Transmigrating to the Ming Dynasty’s Imperial Examination

bookstore and Cui Xie hadn’t completely forgiven him yet, only saying that he would address it after looking at the accounts at the end of the year.
As a result, he felt fear and trepidation from the bottom of his heart, the desire to work hard to make money was stronger than anyone else.
Seeing the expectant expressions of the artisans, he slapped his hands on the table, gritted his teeth and said, “You all wait, once Boss comes back, let me bring up this matter!”

 fear and trepidation (idiom): in reverence before your majesty/ruler

When Cui Xie came home in the evening, he first saw Shopkeeper Ji’s beaming expression, the man smiling from ear to ear.
Along with Shopkeeper Ji, there was a stack  of paper of all different dimensions, tbe portraits of the beauties printed on light yellow and light cyan drawing prints.
The big prints were horizontally printed, the paper thinner than an A4-sized paper.
Some prints had the portrait printed on the left side of the paper, some were on the right and some were in the middle; the small print was smaller than A5-sized paper, and it looked like a postcard after the portrait was printed onto it; there was also a normal embroidered picture printed on white mulberry paper.

When he looked at the sample drafts, Shopkeeper Ji rubbed his hands, standing beside him and patiently waited.
It wasn’t until Cui Xie set down the samples that a bright light began to shine in those old eyes and he asked with a taut smile, “What does the Boss think of these prints? This old man has already calculated the accounts, if we print a set of such prints, we do not need to print more——”

Shopkeeper Ji wagged his finger, “For a set of four prints, selling it for one or two taels of silver is not a problem! If you print a few more copies, the profit can be doubled.
Those outside who sell portraits of beauties do not have as good-looking characters.
If you print the portraits on high-quality paper, those cultured scholars and officials, I’m afraid they will all want to buy to add to their personal collections or gift it to others, one person can be sold several sets!”

Cui Xie slowly nodded, went to the study to find a brush, and on several of the prints, he wrote the newly learned poem, 《Min Yu Xiao Zi》

Min Yu Xiao Zi (闵予小子) was a poem in the Sacrificial Odes of Zhou in the Classic of Poetry.
It is when located in the Eulogies section and in the decade of Min You Xiao Zi.
This was an eulogy by which the Zhou King praised his ancestors and requested their blessings in return.

Here is a translation:

Alas for me, who am [as] a little child,

On whom has devolved the unsettled State!

Solitary am I and full of distress.

Oh! my great Father,

All thy life long, thou wast filial.

Thou didst think of my great grandfather,

[Seeing him, as it were,] ascending and descending in the court.

I, the little child,

Day and night will be so reverent.

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Oh! ye great kings,

As your successor, I will strive not to forget you.

The postcard did not have any space left to write characters on it, so he did not take pity and just wrote on top of the beauty, disdainfully said, “Blocked the brush.
The postcards are not easy to use, just print the large prints.
It is better if the character is printed on the left.
Don’t use black ink for the traces, use an ocher watermark instead.
The inscribed poem should be printed lighter and engrave a seal below—”

He thought about it, the poem belongs to someone else and he hadn’t printed these himself, so he simply used the name of the study, which could be regarded as an anti-theft seal: “Engrave a Zhirong Study seal about this big, and using small seal script will be fine.”

Small seal script ( 小篆, xiǎozhuàn): archaic form of Chinese calligraphy used for seals.

Shopkeeper Ji loudly answered and asked him in a hopeful tone, “When will the Boss draw more portraits of beautiful women?”

Today, the Boss had a few more homework assignments than usual, and momentarily, he had no free time to draw beautiful women, so he waved his hands and said, “No  need to rush at the moment.
No matter how good the prints are, the novel must be printed.
Tell the artisans to hurry and engrave the printing blocks, print out a dozen or more prints before the Chongyang Poetry Gathering and that should be fine.
As for the remaining, just take it easy.”

His painting skill had only touched the surface of the transcendental modern painting techniques and in truth, his training and knowledge of the fundamentals was sorely lacking.
If these sets of prints truly became popular, soon, there would soon be pirated copies of imitate portraits and it was possible that someone would soon develop another method of color drawing and printing.
At that time, there will be a new beauty to knock out this old one.

It was still necessary to rely on stories to support the characters, so that true and diehard fans would fork out the money.

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On the day of Chongyang in September, the academy had a school holiday.

Senior shixiong Yue Su, Luo Jin, Wang Si and the other seniors had long donned newly-made snow-white zhiduo and picked Cui Xie up in a carriage, heading over to the Shen Family Residence on the top of Solitary Hill to attend the Poetry Gathering.

Shixiong: senior male fellow student, apprentice/disciple; peers of the same generation often refer to this (male only)

Zhiduo (直裰): refers to two types of traditional robes wore by either the casual zhiduo worn by scholars or the priests zhiduo.
The casual zhidou was popular in the Yuan and Ming Dynasties, worn both by scholars, officials and commonors.
The features included: the bottom of the robe reached below the knee, overlapping collar, a through center back seam run down the robe, lateral slit on each lower side, and without a hem.

