Transmigrated into a Stepmother of Male Lead and Teaching My Lazy Son how to Study
Transmigrated into a Stepmother of Male Lead and Teaching My Lazy Son how to Study Chapter 178

Chapter 178

When Shen Cui and Mu Er Pang returned to Scholar’s Lane, Lao Buyu had already led the young men to finish their dinner.

“Just a moment ago, they were insisting on waiting for Hanshan to return. I saw them staring blankly at the dining table, so I sent them off to sleep,” Lao Buyu said, stopping Shen Cui, who was about to go to the kitchen to fetch food. “Hanshan has been coming in and out all day. Rest with him. I’ll bring the food over for you.”

Before long, the food from the stove was brought to the table.

Mu Er Pang hadn’t felt particularly hungry, but now that he smelled the aroma of the food, his stomach growled, reminding him that he had spent almost the entire day pondering the theme of his poem and had forgotten to eat his dry rations.

Shen Cui had also been busy all day.

After mother and son quickly finished their meal, Lao Buyu took over the job of washing the dishes and cleaning the table, urging them to rest.

After washing up with hot water, the mother and son went straight to bed.

Shen Cui was simply tired, so she slept until the next morning.

The young mens, on the other hand, were out like logs, one after another. Occasionally, someone would get up to use the bathroom.

Shen Cui asked if they wanted something else, but they all said they weren’t hungry, just tired and wanting to sleep.

Shen Cui didn’t bother with the others, letting them do as they pleased and get comfortable.

However, Wei Xi’s condition seemed to have deteriorated significantly.

Shen Cui made some rice soup and fed it to Wei Xi separately.

Later, when they were all asleep, she called a doctor to come and check their pulses.

Just like the issues indicated by the system’s values, the doctor said everyone else was just tired, but Wei Xi had depleted his vitality.

After finding out the reason, knowing that they were all scholars who were taking the county exam this year, the doctor sighed and said, “The weather this year is indeed unusual. Where else would it be so hot in August? In the past few days, we’ve had too many scholars visiting our clinic. Compared to others, this scholar’s loss of vitality is not too serious.”

After speaking, the doctor wrote a prescription.

Shen Cui accompanied him to get the medicine and then went back to the kitchen to simmer it.

When simmering the medicine, Shen Cui raised a question to the system, “The weather this year is indeed unusual. Even in our era, with severe greenhouse effects and generally rising temperatures, it was not as hot as it is now in the eighth lunar month.”

The system replied, “After detection, the current weather has indeed been adjusted by the rules.”

Shen Cui was momentarily speechless. “Is it for the sake of our academy?”

The system said, “Not exactly. Based on the current development of our academy, it’s unlikely to produce any ‘Six Major Elements’ that would overshadow Mu Yunchuan. Besides, I’m not one to be trifled with. If it dares to target us and try to eliminate all the certified candidates of the system, I’ll just perish with it… The rules are using the weather to pave the way for Mu Yunchuan.”

Shen Cui thought carefully about the original plot and suddenly realized, “There seems to be such a plot in the original book. It said that the bad weather caused poor harvests in the autumn, and there was even famine in some remote areas. The emperor appointed him to provide disaster relief, which accumulated a lot of prestige for him and paved the way for his future promotion… But I remember this plot doesn’t seem to happen at this point in time?”

“Perhaps it’s a sense of crisis? After all, with so many candidates cultivated this time, although they may not individually affect Mu Yunchuan, the sheer number… it’s also about being prepared.”

Shen Cui leaned on the stove, “You always talk about it as if it were a person. What exactly is this ‘rule’?”

“I can’t explain it very well, but its duty is to maintain the order of this world, which is the plot of the original book.”

Shen Cui stared at the medicine stove for a while, “Earlier, I asked you if the system’s goal was to make me cultivate a control group to confront Mu Yunchuan, the son of this plane. You didn’t answer at the time, but now I understand that we are never meant to confront him. He is actually no different from our children, all being manipulated and pushed by the rules… like puppets. The only difference is the path the rules have arranged for him, which is easier than for others.”

The system detected her brainwaves and found that they were unusually active as she spoke. “Host, what are you thinking about again?”

As they were talking, Wei Xi smelled the medicine and knew Shen Cui was simmering it.

He came over and said, “Let the servants handle the simmering of the medicine. Headmaster Shen has been working hard for us these days. It’s better for you to rest.”


Shen Cui smiled and said, “Just sitting and watching the fire, it’s not tiring at all.” At the same time, she replied to the system in her mind, saying, “You’ll know later.”

After Wei Xi drank three days’ worth of tonic to replenish his vitality, he finally recovered his strength, and the others also recovered almost completely.

The daily routines of the academy resumed as usual, and Shen Cui received her shopping points.

She quickly bought medicine for Wei Xi.

At this time, Lao Buyu began to lead them in silently writing the three essays each, after all, the Autumn Examination results would be released in early to mid-September, still about half a month away.

With such a long time, not every young man could settle down to study, so they always had to find something to keep them busy.

After correcting the essays, Lao Buyu let everyone rest for a while, or stroll around Linan Mansion, or go to the scholar’s lane’s teahouse to chat with fellow examinees. In short, they were free to do as they pleased.

After sending them all out of the house, the smile on Lao Buyu’s face faded slightly.

