others were working hard in the kitchen and finally made some dumpling soup.
Everyone was so hungry that their stomachs were rumbling, they all salivated as they smelled the delicious fragrance wafting from the kitchen. The little kid who was usually a picky eater at home actually ate a big bowl this time, not to mention the others who were adults.
When Feng Bao had finished reporting back to the Prince of Yu manor and was rushing over with his clothes, Zhu Yijun had been fully satisfied with his meal and fell asleep on Zhao Su’s bed. The light of the candle reflecting on his cheeks made them look even more tender, exactly like a little piglet.
What was it to be born with a silver spoon in one’s mouth? This is to be born with a silver spoon in one’s mouth. Zhao Su looked at his sleeping face and sighed silently and sympathised with the pathetic Feng Bao.
He didn’t know that Feng Bao actually felt that his burden had been much lighter since Zhao Su had shared the suffering with him. Compared with before, his current life was simply more joyous.
Forbidden City, East Pavilion.
According to the rules, all the papers for the court examination must be sent here.
The scoring process of the papers was divided into four stages.
First the paper is read by the Examining Official, this was the first stage. The Examining Official would skim the paper. Those papers with scribbles or cursive handwriting, or those that were stained with ink blots and smudges would definitely be placed at the back of the pile.
The second stage was a second reading by another Examining Official, this stage was very important.
Because the court examination was the highest level of the imperial examination. There was no way of telling who could be as talented in civil matters as military affairs, and whose name would go down in history. So uphold the fairness of the examination, and in order to be considerate to all the departments in the Imperial Court, the Examining Officials for this stage were comprised of officials from the Grand Secretariat, the Six Ministries, the Censorate, the Office of Transmission, Court of Judicial Review etc, who would divide these several hundred papers into first, second and third rank.
Then these ranked papers will be sent to the Grand Secretariat for the final read-through. This is the third stage.
At the last stage, the Grand Secretariat had to submit the papers to the Emperor for final approval.
But the thing was that the imperial examinations were held every three years, which was very important to those who took the exams, but it was not necessarily that interesting to the Emperor. Emperors like Jiajing who have been in power for a long time had no interest in the rankings. The actual final review of the papers would fall on the Grand Secretariat, and the last stage with the Emperor was just a formality.
To give an example, a candidate of the Court Examination, who wrote a particularly exceptional essay, and originally should have easily been bestowed the title of Zhuangyuan, but he unfortunately offended a member of the Grand Secretariat, or there was someone else who had capitalised on their connections, so sadly during the third stage, this candidate would be bumped from jinshi of the first rank to jinshi of the third rank. And he would not even be able to enter the Grand Secretariat in the future. Plus, the Emperor would only skim through the top-ranking papers and would not have the opportunity to read this candidate’s paper. From that day on, his entire life and destiny would have changed, and he would go down a completely different road.
This kind of example was common. Since the founding of the Great Ming, more than two hundred years ago, these situations had been a regular occurrence.
All stages must be completed within two days. After these two days, the rankings were announced, which was perhaps the most sensational moment of the Imperial Examinations but at this moment in time, the marking was still underway. Fortunately, it was not the middle of summer, as there were so many people gathered together, the place felt warm but at least it was not stuffy.
One night passed, there was the glimmer of the approaching dawn, the work of the second stage had just been completed. The Marking Officials who had stayed up all night, all had huge dark circles under their eyes and were just hoping to crawl back into bed but they had to submit the list to Grand Secretaries for a final review.
In the Grand Secretariat, the Senior Grand Secretary, Yan Song, was still in mourning for the loss of his wife, and the Vice Senior Grand Secretary, Xu Jie had been impeached and was staying home to avoid suspicion. They would not come in to participate in the review. The third stage of the review fell onto Guo Pu and Yuan Wei.
The two of them were familiar with Zhao Su because the cheating scandal during the Metropolitan Examination had created quite a stir. As they glanced over the honour’s list, they saw that he had been placed in jinshi of the second rank, fifteenth place.
Guo Pu frowned slightly.
This ranking was neither good nor bad, it was on the cusp.
According to the Ming Dynasty customs, it stipulated that those in the first rank3 or within the top fifteen of the second rank could be bestowed the title of shu-jishi and only shu-jishi were able to enter the Grand Secretariat in the future. Zhao Su’s ranking was on the cusp, he could be given the title of shu-jishi, but he could also be easily excluded without going against customs.
Guo Pu had once heard Xu Jie talk about him, the latter had also said that if he met a candidate like Zhao Su, he’d help him as much as he could, of course, only within his abilities to do so.
No one could know what will happen in the future, but if Guo Pu was kind to Zhao Su now, in the future, Zhao Su would inevitably have to treat him with more respect, it required very little effort on Guo Po’s part to do someone this little favour.
As he was considering it, he saw Yuan Wei smile and say: “I’ve already read over the papers last night, the ranking list seems very good. If Zhifu thinks that there is no problem, then we can perhaps pass it on to the Emperor?”
“There’s no hurry.” Guo Pu smiled back: “Let us take another look at the papers currently ranked in the second rank, fifteenth place and above. The imperial examination is for the good of our country, we mustn’t be complacent, otherwise, if his Majesty questions the honours list, it won’t be easy for you or I to explain it to him.”
Since he said this, Yuan Wei had no choice but to nod and acquiesce. Yuan Wei watched him as he turned over the papers, and began to read through them one by one.
The impatient Guo Pu suddenly became extremely patient, Yuan Wei thought that something was not quite right no matter how he looked at it. Yuan Wei suspected that Guo Po had some other plans up his sleeve, but he couldn’t find anything wrong, so he just had to sit there and drink tea and wait for him to finish reading.
Guo Pu kept reading for a while, and suddenly said: “This person’s essay is very well written, ranking fifteenth place in the second rank seems to be a little low, I think it can be adjusted.”
Yuan Wei looked at it, his eyes fell on the candidate’s name, his eyelids twitched, and he smiled: “I have read this candidate’s paper. Although the contents are not bad, his handwriting is not as elegant as others. His choice of words are not as good as some of the others. This ranking is just right, I don’t think I need to adjust it.”
Guo Po had reached the end of his tether. He already didn’t particularly like Yuan Wei, he twitched slightly at the corner of his mouth: “Yuanfeng-xiong, you are wrong, not everyone can be as talented as you, to even write majestic and beautiful Qingci4. I think that this person thinks outside of the box, he has fresh ideas, and with time, he will be able to achieve great things.”
How could Yuan Wei bear these loaded words? His face immediately turned dark: “Guo Zhifu, what exactly is that supposed to mean!”
Guo Pu snorted, “It was just a compliment to Yuanfeng-xiong for your great erudition and talent. That’s all!”
Yuan Wei was not someone who could be considered a talent to the country for his governance and policies, but he was unique in his literary talent. Not only did he have a highly retentive memory, but even the Qingci that he had written were much loved by the Emperor5. Because of this, Guo Pu didn’t look upon him too kindly. Seizing the opportunity today to make a few unsavoury remarks.
The atmosphere in this moment had taken a downturn. The other people present looked at each other and were waiting for them to reconcile, when they all heard a deep voice resonate from the entrance: “Who has great erudition and literary talent?”
Translator Note:
Do you think Susu’s ranking will change? haha ~
I apologise for any errors, typos etc, NGL – I did a very very lazy proof-read today, if at all.