The daily life of a peasant girl taking the imperial examination

……

These past few days, Zhuge Yunshu has been oblivious to everything else, focusing solely on studying the classics.

Busy, extremely busy.

Apart from necessary meals, toilet breaks, and sleep, the rest of the time is spent reading, doing test questions, and copying books within the "Serving the Country and the People" system.

Even the important task of teaching the elders and siblings in the family to read and write was fully delegated to his third cousin, Zhuge Yunli.

They called it "consolidating their knowledge."

While Zhuge Yunshu was busy, the Zhuge family was also doing their own things in an orderly manner.

The morning after they decided to buy the ox, her father, Zhuge Laifu, along with her eldest uncle, Zhuge Lairong, and second uncle, Zhuge Laihua, went to town to buy an oxcart for the family.

Every day, the three brothers took turns driving the cart to take people to town. Of course, the situation was not optimistic, and just as Zhuge Yunshu had predicted, not everyone was willing to go to town every day.

Aside from market days, it's considered good if there are two people at other times.

Most of the time, he mainly collected eggs, fresh vegetables, and crops from other households in the village to sell in town.

It was from this point that the Zhuge family discovered her father, Zhuge Laifu's, business talent.

Others would pull their carts to town, sell their goods, and then return, but Zhuge Laifu was different.

Each time, he would bring back some daily necessities from the town that were not available in the village, such as oil, salt, soy sauce, vinegar, liquor, needles and thread, and some small items that women and children liked.

At first, the small amount of goods they bought were snapped up by the villagers. Later, they discovered the business opportunity and bought large quantities of goods to sell in several neighboring villages. At its peak, the business could bring in one or two taels of silver a day.

Because of this incident, Grandpa Zhuge held a family meeting. After a vote, Zhuge Laifu unanimously agreed that he would be in charge of running the sales business.

However, the prerequisite is that they must take turns teaching Zhuge Yunren and Zhuge Yunyi how to do this business.

Zhuge Laifu readily agreed; only a fool would refuse to have someone help with the work!

Therefore, Zhuge Laifu devoted all his energy to making money, and when he was bored, he would give pointers to his two nephews to pass the time.

In just three days, the Zhuge family underwent a dramatic transformation.

When Zhuge Yunshu stepped out of the house, he found that there was a simple general store in his front yard near the roadside.

Her mother, Madam Lin, was sitting inside chatting with her two aunts.

Upon seeing Zhuge Yunshu emerge, Madam Lin exclaimed, "Dahua, you've finished your studies! We've been too busy these past few days to disturb you."

"Look, how about that? Inspired by you, your dad not only brings in goods from town to sell in the village, but also opened a general store at home. In the past three days, the family has made quite a bit of money!"

Auntie immediately chimed in, "That's right, I never expected your father to be so good at making money, though he's not good at farm work."

"And your eldest cousin and third cousin, they went with your father to sell goods in the next village these past few days, and they both came back praising their third uncle for being so capable!" Second Aunt added with a smile.

"If you ask me, Da Hua is really amazing. If it weren't for her idea, our family wouldn't be living such a good life," said her mother, Madam Lin.

"Of course, the most impressive one is Da Hua. Without the money Da Hua earned from her studies, how could we have the money to buy cattle and go to town to buy goods?"

"Yes, yes, Da Hua is our family's lucky star."

Hearing the praise from his two aunts, Zhuge Yunshu looked embarrassed.

In fact, she knew very well that these ideas were just casual remarks; the most impressive one was her father, whose ability to implement them was too strong.

Take the family grocery store, for example. It wasn't her idea. Her father discovered the business opportunity of opening a small shop in the village to make a profit after a few days of market research.

Zhuge Yunshu couldn't help but admire her father's business acumen.

Unlike today, in ancient times, a village doesn't have many small shops.

She was certain that the general store in Zhuge Village was unique in this era.

Her father may have pioneered the concept of a small rural shop in ancient times.

Although she was very tired, she was happy to see her family members full of energy and enthusiasm for the future.

Zhuge Yunshu hopes that this wonderful situation can continue.

"Mom, Aunt, Second Aunt, you all go ahead with your work. I need to ask my cousins ​​for a favor."

After saying that, he walked straight towards the main hall of the courtyard.

Zhuge Yunshu stepped into the room and found her four cousins ​​embroidering.

Hearing the noise, the eldest cousin looked up and teased, "Big Flower, you've finished your seclusion."

As soon as he finished speaking, his cousins ​​burst into laughter.

Zhuge Yunshu was speechless; this was all the fault of his third cousin's big mouth.

She just casually mentioned it when handing over her work, and it was spread around by her third cousin.

This has led to the family members not daring to disturb her for the past few days.

"Cousins, I need your help with something, so please don't make fun of me," Zhuge Yunshu quickly begged for mercy.

"Alright, everyone stop laughing. It's rare for Da Hua to ask us for help, so tell us what it is." As the eldest sister in the family, the eldest cousin still holds a lot of prestige among her sisters.

"I've been copying some books these past few days, some for my family and some for the clan school. There are too many for me to carry by myself, so I asked you all to help me deliver them to the clan school," Zhuge Yunshu explained his purpose.

"Going to the clan school? I've never been in there before, let's go!" Fourth cousin said excitedly.

With the help of the four, Zhuge Yunshu and the others finally made it to the entrance of the clan school.

"Dahua, you copied all these books these past few days." The second cousin looked at each of them holding about twenty books and was shocked.

"Of course not. I copied more than twenty books in the past few days. The rest were written beforehand." In fact, she copied more than 100 books in the past few days, but she couldn't tell the truth.

After all, she had time to cheat; one day of hers was equivalent to 10 days for others.

"Twenty books? That's a lot! Big Flower, you're amazing!" Third Cousin said truthfully.

Lately, she has been reading with Da Hua and the others every night, knowing that it must be difficult to produce such a large amount of writing.

The group of five arrived smoothly outside Master Li's study, where he was leisurely drinking tea.

Because of their outstanding performance in the tribal cultural association, all of their participants were given a three-day holiday by the tribal association.

"A-Shu, what brings you here? Come in quickly." Master Li saw the group through the window and waved them over.

Zhuge Yunshu and her cousins ​​carried the books inside. The four cousins ​​greeted Master Li and then took their leave to wait outside.

"Master, these eighty books are test questions on relevant knowledge points summarized by your disciple based on the primers over the past month, as well as the sentence meaning analysis of each book and some of your disciple's insights and reflections. The remaining twenty books are mathematical content that your disciple has written in the past few days, hoping to be of some help to the clan's school," Zhuge Yunshu explained.

"Ah Shu, you've put your heart into this." Master Li's eyes stung as he looked at all the books.

Unexpectedly, this disciple was only thinking of his fellow disciples in the clan.

Especially these past few days, while they have all been leisurely resting, only Ashu is still working hard for the sake of everyone in the clan school.

Master Li was immediately filled with remorse.