Transmigrating to the Ming Dynasty’s Imperial Examination

Now that Shopkeeper Ji had thousands of taels in hand, when doing things, he finally dared to loosen his hands and feet, recruiting five to six temporary artisans to engrave the text plates.
Several of the originally contracted artisans had received their overtime pay and bonuses.
This caused them to enthusiastically start working overtime voluntarily, while all still in great spirits.
Bringing their sons and disciples, they worked overtime to engrave, coloring and printing all in the small workshop in the Cui Residence’s rear courtyards.

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By late October, this long-awaited love story of four different characters, including immortals, demons and magic, was at long last printed.

The manuscript was an assembled work, composed of short stories written by four different authors.
Each story had its own title, but there was no title for the entire collection.
Cui Xie named it the《Integrated Fragrant Diaries》and ordered it in the sequence of gods, immortals, demons and ghosts; these four seemingly unrelated stories became an integral whole.

The novel was made into a hardcover edition, the cover wrapped in white damask fabric and the corners of the book were wrapped in red silk.
The three big characters 《Integrated Fragrant Diaries》on the cover of the book were written by Tang Ning and the cinnabar seal of the Zhirong Study was printed underneath the words. 

In the inner panel of the book, Zhirong Study’s address had been printed onto a card.
And inevitably, according to custom, it was engraved with the warning: “Cui Clan’s Produced Goods.
If nonpermissible engravings are made, it will be investigated for thousands of miles.”

Each author of the four short stories compiled into the book had one page of introduction each, and on the reverse side of every page, there was a mogu style flower colorfully printed in full bloom.

Mogu style- is a painting skill or technique in Chinese traditional painting literally meaning ‘boneless’.
It is defined by ink and color washes rather than by outlines.

The goddess corresponded to the peony, the female immortal corresponded to the orchid, the female fox demon corresponded to the white chrysanthemum and the female ghost corresponded to the tanhua.
The flower stamen directly faced the center of the page, spitting out inky sheets of clouds twining up the vertically printed black frames.
Inside each individual frame, two cinnabar words: “Goddess Product”, “Immortal Product”, “Outstanding Product” and “Underworld Product”.

Tanhua: queen of the night flower

For each of the four short stories, there were two single-paged colored pictures of the heroine, two across-the-page spreads that matched together to create one picture——and finally it was topped off with a  portrait that included the male lead——the page substantially colored.
There were no male characters in the hard disk that he had found that he was especially satisfied with and without any better option he used his black hands and extended them towards the wuxia and xianxia dramas he had watched in previous years, picking four characters that could be regarded as male Adonises and selected them for the painting. 

Black hands: agent who manipulates from behind the scenes 

Wuxia: a genre of Chinese fiction or cinema featuring warriors of ancient China, often depicted as capable of superhuman feats of martial arts

Xianxia: genre of Chinese fantasy influenced by Chinese mythology, Taoism, Buddhism, Chinese martial arts, Chinese medicine, Chinese folk religion and other traditional Chinese elements; often features cultivation towards immortality

At the end of each short story, there were also the poems and commentaries written by Tang Ning and the other talents..
They were all printed in a blue color, in an ink color different from the text.
Altogether, a total of 30,000 characters had been packed into the novel, with a several thousand being the different commentaries.
Lastly, a total of twenty embroidered-like colored images also made it into the final version.
Additionally, the calligraphic style appeared to look substantial and sturdy, living up to the elaborately packaged hardcover carapace and book box.

There were stories, there were commentaries and there were even doujin.
Each book box also came with a randomly picked cross-page spread colored portrait of one of the four heroines.
However, because Wan Ning’s drawing prints had been printed the earliest, showcased the earliest and sold the most hence far, fearing that the it would not look fresh enough to the readers, Cui Xie instructed the artisans to reduce the printing by a third for Wan Ning’s stock.

Doujin (Chinese pinyin: tongren): this is a Japanese term for a group of people who share an interest, activity or hobby.
It also is commonly referred to as self-published creative works produced by these groups including manga, magazines, novels, music, anime and videogames.
Basically, Tang Ning and the rest of the talents made doujin or creative works in regards to an official canon story.
It is similar to the concept of fanfiction writers.

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The first batch of books was printed and finished on October 22.

