Farmer girl swaps husbands: buys a sickly villain and pampers him

Chapter 179 Entering the Examination

As Su Yaoguang took out the food and drinks from the basket, she said, "Brother Zhong said you've been studying very hard lately. Did you not sleep well last night?"

"If someone who's not very bright doesn't work harder, how can they get good grades?" Zhou Wangshu lowered her head and sniffed. "Is this Mother's cooking? I haven't had this in a long time."

If we're talking about the best cooks, it has to be Zhang Pandi and her daughter. Even Jia Chunni's cooking skills are better than Zhang Zhaodi's, but Zhou Wangshu just loves Zhang Zhaodi and the things she makes the most.

Su Yaoguang understood that Zhou Wangshu wasn't after the taste, but rather the sentiment behind it. He never used words to describe his feelings, but his actions told them that saving this person was worthwhile.

Zhong Chushan pulled Chen Buyu away.

While Zhou Wangshu was eating, Su Yaoguang collected his dirty clothes.

"what are you doing?"

"Take it back and wash it."

"I can wash them myself." Zhou Wangshu snatched the dirty clothes back. "I'm a man, don't you have any shame?"

"You? A man?" Su Yaoguang looked Zhou Wangshu up and down, her expression of disdain very obvious.

"Why am I not..." Zhou Wangshu was about to argue when he saw what Su Yaoguang was holding. He hurriedly put down his chopsticks and reached out to snatch it, but failed.

He had witnessed Su Yaoguang's strength firsthand. Seeing Zhou Wangshu so nervous, Su Yaoguang, who hadn't been particularly curious initially, immediately grabbed the booklet and ran to a corner to open it, and then…

She glanced at it and quickly closed the booklet.

"You, you, you say you study hard, but is this the kind of book you read?"

Su Yaoguang shoved the booklet into his arms, grabbed his dirty clothes, and ran away.

Zhou Wangshu pressed on, explaining, "It's not mine, that's not mine..."

Chen Buyu always brought back random books; he knew what they were but had never read them. Now, he hadn't done anything wrong, yet he was being blamed for everything.

Zhou Wangshu angrily gnawed on a chicken leg, his cheeks puffed out as he ate. Su Yaoguang, who had already left, ran back, looked at him, and said awkwardly, "You're still young, take care of yourself."

"I told you that's not mine."

"Let me finish," Su Yaoguang said shyly, her cheeks flushed. "I only heard it from someone else. You're too young; it's easy to harm your health and damage your foundation. Don't ruin yourself."

After saying that, she really ran away this time.

Zhou Wangshu: “…”

Zhong Chushan and Chen Buyu returned half an hour later. They found the table and dirty clothes cleaned up, but there were some scraps of cloth on the bed, and they didn't know what they were.

"Why did you throw these shredded pieces of cloth on my bed?" Chen Buyu complained as she picked up the pieces. When she saw the illustrations on them, her eyes widened and her expression became agitated. "Hey, you surnamed Zhou, do you know how expensive this book is? Do you know how hard it is to buy? This is the most popular fire-avoidance illustration in the capital, and you actually destroyed it!"

“Oh, I saw it lying on my bed and thought I didn’t want it, so I cut it up,” Zhou Wangshu said coolly.

"Wangshu, could it be that Miss Yaoguang saw something and misunderstood something?" Zhong Chushan guessed what was going on based on Zhou Wangshu's expression.

Zhou Wangshu's face darkened: "What do you think?"

Zhong Chushan patted Chen Buyu on the shoulder and said, "You deserved to have this thing destroyed."

Chen Buyu didn't dare to speak either.

The sound of arguing came from across the street; it was faintly the voices of two women. Zhong Chushan, a keen spectator, stood at the window and watched, essentially giving the other two a live broadcast.

"Oh, the new bride surnamed Xiao also brought over some things at this time. She happened to see Sister-in-law Wen sitting on Xiao Ci's lap, so Jiang slapped Sister-in-law Wen. Xiao Ci was the peacemaker."

"To be fair, this Xiao fellow does have some talent, but the imperial examinations are just around the corner. Isn't he afraid of being distracted by these romantic entanglements?"

"Instead of worrying about him, you should worry about yourself," Chen Buyu said. "Your grandfather wants you to take the imperial examination. Does he have some misunderstanding about you or me?"

Chen Buyu and Zhong Chushan looked at Zhou Wangshu.

Originally, the two families' elders had accepted the fact that their descendants were useless, until recently when they met with Zhou Wangshu alone and then began to demand that they participate in the imperial examinations.

Zhong Chushan wasn't exaggerating when he told Su Yaoguang. Zhou Wangshu was indeed studying hard, and he even coerced them into studying and memorizing with him. Recently, he's even been dreaming about the Four Books and Five Classics.

When Zhang Zhaodi saw Su Yaoguang return carrying a bundle, her cheeks were flushed and her expression was somewhat strange.

"Did you and Wangshu have a fight?"

"No."

"Then why is your face so red?"

"I ran all the way back, I'm so hot." Su Yaoguang carried the bundle to the backyard.

“Daughter, the imperial examination is coming up soon. Don’t put too much pressure on Wangshu,” Zhang Zhaodi said. “We sent him to school to teach him principles, not to make him the top scholar.”

"Mother, are you my mother or Wangshu's mother? You always think of him first. Do you think I'm such an unreasonable person?" Su Yaoguang said. "Don't worry."

Taoyaofang is thriving, while Fenghuage is struggling.

The day for the official scientific expedition was fast approaching.

Zhang Zhaodi and the others dressed up carefully and escorted Zhou Wangshu into the examination hall.

Zhang Zhaodi instructed Zhou Wangshu to eat well, drink well, and sleep well; to do what he could, and to submit a blank paper if he couldn't; in short, to do whatever made him happy.

The parents of the test-takers, who were standing nearby reminding their children to take the questions seriously, were speechless.

Jiang Yihuan handed the freshly baked flatbread and nourishing soup to Xiao Yanci, speaking to him with deep affection and care.

Xiao Yanci gently told her not to worry about him.

All candidates had to have their belongings checked before entering the examination room. Su Yaoguang watched Zhou Wangshu enter smoothly and was about to leave when she heard Xiao Yanci's angry voice.

"This is a sesame seed cake, why is it prepared like this?"

"We need to check if there's a cheat sheet hidden inside the sesame seed cake," the officer in charge of inspection said gruffly. "Everyone's treated the same way, it's not just you. Why are you so nervous? Did you really hide something in the sesame seed cake?"

“I didn’t,” Xiao Yanci said angrily.

All the sesame seed cakes were crushed into crumbs. Putting aside how they could be eaten like that, just the fact that the sesame seed cakes had been handled by the guards made him feel nauseous and he had no appetite at all.

Besides the sesame seed cakes, even the nourishing soups had to be skimmed out, removing all the dregs and leaving only the broth.

Su Yaoguang had prepared things for Zhou Wangshu that she could have just glanced at and let go of without going through all this trouble. Seeing Xiao Yanci with his sesame cakes and oily soup, she felt a touch of schadenfreude.