Jing Xingzhi’s Daily Life in Ancient Times - Chapter 100

The shopkeeper of the teahouse was very smart and had a good memory. He glanced at the list and immediately ran to the private room on the second floor.

After knocking on the door, the teahouse shopkeeper asked, “Is Mr. Jing Xingzhi in there? This old man is the teahouse shopkeeper!”

“What’s wrong?” Jing Xingzhi, holding the baby and playing in circles, opened the door after hearing this.

The shopkeeper’s old face smiled like a flower: “Congratulations, sir! I’m glad to see you ranked first in the competition! I was looking forward to meeting you!”

Jing Xingzhi glanced back and saw his name on the red list.

He had just been chatting with Liu Fang and hadn’t noticed that the top twenty list had been posted.

Jing Xingzhi raised his eyebrows at Liu Fang and curled his lips into a smile, feeling particularly evil, domineering, and charming.

Then, Jing Xingzhi turned around and said politely to the shopkeeper, “Thank you! I’m so happy. I thought it was no good. I didn’t even hear my name mentioned for a long time.”

“Young master, you are humble. Thanks to your happiness, the shop will give you a free order today! I wonder if I can keep a copy of your calligraphy, just as a souvenir.” The shopkeeper rubbed his hands with a longing look in his eyes.

The shopkeeper thought, as Mr. Jing directly won first place, he would change the plaque for his teahouse and call it “The First Prize Tea House”!

To be convenient for others to find a blessing.

The shopkeeper sent someone to get a pen and ink, and he got the number one’s calligraphy for free. Then, like a bee that smelled the sweetness, he buzzed over to announce the good news.

Jing Xingzhi received the good news and was forced to take out his day’s pocket money.

After sending off the shopkeeper, other people also came over. Jing Xingzhi saw how many people there were, so he quickly hugged his son, grabbed his wife, and ran away.

He slipped out of the teahouse and met Wang Zhuang and Shu Niang, who came to rescue him on the way. He finally escaped from Gongyuan street and returned home safely.

When he got home, it was a celebration.

Brother Mingrui was so happy that he came back drunk and wanted to have a drinking contest with Jing Xingzhi.

Wu Mingrui held the wine glass crookedly in his hand: “Xingzhi, thank you for encouraging me! Otherwise…otherwise I wouldn’t be at the forefront even if I passed!”

Jing Xingzhi patted him on the shoulder: “It’s the result of your own efforts, I don’t have any credit.”

But Wu Mingrui was very stubborn: “No, the first credit is yours! Thank you so much. From now on…”

Before he could finish this sentence, the drunken Wu Mingrui couldn’t hold on, laying on the table and snoring as he fell asleep.

Wang Zhuang helped Wu Mingrui go to bed and heard Wu Mingrui whispering softly on the way.

“I raised her up… Yaojun… I passed the exam!”

Wang Zhuang didn’t understand either. After seeing Wu Mingrui off, he had been ready to go back home and happily hug his little wife.

Unexpectedly, when he returned to the room, his little wife was holding a baby and playing with it happily.

Wang Zhuang asked, “Why is little Ah Deng here?”

“Hey, I heard from the old people…” Shu Niang blushed and said slowly, “It’s easier to conceive a baby when you sleep with one.”

When Wang Zhuang heard this, he immediately understood.

He thought to himself: ‘This isn’t asking us to have a baby as soon as possible, it’s clearly delaying us!’

But seeing that his little wife liked it, Wang Zhuang acquiesced and let the milky little Ah Deng sleep with them.

After all, the small baby was much cuter than his father, unlike his father, who had so many thoughts.

In another place, Jing Xingzhi, who had placed the little Ah Deng away, entered the large bathhouse where Liu Fang was taking a bath.

‘If you entered the same pool, how could you not drink the broth?’

Jing Xingzhi drank the broth and was happier than taking first place.

After all, that first place was something he had worked hard for so long to achieve. It was like an old cow’s effort, the result of exhaustion.

‘As for drinking broth, if you hadn’t tasted meat for a long time, it wasn’t a bad taste. Eat meat, and you’d know its taste.’

.

The next day, it was early in the morning.

While Jing Xingzhi was sleeping with Xiao Fangfang in his arms, the official report from the capital in mid-April came out.

There were a few large characters in the letter, which were impressive.

——[Everyone should have a number, don’t learn from Jing Xingzhi].

The title was still obviously derogatory. Once the official report came out, who could resist buying it?

Scholars who got up early, officials who went to court in the early hours, and literate common people all bought this official newspaper!

But after buying it, everyone opened it and laughed and cursed Su Mingyuan, who wrote the article.

This Su Mingyuan was very bad and a headline-grabber!

The title of the article said that the number one wasn’t good, but in his article, he was bragging about it.

After laughing and scolding, Jing Xingzhi completely became famous.

In the past, there had been a widely circulated saying about “One Day Master”. The examination had just passed, so everyone discussed it.

But after the limelight of the general examination, only those candidates in the same class remembered this “one-day master”.

Unexpectedly, today, that “one-day master” was exposed, and he turned out to be our first place.

No one could put these two characters together. Unless they were Hao Youcai, they would be angry that someone left the show early, and they still had to go to their house for dinner to know Jing Xingzhi’s name.

Two completely unrelated characters were a bit scary when put together.

Everyone thought he was a man of one day who was just trying to hype up his reputation. Although they didn’t know why the name had not been publicized, they thought it was a hype error and were still joking secretly.

Who could know that this wasn’t a hype, but that he really finished the exam papers in one day and left the venue calmly. And it was like this in three sessions.

Su Mingyuan said in the article: [You, future students should not imitate Jing Xingzhi. You must have a correct judgment of your own strength, when you have finished the test papers, and when you will leave. Don’t pursue glory for the sake of fame.]

In other words: ‘Don’t gain strength and don’t learn blindly. Only someone as powerful as Jing Xingzhi could do this.’

Su Mingyuan had stayed up late to write the article. When he inquired about it the next day, he found that the article he had written was indeed a hit, and the weight of the official newspapers sold increased dramatically.

The old man touched his chin and wrote to Fang Qichen gruffly: [An article written by me is almost expensive in Beijing.]

Then Jing Xingzhi woke up and found that he was still thinking about what to do to be naturally famous, and someone helped him.

It was like if he wanted to eat meat, delicious fried chicken would fall from the sky for him. This kind of treatment was so good that it didn’t matter.

When he inquired about it, he found that the person who made him famous by writing articles was still the current superintendent.

Did the new cheap teacher see through his desire to be famous and deliberately help him to gain fame?

While Jing Xingzhi was feeding little Ah Deng, he was thinking about the intentions of the Superintendent Su Mingyuan.

Until the day of the palace examination.

Jing Xingzhi saw the living Superintendent Su Mingyuan and suddenly realized—he had seen this old man before!

No wonder the cheap teacher would help. It turned out to be an old man who had been impressed by his “self-confidence” for a long time.

Therefore, our first place was still the most powerful!

‘If you were generally good, you just read more. Read more, and you would look great when you looked back in the past.’

Note

Some people might get confused. Usually, the scholar goes through three steps of hierarchy;

1. Local exam to pass as scholar, they will win the title Xiucai
2. Provincial examination, title Juren
3. Imperial examination, to win the title Jinshi. Before entering the imperial examination, they still will be selected by the so-called general examination.

I hope this will help^^