The next morning, in Qian’an city’s most populated and crowded four-way-street where streams of people flowed through the roads, a tall wooden rack was erected.
Stretched taut on it was a hanging scroll with a portrait of a beauty on it, the scroll spanning three feet wide and was about the same height as the average beauty, resembling a real person.
Next to the scroll, a separate piece of paper lined with raw white damask silk was tied onto the frames.
On it, it said, “On October 25th, four beauties respectfully await customers and merchants from all eight cardinal directions at the Zhirong Study located in this city, to peruse through the 《Integrated Fragrant Diaries》together”; On the side, a small line of words wrote, “delicately and exquisitely packaged box set, each box will include a free large portrait spread.
Price is three silver taels and nine coins.”

On the 24th, the suspended lifelike scroll was shifted to the street the county yamen was located on, resting in all the streets within the vicinity.
It was then moved to the front of the high-ranking residence of the Military Officer, who was in charge of the garrison troops and then to the west of the city where the wealthy families resided, showcased for the whole day; early on the morning on the 25th, it was finally moved to be showcased in front of the Zhirong Study.

The drawing prints of these four heroines had been sold a lot, but portraits of this size were rarely seen.

Generally, scrolls hung in the main halls were rarely of this size, and not to mention the entire figure had been painted on, so it was just like a breathing and living beautiful woman was standing right there in front of you.
The four exhibited scrolls that were suspended on the racks had been encircled by people so that not one drop could trickle through.
As for the passersby, irrespective of whether it was the official government militia, commoners, or even idle married women, they would have to pause and view the scrolls for a spell.
Others even threw down their money on the spot and insisted on buying the scrolls to take them away.

Not one drop could trickle through (idiom): impenetrable crowd/traffic.

But, the merchant clerks who kept watch on the racks were not your ordinary workers, but rather the experienced stewards who came from one of the commanders under Wang da-ren’s jurisdiction.
The Right Garrison Commander of Xingzhou was a third-rank military official, a figure of high status, and all the servants employed at their residence were surplus brave militia.
And finally, the four displayed racks were safely protected.

Da-ren: honorific to call someone of higher authority/rank; literally means “bigger person”

When it was finally the 25th, before the sky had even turned light, there were already long queues of manservants and women servants lined up in front of the study, waiting hastily to buy the new books.

Five servants hired to keep guard from the Wang Residence overlooked the entire scene as if they were in knee-deep in enemy territory, guarding the wall scrolls hanging on the decorative racks; Shopkeeper Ji took Clerk Ji and two newly hired clerks in addition to the accountant to wait in the study, nervously waiting until the moment of opening; a few idle engravers took their sons with them and prepared to move the goods stored in the inventory located on the second floor; Cui Yuan hired a few temporary workers and old pozi that remained camped outside to maintain order.
In case anything were to go wrong, they were to immediately search for the yamen runners so they could call the shots.

Pozi: similar to mama, it refers to old female servants, but these servants usually do low-level labor.
However, mama is a higher rank than pozi.
The former usually has a respected rank with the mistress they serve while the latter is more of a servant that does low-level labor not really done by servants/maids closest to the mistress they serve

yamen: administrative government office of a local bureaucrat/official

At the end of the chenshi and at the beginning of sishi, Zhirong Study timely opened the store on schedule.
A crowd of people rushed in and the store became so packed that the clerk who had opened the store had no place to settle down.
They knocked against the front desk, the counter faintly swaying as the crowd clamored, “I want a copy of the 《Integrated Fragrant Diaries》 , hurry up and ring up my silver first!”

Chenshi: 5th Earthly Branch; 7-9 am

Sishi: 6th Earthly Branch, 9-11 am

These are the terms traditional China used to keep track of the time.
There were 10 heavenly stems and 12 earthly branches.
This system used two standards to measure time in a solar day.
Times during daylight were measured in the Shí-kè standard, and at night were measured using the Gēng-diǎn standard (Wikipedia).

 “My family’s silver has already been cut up well, exactly four silver taels.
As for the extra, you can just consider it as a tip, sell them to me first!”

“My family’s Young Master wants ten sets, here are four gold and silver ingots.
Is it possible to also include a free set of the Cui Beauty paper?”

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“I am here to buy the Cui Beauty paper, I do not want books, let me go first!”

Inside and out of the study, customers were so compacted and squeezed against each other so that not one drop could trickle through.
Furthermore, there were many idlers who did not purchase anything, instead wandering near the roadside to look at the beauty portraits displayed.The street’s xiangyue and lizheng administrators turned up uninvited, staring nervously at the side of the road, fearing that with so many people squeezing against each other, something would happen.

