Flowers in full bloom

At the beginning, Ping An was against bookstores putting stories and picture albums on the shelves. For a student who had already obtained the qualification of a student and wanted to take the examination for a scholar and was determined to take the imperial examination, these stories and picture albums were indeed obstacles on the road to the imperial examination. Ping An also felt that if Grandfather Hua were still alive, he would definitely not do this, as Grandfather Hua was almost pious about the imperial examination.

But Hua Lei insisted, and gave the reason that the primary goal of a bookstore is to make money. If storybooks and picture albums can make money, why not sell them? If the bookstore cannot be run, and if the family cannot afford to eat and wear, how can they take the imperial examinations, which cost a lot of money?

Why can't poor families produce noble sons? Are they really stupid? No, it's because they lack money. They have no money to pay tuition and no money to buy writing materials. After the whole family and even the whole clan have worked hard to get their son to attend a private school in their own county, and after passing the exams to become a student and a scholar, they still don't have the money to go to Beijing to take the exams.

Hualei asked Ping'an, if he still stayed in his hometown, after he passed the examination for a scholar, would he have to raise money for the travel expenses to go to a higher-level provincial government to take the examination for a juren? Even if he passed the examination for a juren successfully in one go, would he have to raise money for the travel expenses to go to the capital? If everyone in your family is not well fed and clothed, no matter how much talent you have, you cannot go to the capital if you cannot raise money for the travel expenses.

Grandfather Hua was originally from the eastern part of Lingnan. He suffered a lot in order to take the imperial examination. The journey to Beijing, which was supposed to take more than three months, took Grandfather Hua more than three years. Along the way, in order to raise money, he did odd jobs for others during the busy farming season, and went to the dock to carry bags during the slack season. After earning enough money for the trip, he rushed to the next town. When he arrived at the next town, he repeated this process. He did odd jobs when he could, and even begged when he couldn't. It was only after three years that he arrived at the capital.

The reason why Grandfather Hua worked so hard was because the family had no money and could not afford three months' travel expenses to Beijing.

Now storybooks and picture albums can make money, and it is not shameful for bookstores to sell storybooks and picture albums, so why not sell them? Ping An was speechless after hearing this, and he acquiesced, but it can be seen that he still has resistance to storybooks and picture albums, so this time when going to the printing house to choose books, Hua Lei specially brought Xiao Qun with him, asking him to mainly choose storybooks and picture albums, and letting Ping An mainly choose books for the imperial examinations.

In the bookstore Hualei, the storybooks and picture albums were completely separated from the imperial examination books, one against the east wall and the other against the west wall. When selling, Xiaoqun was in charge of the storybooks and picture albums, and Ping'an was in charge of the imperial examinations.

Knowing people and assigning them to the right positions, Hualei felt that she had done a good job. She sorted the books that needed repairing and placed them on the wooden shelves. After a little tidying up, the repair room was finally less crowded.

Hua Lei looked at the sky and saw that it was almost time for dinner, so she went upstairs to change her clothes and came down. Xiao Yuan also came back from the academy, and everyone had dinner.

Ping'an was still guarding the bookstore in front. Now that the weather was getting warmer, students from nearby areas were no longer in a hurry to go home after school. Since the bookstore had put woodblock printed books on the shelves, many more people came to read. They would read for a while and buy some writing supplies in the bookstore before going home.

At the beginning, Brother Xiaoqun was very depressed. The bookstore was not big to begin with, and with a few people who just looked but did not buy, the shop became even more crowded, which sometimes affected people who really wanted to buy books.

Hualei smiled and asked Xile to move a few benches from the bun shop next door and put them on both sides of the shop. This way, it would not affect the business in the bookstore, nor would it affect people walking. Moreover, more students came here because of the kindness of the shop owner. The business of pens, inkstones, and paper also improved a lot.

After dinner, Xile, Xiaoqun, and Xiaoxiao went to the study room to read and revise books, while Xiaoyuan and Xiaofei did their homework. Aunt Fu started to mix the dough for the restaurant tomorrow morning. Uncle Fu continued to chop the meat that he had not finished in the afternoon. Aunt Song prepared various fillings. Recently, Hualei asked Aunt Song to reduce the amount of black flour buns and mixed flour buns and increase the amount of meat-filled steamed buns.

In the past two months, the restaurant's business has been stable every day. The reputation of the meat buns and meat wontons has been getting better and better among the neighbors, and more and more people are patronizing the restaurant. On the contrary, the sales of steamed buns are declining, especially the black-faced steamed buns and multi-grain steamed buns. If Uncle Fu hadn't insisted on selling these two kinds of steamed buns at the market, Hua Lei would not have wanted to make steamed buns.

The newly added Shaomai has just been sold for more than ten days. A basket of ten pieces costs thirty cents. The stuffing is fixed pure meat stuffing. In addition to the three fat and seven lean parts of pork, there is nothing else like bamboo shoots and mushrooms. The main feature is purity and fresh meat. It has been loved by many people as soon as it was launched. It is delicious when dipped in vinegar. The shopkeepers nearby used to like small wontons with two meat buns, but now they have changed to small wontons with a basket of Shaomai. Dozens of baskets are sold every day.

Mrs. Luo was taking care of Yaya while watching the red bean paste on the stove or doing some needlework. The vegetables for the vegetable dumplings had all been washed in the afternoon. Everyone in the courtyard was busy in an orderly manner.

As usual, Hualei also went into the study room, but today, no one was studying. They carefully spread out the papers they had received today, sorted them by subject, and then sorted them by year and place, their movements were careful and pious, fearing that a single copy of the paper would be ruined by a rustling sound.

Hua Lei was sorting the papers while thinking. The papers looked like a pile, but after sorting them out, she found that there were no more than ten papers for the same subject in the same year. The least was only one, and there were some years without any papers.

Moreover, most of them were questionnaires from Shangjing City. In today's society, it was similar to the world in his previous life. The papers in each province might be different, especially the county and prefectural examinations, which were based on the region they were in. There were not many provinces with national papers. However, the national papers were all unified now, that is, the papers for the joint examination and the palace examination.

Hualei looked at the examination papers and palace examination papers of last year in front of her and fell into deep thought. She might have a golden rooster in her hand, but how could she make it lay eggs? It was estimated that these engraved papers would not be reprinted. After all, it was unlikely that the same examination papers would appear in different years for students to take the exam. So it was impossible to sell them in large quantities. If they were sold directly, it would be like killing the goose to get the eggs, which seemed a bit regrettable.

If I had to copy the questionnaire manually and sell it myself, it would be a bit difficult. Although I could copy it, after all, even books were copied by hand outside the capital, but I was busy enough. How about copying the questionnaire? It would be a bit difficult. If I asked someone else to copy it, what if someone copied it and left a copy for me? Then I would give it to my classmates and friends, and then I would pass it on to ten people, ten people, and a hundred people. Then I would not have a golden rooster in my hand. Hualei thought hard for a long time but still couldn't find a way.

Seeing that it was getting late, everyone was asked to go and rest. In the next few days, Hualei continued to revise the books, thinking about the way out of those papers from time to time, but she never found anything.