Cui Yuan had set up the carriage early, and stored Chongyang cakes, chrysanthemum wine, boxes of colorful pastries, beef jerky and water.
It was like a family outing, the preparations were comprehensive and pleasant.
Cui Xie held onto the box full of the newly made prints and put it in the carriage, letting Pengyan follow after him.

Yu shixiong commented, “The Shen family has its own servants to receive guests, you can just leave your old servant and child servant at home, just ride with us in our carriage.”

Cui Xie smiled and declined, “There is no one in my residence today, and it is not very interesting to just leave them at home.
If it is truly forbidden to bring others into the poetry gathering, I will just instruct the father and son duo to play in the mountains for a day.”

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Everyone else could attend the poetry gathering to broaden their perspective, but only Zhao Yinglin was strictly monitored under the gaze of his entire family.
He could only follow his father and grandfather to the temple to burn incense.
As he stood at the gate to bid farewell to his fellow schoolmates, that secretly bitter gaze fell onto Cui Xie’s face, nearly burning a hole in the other boy’s face.

Yue and Wang shixiong did not dare to look at him, and looked at Cui Xie secretly.
Cui Xie looked back at Zhao Yinglin calmly, cupped his hands in salutations and said, “Brother Yinglin, don’t worry, I will copy the poems and bring them back for you.”

He abruptly turned around and climbed into his own carriage.
Several of the seniors got into the big carriage of the Yue family.
The coachman drove his horse out of Qian’an county’s north gate, 

Crushing the waning grass and yellow flowers underneath the entire journey, heading towards the Solitary Hill located northeast of the city.

Outside, the autumn scenery possessed a scholarly and artistic air.
The young scholarly youth, Pengyan, lifted the curtain, leaning on the window’s edge to look at the scenery.
People like Cui Xie who had once clicked on the webpages to view all the different beautiful landscapes of the world were naturally not interested in these roadside deserted landscapes.
He closed his eyes and recited Han Yu’s 《Lamentations for Mr.
Ouyang》.

Han Yu: Tang dynasty essayist and poet, advocate of classical writing

《Lamentations for Mr.
Ouyang》: is from Han Yu’s collected works and is a piece written where he laments the passing of Mr.
Ouyang or Ouyang Zhan.
Han Yu claimed that Ouyang Zhan was the first scholar of national standing to emerge from the southeast.

Memorizing and memorizing, the carriage suddenly shook and a bright, cheerful and laughing voice came from the window, “Isn’t this the old servant from the Cui residence? Is your Young Master in the carriage? Stop for a moment, let me talk a few words with Brother Cui!”’

Penyan turned his head and said, “Da-ge, our carriage was stopped by someone.” He stretched out his head and looked out, frowning, “I don’t recognize the person.
He is wearing a crimson zhezi, riding a black like stained horse, not very neat or bright.

Zhezi or daopao: set ot taoist robes but are worn by men regardless of religious background.
It is a full-length, wide-sleeved robe with side slits beginning below the waits and a belt fastens around the waist.

Cui Yuan’s polite and nervous voice sounded outside, asking who that person was.
Yue shixiong in the carriage in the front brought out some scholarly arrogance and took out his status as a tongsheng as well as the Shen Residence’s gathering invitation, warning them that they could not offend them lightly.

Tongsheng: candidate who has passed county exams but not yet the college level exam

Cui Xie leaned over the carriage’s window and took a look outside.
The man outside had already beaten him to it and rode the horse to the outside of the carriage.
He beamed and said, “Little Brother Cui, I did not expect I would meet you here.
Initially I wanted to pick a pony to give to you a long time ago, but these days my father has been a bit fierce in disciplining me.
I haven’t been able to go out for quite some time and did not have any horses worthy of you.
To be able to meet here today, this is also our fate—”

The man glanced at his companion behind him and grinned, “My family has a villa just near here and there are some racing horses there.
Why don’t you come and ride with us, go hunting and have fun for a day? Wouldn’t it be better than having to attend the poem meeting with those sour scholars!”

Only then did Cui Xie recognize that the valiant and formidable-looking youth in front of him was that Official Wang Xiangzhen who had been beaten black and blue that day.
He could not help but feel the urge to laugh at the thought of his colorful face that day.
Cui Xie forcibly restrained himself, dismounted from the carriage, bowed to him and politely replied, “I have an appointment with the seniors and it is not good to cancel an appointment midway.
If Brother Wang is interested, let’s make another appointment in the future.”

Wang Xiangzhen immediately flipped off the horse to receive his bow and smiled happily, “If this is the case, then go first.
But, I will definitely visit your Fu in the future! Even if it is just for you helping this gege moving house, this gege must personally thank you——Just wait, I will look for you in two or so days after finding a good horse!”

Gege: older brother

府(fu): is a compound, house or mansion.