These two terms refer to two local administrative/governance institutions set up in areas below the county level.
Every 100 households is defined as “Li” and every 5 “Li” was defined as a Xiang.
The administrator of Xiang is called Xiang Yue and the administrator of Li is called Li Zheng.
The Ming Dynasty used systems inherited in the Song and Yuan Dynasties, the Xiang Yue, She Xue and She Cang system.

Lizheng: administrator of 100 households

Xiangyue: administrator of 5 “Li”

Cui Yuan had long rehearsed this kind of situation multiple times, hurriedly instructing the temporary workers and pozi to separate the customers and tell them to line up in order to prevent someone from deliberately taking advantage of them while rubbing by.
This was also to prevent thieves from stealing anything.
Pengyan kept an eye on those servants that had been dispatched by influential families to place an order.
Once they arrived, he would take them aside and invite them to sit in a nearby teahouse and called Clerk Fang to entertain the guests in order to avoid the scenario where these people would wield their family’s identity to chase away the common and ordinary customers in the store.

People inside and out the study room were all so busy that they hated that they could not just sprout three heads and six arms.
Cui Xie, the one who plotted this entire event from behind and deployed these waves of troops to wage war, did not even pay much attention to these sales.
He had gotten up early and went to the Wang Residence’s racetrack to practice riding horses.

Three heads and six arms (idiom): to possess remarkable abilities and do many things at once

Wang Xiangzhen seldom awoke early and he had even wanted to go take a look at the study’s sales and general state of affairs, but after hearing a family servant saying Cui Xie was at his own residence’s racetrack, he simply went to see Cui Xie first.

Catching sight of Cui Xie’s focused and dedicated state of mind and his concentrated appearance as he rode the horse, Young Master Wang could not help but feel a bit anxious for him, stopping him and holding the reins to say, “I say, even the Emperor does not rush the eunuch. Ge-ge did not even get to sleep much today, and woke up early to look after the shop for you.
How are you riding a horse so unhurriedly and calmly?”

Gege: older brother

Cui Xie flipped over, jumping off the horse neatly and then stroked the horse’s neck.
Smilingly, he said, “On account of Brother Wang’s worries, I can ride a horse here leisurely.
For the past two days, many thanks to Brother Wang for lending me people to guard the painting, otherwise, they would have been forcefully bought off and I would not be able to paint new ones for quite a while.”

Wang Xiangzhen raised his chin in pride, “They weren’t given for you to freely use, later, you will sell these four scrolls to this ge-ge.”

Cii Xie replied, “This is a given.
If there are any dirty or damaged places inflicted on the portraits from hanging outside, I will draw you some more portraits.”

Young Master Wang grinned, “With these words, I am even a bit hopeful that they will get dirty instead.
Truly miscalculated, if I had known earlier than I wouldn’t have asked them to protect them so diligently, so I can easily swindle you two more new portraits.”

He cackled for a while and then pulled Cui Xie into the room, reminding in a low voice, “Later, take out some of the portraits and inscribe a few lines on it, in addition to a signature and a seal.
My father wants to give these beauty portraits to some high officials and I see that you have a style of your own.
It is hard to say whether those up top will truly appreciate them either.
If by providential good luck, and it theoretically receives a tongzhi daren’s favor, maybe your paintings will rise to fame in the capital.”

Tongzhi: otherwise known as Vice-Commissioners (rank 2b) of the five Branch Regional Military Commissions under the bigger umbrella of the Five Chief Military Commissions that supervised professional military affairs with the Ministry of War.

Daren: honorific used to refer someone of higher rank/authority, literally means “bigger person”

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 …..just look at Young Master Wang’s words, what “hard to say” and “providential good luck”? If he had so little confidence in his paintings, then why would he still want his father to offer it to his superiors? Do you think your boss will use this portrait as a body pillow or a doll?

Wang Xiangzhen felt that Cui Xie’s paintings were merely superior because of the gorgeous facial features that were distinctly lifelike.
The background and clothing were very exquisite but this degree of fineness seemed slightly feeble.
The artistic conception was also insufficient and not far-reaching enough, making it difficult to enter the eyes of the da-ren in the Imperial court.
But, these words were rather hurtful, so he stopped mentioning the matter and changed the subject, “Just a few days ago, you gave me that order of one hundred sets of books.
Why is there only one portrait included in each individual set? I opened up the boxes in sequence and it took several boxes until I could finally pool together the entire whole and complete set of the four beauty portraits.
If I even slightly bought any less, one would not be able to collect them all together!”