Shen Cui noticed the change in his expression and asked with her eyes.

Lao Buyu sighed lightly and said, “Although there were frequent problems, such as Mei Rouchu’s initial bad luck, Wei Xi’s poor health, and Hanshan’s hesitation in the last round, almost missing the deadline… the quality of their answers was not that affected.”

“So, it’s someone from Aosuang, Ashu, or Afei who didn’t perform well?”

Lao Buyu didn’t beat around the bush and directly mentioned, “It’s Afei. He wrote the poem starting from ‘Bian Juan’ based on ‘Mountain Residence Fu’.”

Since Shen Cui couldn’t judge the quality of poetry and prose, Lao Buyu didn’t read his poem, just summed up, “His poem is about lamenting the impermanence of life. Although his life has been somewhat rough, he has never experienced any major ups and downs, so it’s a bit… In short, ordinary examiners might not find fault, but for someone like Wang Shangshu, who has remarkable poetic talent and rich experience, it’s bound to be less than satisfactory. Moreover, his other answers were just average, so most likely…”

Shen Cui nodded knowingly and sighed along with him.

In fact, when you get down to it, it’s still because Cui Fei neglected his studies for too long in the past.

Although he has been diligent in recent years, time waits for no one.

His own talent is not particularly outstanding compared to others in the academy, similar to Wei Shu.

Otherwise, it wouldn’t be so difficult for him just to pass the imperial examination.

“Don’t mention it to Afei. Just pretend you don’t know. During the exchange and discussion of the exam papers just now, I think he already knows it in his heart.”

Shen Cui nodded again and turned to think about how to comfort Cui Fei’s emotions.

Later in the evening, the young men all returned from outside. Cui Fei had gathered many delicious and fun things, all of which were not available in Qingzhou Prefecture.

Everyone in the academy had a share, and some of it was to be taken back to Cui’s family and Sun Ruowei.

Seeing everyone glance at him from time to time, Cui Fei said, “I’m really fine. I failed the exam last time, but this time I did better than last time, which is considered progress. As Wei Xi said, ‘If the green mountains remain, there is no need to worry about firewood.’ There are many middle-aged and elderly people in the provincial exam this time. If I can’t recover from failing twice, how will they deal with themselves? Of course, I’m definitely feeling a bit uncomfortable. When everyone goes to the capital later, I’m afraid we will be separated…”

His temperament used to be like a child’s, but he has grown a lot in recent years, yet the sincere side of him has not been lost.

Shen Aoshuang was the last to return. When he heard this, he said, “It’s not that bad yet.”

Although he has become more cheerful since arriving at Cuiwei, his past experiences have made him develop the habit of speaking less.

So, he is usually reserved and speaks little.

Suddenly, he took the initiative to speak, and everyone looked towards him.


Shen Aoshuang continued calmly, “I just went to most of the medical clinics in the provincial perfecture, and almost every doctor was too busy to attend to anyone.

Those who came for consultations were mostly those who had no health problems during the provincial exam.

Cui Xiong’s ability to persist through all three rounds of the exam has already surpassed more than half of the candidates.

Of course, most of these candidates who are healthy are not young anymore and have failed the exam many times.

But what Brother Cui Fei is competing for now is not the top spots. So, I say the situation has not reached that point yet.”

“It turns out you didn’t join us just now because you went to pay attention to these things.” Cui Fei looked at him, his eyes a bit red.

Shen Aoshuang turned his head away. “Not specifically. I just walked around, it happened to be on the way… Yes, just happened to be on the way.”

His senses were still a bit worse than normal people’s, so he didn’t know that his shoes were covered in mud— who would walk so far to visit medical clinics on a whim? But seeing that he was embarrassed, no one exposed him.

In early to mid-September, the results of the provincial exam were announced.

Today, everyone in the house, including the servants of the Wei family and the Cui family, went to see the list.

This time, the ceremony of announcing the results was more grand than the previous few rounds.

There were not only officials responsible for announcing the results, soldiers, scholars who came to see the list, and commoners, but also many people from the Provincial perfecture.

After reading the list, they would immediately go out to spread the good news and earn some money.

The young men didn’t let Shen Cui and Lao Buyu squeeze to the front.

Only they and a few others with their servants squeezed in.

And because they were most worried about whether Cui Fei had passed the exam, they started from the bottom of the list.

As soon as they squeezed in, everyone saw Cui Fei’s name above the “red line.”

“He passed! Afei passed!”

“Afei was still worried about being separated from us, but now he doesn’t need to worry anymore.”

“I think I heard someone sniffing in the middle of the night yesterday. Could it be that someone was secretly crying?”

Several young men excitedly surrounded Cui Fei, laughing and shouting.

Someone on the side couldn’t help but sarcastically say, “He’s just the last name on the ‘red line.’ He almost failed to the exam. Is it worth making such a fuss?”

Looking at the same emblem on Mu Er Pang and others’ accessories, but their looks were not entirely similar, someone next to him guessed, “It seems to be some unknown small academy. Finally, they produced a ‘red chair’ candidate and are overjoyed!”

They were still discussing when suddenly someone at the top of the list exclaimed incredulously, “How come the top three scholars, including the champion, all come from Qingzhou Prefecture?!”

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