Lu Yang watched how happy he was and thought ahead a little. They only had a few soup-recipe books left at home. He mentioned it to Xie Yan and even used his courtesy name: “Zhuo Zhi, do you want to take apart the chicken-soup books?”
Xie Yan was so shocked he couldn’t speak. He tried to thread the needle several times and still couldn’t get the tip through the eye.
Seeing this, Lu Yang laughed. “Why are you nervous? I’m just asking. I didn’t say you had to.”
Only then did Xie Yan nod. “Right… those books probably shouldn’t be taken apart.”
But Lu Yang wanted to watch how he did it. “I want to see which ones you like, which ones you don’t, and which ones you think are boring.”
Xie Yan kept quiet, threaded the needle, and went back to sorting the pages and the piles of notes.
The paper was all new. After flipping through everything again to confirm the order, he lined up the pages, followed the original holes with his needle to mark the spots, then made new holes and slowly started stitching.
Lu Yang hummed twice and quietly filed the matter away.
When they had time to sit and chat, they talked about visiting the general-goods shop.
They needed to replenish some daily necessities. Their tooth powder was gone. Before, Lu Yang brushed with twigs or chewed bark, but after marrying into the Xie family he switched to tooth powder and, once he got used to it, couldn’t go back. Twigs felt too stiff.
If they were going to buy tooth powder, they might as well buy a few new toothbrushes. When he first started using tooth powder, he brushed too hard and wore down the bristles quickly. Xie Yan had also brought a toothbrush to the academy and hadn’t brought it home. They needed more. His mother-in-law’s toothbrush probably needed replacing too.
Besides tooth powder, Lu Yang wanted to buy some soap pods. They were good for laundry and bathing.
Word was that lye soap cleaned even better, so he wanted to buy two bars—and if they had any scented ones, maybe try one of those.
Since Xie Yan studied at the private academy and had to interact with people daily, it helped to keep things neat and presentable. At least it made him look less easy to bully.
Then came the miscellaneous items: they were out of dried gourd sponges for scrubbing pots, and they needed another bamboo brush or two as backup.
They already had a ladder, but they needed a big feather duster.
At the moment they were using the small one from home, and it was far too flimsy to dust the shop properly.
They also needed to visit the paper-and-ink shop. Lu Yang wanted to buy Xie Yan a large inkstone so he wouldn’t have to carry his back and forth anymore.
Judging by how much paper he burned through in one sitting, they also needed three to five stacks of paper. Lu Yang planned to cut them down to book-sized sheets so Xie Yan could grab them whenever he needed.
People said good ink had a fragrance. Xie Yan hadn’t used high-quality ink in a long time. Lu Yang wanted to buy him a good ink stick. One stick lasted a long time, and he could pair it with his best brush when he practiced calligraphy.
Then there was the promise he’d made to his younger brothers—once they learned to write small characters, he would gift them a set of writing tools.
It had been two months since they started learning. Whether they could write yet or not, he was going to buy it for them anyway, as encouragement. Help them keep up their enthusiasm for learning.
Everything related to study was expensive. For beginners, Lu Yang planned to give them a durable inkstone, and the rest could be simpler items. He’d include a few big ledger books and a new abacus too, wishing them luck in business.
When Xie Yan finished listening, he said, “We don’t need to buy an inkstone. We can go to Wu Pingzhi and take two. He has a bunch in his study. He uses them twice and gets tired of them—he likes fussing with that stuff.”
Lu Yang hesitated. “Is that alright?”
Xie Yan nodded. “It’s fine. He can’t use them all. He even told me recently that seeing me use such plain paper and ink, with no frills, made him want to do the same, so he bought a whole pile of cheap supplies. But he’s used to the good stuff. The paper was too rough, the ink too thin; his brush wouldn’t glide. In the end he just gave everything to me.”
Lu Yang: “…”
He lowered his eyes, thinking, and suddenly remembered. When Xie Yan enrolled, he only brought a little paper and ink from home, saying he’d replenish it once he finished.
Now looking at the piles of draft pages on the table, Lu Yang sighed inwardly. He had underestimated how much paper Xie Yan went through. Wu Pingzhi had probably noticed ages ago.