Ah, youngster, you only just found the catch ah?

Cui Xie faintly smiled without saying another word.
After drinking a few sips of tea, he comforted, “Later, I am still giving you those big scrolls, no need to care about those small portraits.
If your brothers and fellows still want it, just use the surplus to exchange with each other, can’t you still exchange and form a complete set that way?”

Young Master Wang, the son of a third-rank commander, naturally did not pay attention to the fact that one had to spend four silver taels for one book.
Once he collected all the bits to make a whole set of the beauty portraits, he hadn’t thought any further.
Waving his hands, he said, “Forget it, the remaining will be used as gifts anyways, I’ll just tell them to exchange the pictures themselves.
As for your shop, I will not concern myself with it anymore.
If you are not even anxious, then what am I being anxious for?”

Cui Xie downed a cup of tea at Wang Xiangzhen’s residence, ate two pieces of flaky pastries with fruit filling and then got up to say his farewells.
He promptly went home and carried fifty sets of the books to go to the academy.

Upon seeing the delicately and exquisite box packaging, recalling the price, Teacher Lin felt a bit embarrassed to accept so many of them.
Cui Xie pushed the books over and sincerely stated, “Without Teacher’s help, where could I have found such a good book to print? This book was able to be manufactured and produced and it is all thanks to Teacher’s fortunate assistance.
Besides, these books are not all to be bestowed to Teacher alone, included are the well-deserved sets for the four authors in the capital as well.”

Teacher Lin had no choice but to chortle and on account of Cui Xie’s newly released book, he inquired, “Will you be going to the store today to watch over it? If you only ask for one day off, I can reluctantly agree, but the homework that should be handed in tomorrow will still need to be handed in.”

Cui Xie calmly refused, “Teacher Lin must be joking.
Disciple is but a youngster who is just a bit more than ten years old.
What is the use of going to the store? Those merchant business affairs are not something scholars of my generation should be managing.
The only desire in this disciple’s mind is to study for the imperial examinations.”

After hearing this, Teacher Lin felt as if his tensed body had been ironed out smoothly.
When he saw the portraits of the beautiful women on the street a few days ago, he was worried that Cui Xie would be blinded by wealth and not attend to his proper duties.
The thoughts of Cui Xie indulging merchants, painting and other minor worries entirely thawed away like winter snow in spring.

Now that his heart had relaxed, the corners of his mouth hidden within the depths of his beard also slightly crooked up.
He waved his hands and said, “Go down and review 《The Eulogies of Lu》.
In a while I will inspect whether you have remembered the classics and are truly familiar with them.”

The Eulogies of Lu is in the Classic of Poetry that is part of the Five Classics compiled by Confucious and tested in the Imperial examinations.

Cui Xie returned to his seat, still memorizing and writing as usual for the day.
Then, after hearing Teacher Lin’s private lecture on 《The Annotations of the Classic of Poetry》, he received three topics: “The Master said, “We are not known.” , “United and rectified the whole kingdom”, and “Censuring the monarch on what is good and repressing his severities may be called showing reverence for him.” These three topics, from the poti to the ruti, he finished all the portions that needed to be finished formally when leading up to the main discussion, the “before the topic” parts.

*Poti or “breaking open the topic’ is the opening of the eight-legged essay in which two sentences of prose are written that function as broaching the topic and demonstrating the test-taker’s knowledge about the title/prompt and its source.
It is a writing style in which the main subject is approached directly from the outset.
I will be using poti and the phrase “breaking the topic” interchangeably since either versions fit better in certain contexts than the other.

Ruti: several phrases in prose merging into the discussion/main body of text

Today was the debut of the 《Integrated Fragrant Diaries》published by his family and the youngsters in the academy all loved reading.
The tongsheng who wanted to buy the books were all impatiently sitting restlessly studying.
He, as the author of the book, was sitting steadily and the books that he memorized were free of errors and omissions, and the articles he wrote were also very stable and there were even some remarkable points made that were worthy of praise….

Tongsheng (童生, lit.
“child student”), an entry-level examinee who had passed the county/prefecture exams but not the college exams

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Now this was a real scholar, after entering the exam room, one is bound to steadily and stably display and employ all the knowledge contained in their person.

Teacher Lin took the homework and looked over the papers repeatedly, smiling with satisfaction.  Holding down Cui Xie’s draft papers against the desk, he tapped them with his fingertips a few times, “I’ll let you relax for one night tonight.
Tomorrow, you will learn antithetical couplets with me tomorrow.”

Teacher Lin did not have predestined affinity himself in the Imperial examinations.
If he could cultivate a student into a first-rank imperial examinee, this life could be considered to not have been in vain.

As Teacher Lin walked away with satisfaction, Cui Xie was puzzled by the mention of “antithetical couplets”——weren’t antithetical couplets assigned as homework for the mengxue students?

Mengxue: elementary learning in traditional China.
During the Han period, it became common for children of the higher classes to obtain education at the age of eight.
In preparation for school, they start learning Chinese characters, how to read, how to write, and learning the smaller arts.
The schools then allowed them to learn the bigger arts and classics.
As a result, traditional Chinese classics did not include a section for elementary learning and books for this purpose were either totally neglected in compilation of catalogues or included in other sections.

Those other three elementary school students who had come to get themselves out of the state of ignorance* only made antithetical couplets all day.
He had long memorized the copy of 《Ancient Times Couplet Categories》and it was more or less enough.
Then did Teacher Lin want him to memorize the majority of those encyclopedia volumes?

Ancient Times Couplet Categories: a classic that lists antithetical couplets collected since ancient times

*”state of ignorance” is literally referring to what the mengxue (enlightenment) scholars is.

Cui Xie wanted to find someone to ask just what the reason behind this was, but today was different from the past.
Right after the academy left, his schoolmates ran home as if they were being chased by dogs from behind.
Finally, Zhao Yinglin did not plan on running by himself, and dragged Cui Xie along with him.
As they ran, Cui Xie asked, “What is going on here? Shixiong is no longer following a scholar’s proper decorum?”

Zhao Yinglin directed a strange glance at him, “Today is the day your family’s book launched.
Everyone pooled money to find someone to buy a book, didn’t they all rush home to read it? Why does it seem like you had no idea?”

With this one-lined inquiry, Cui Xie was dumbstruck and unable to reply.

He knew all too well just how well the book was written, and the illustrations in it had all been drawn by him, so he did not have much interest in the book himself.
Temporarily, he had not expected his schoolmates to like it to that point.

However, Zhao Yinglin’s whole heart had been occupied by those four beautiful women.
He no longer cared what his little next-door neighbor and fellow student was thinking,and when he passed by his own residence, he quickly yelled to his family’s servants, “I am going to Cui shixiong’s residence to study!” and dragged him into the Cui Residence.

Shixiong: big brother disciple/senior/older brother (man).
This is usually used by peers to refer to their classmates, members of the same sect/school etc, otherwise it is used to call someone senior to yourself.

Entering the gate, once they got out of the Zhao family servant’s range of hearing, Zhao Yinglin hurriedly asked, “You must have the new book in your residence right, give me one! I have already endured it for several days and did not ask you for it.
I finally waited until the day it went on sale.” He flurrily fished out four taels of silver from his waist’s inner lining and stuffed it into Cui Xie’s hands, whispering: “Do you have a cover for the Four Books, Five Classics, etc? When I go back, stick the covers onto the set, don’t let my parents see any weak points!”

Sure enough, from the ancient primary school students to the modern students in the present, they all used this trick when studying!

Just as Cui Xie was secretly chuckling, Pengyan hurriedly dashed over from one of the rooms, his small face stretched taut as if he was about to cry, but one did not know whether it was from joy or sorrow.
Sweating profusely, he threw himself in front of Cui Xie and said, “Da-ge, our books are all out of stock.
We prepared for an entire day’s goods, and they were sold out by the afternoon.
Shopkeeper Ji and the rest are all waiting for you in the room!”

Cui Xie heard his own heart “doo doom doo doom” thumping against his chest and the undisturbed, serene mood he had been in for the whole day was immediately flipped upside down and devoured, the upsurging waves of a perilous situation crashing into his mind.
He did not even know whether he was laughing or crying.
Everything from the outside world could not be processed by his brain, and he only heard his own voice, as if it was still very calm, saying, “You take Zhao shixiong into my study, find him a set of the 《Integrated Fragrant Diaries》to give him, and help me entertain the guests.
Once I talk with Shopkeeper Ji, I will head over to take a look.”