So this had been his thoughtful way of supplying Xie Yan with materials.
Lu Yang explained all this to him. Xie Yan froze mid-stitch.
“Oh. I really am slow.”
He thought for a moment and suddenly wasn’t so sure Wu Pingzhi actually had extra inkstones. Inkstones were expensive—even the cheap ones cost several qian of silver. If they could save money, they should.
He said, “I’ll check in on him another day, see how his studies are going, and take a look at the inkstones while I’m there.”
But now that Lu Yang had money, he wanted Xie Yan to value his friendships. Hearing that, Xie Yan immediately shifted. “Then I won’t go look.”
There were still hours left in the afternoon. Once Xie Yan finished stitching the book, he moved on to his homework.
The academy work wasn’t too bad. Their batch of licentiates were preparing for this year’s examinations.
Tongsheng exams were held every two or three years. For licentiates, the annual exam and the qualifying exam were held around the same time as the county exams. Sometimes licentiates were tested first, sometimes the pupils. The exam formats were almost identical.
For the provincial qualifying exam, the education commissioner personally appeared. It was stricter than the county or prefectural tests. The exam date depended on when the commissioner arrived—usually a notice went up a month early.
Since the question styles hardly changed, Xie Yan found preparation easier.
He said to Lu Yang, “To me, the provincial exam is where the real imperial examination begins. They say the examinations are to select talent, but before the provincial exam, everything is extremely tricky. They pick sentences from the classics—sometimes the original line, but that’s actually the hardest to answer well. The simplest questions are the hardest to shine in. Sometimes they cut off the beginning or end of a passage, or splice two unrelated sentences together. Those two types feel about the same to me. After all these years, I’ve realized the exam is really testing agility—quick thinking, clever thinking. If your writing is passable, your rhymes consistent, and your format clean, you’ve got an eighty percent chance of passing.
“But in the provincial exam, they start testing things relevant to governing. The first paper is on the classics. The second paper has judgments, edicts, proclamations, or memorials—pick one. They test whether a student has clear logic and whether he’s suited for office. There are tricks to answering these. Officials tend to speak the same way…”
At that point the shop was empty, but Lu Yang still clamped a hand over his mouth.
“A-Yan, don’t say that out loud.”
Xie Yan blinked and nodded. Lu Yang let go, and he trimmed the topic down a bit.
With the sensitive parts removed, Xie Yan moved on to the third question: “The third paper is policy writing. Even in the palace exam, it’s policy writing—the emperor asks, the student answers. The provincial exam has policy questions, the metropolitan exam—what we call the spring examination—also has them. And the final palace exam is still policy writing.”
The higher the exam level, the less tricky the questions became. Instead, they focused more on a candidate’s principles and suitability for government.
In the classics papers, they tested a student’s thought more than his stylistic skill.
Lu Yang grew uneasy while listening. He felt Xie Yan wasn’t cut out for office—his mind was too straightforward, his heart too soft, not calculating, not ruthless.
Xie Yan seemed to notice his worry and smiled. “The court needs scholars too. I talked with Wu Pingzhi. He told me many top scholars through history got stuck in the Hanlin Academy with no place to use their ambition. I think that sounds perfect. I’d like it. I could read all day, there’s no real profit to fight over, less scheming… and if they let me take books apart, even better.”
Then he sighed. “But Teacher Mei says there are many powerful scholars out there. I don’t know where I’ll rank once I go beyond the county.”
Getting into the Hanlin Academy wasn’t easy.
After saying that, he added, as if reassuring him, “Actually, I’m pretty smart. Back when you handled things in the village, you nudged me a bit and I could follow your train of thought and come up with solutions. Now that I’ve been through that once, I know where my weaknesses are. Before next year, I’ll work hard and dig deep. I won’t aim too high, but I’ll definitely pass the provincial exam.”
Lu Yang didn’t understand the imperial exams, but he affirmed him first, then praised him. After running through everything in his head, he had a general grasp.
The further up you went, the harder it became. Policy essays, edicts, judgments—none of it came from the Four Books and Five Classics. Such texts weren’t easy to find; the articles were rare and difficult to study.
Lu Yang thought it over. He could partner with Boss Jin, give him a better profit margin if needed, but have him source more books and essays.
