Chapter 55
The Mid-Autumn Festival is an important festival in modern times, let alone in ancient times, where it was only slightly less important than the New Year.

Before the festival, Mrs. Zheng sent a message through her daughter-in-law, Mrs. Li, hoping that Shen Cui would bring Mu Er Pang to the city for a reunion on the day of the Mid-Autumn Festival.

Since the completion of the academy, Mrs. Li hadn’t been to Shuiyun Village for quite some time.

Early in the morning, she left her house and met Mu Er Pang at the city gate.

Mu Er Pang had slimmed down and grown taller since before, but his round figure still stood out in the crowd.

He wasn’t alone; there was a middle-aged man with him.

Mrs. Li caught up with him and learned that he had come to the city to fetch a doctor.

The day before, Shen Cui had felt dizzy and unwell, not wanting to do anything except sleep. She had skipped a meal, and in the morning, she hadn’t even gotten up for the morning exercises. This had scared Mu Er Pang, prompting him to rush to the city early in the morning to fetch a doctor.

Mu Er Pang was used to seeing Shen Cui being idle like before, but suddenly losing weight without reason and not being able to eat properly, coupled with not being able to get up in the morning, it was no wonder he thought it might be a sign of a serious illness.

The doctor, after hearing Mu Er Pang’s description, also took it seriously and came along to examine her.

Mrs. Li also became serious and refrained from asking more questions, joining the two men on their way to Shuiyun Village.

When they arrived, Shen Cui was already trying to get up.

She knew she wasn’t sick; after all, she could see her physical fitness value, which had only dropped by 2 points from her usual, indicating fatigue. There was no significant difference compared to the others in the academy. However, since the children were concerned, she allowed the doctor to examine her.

After the examination, the doctor said, “Madam, you’re fine. It’s just that your qi and blood are deficient, probably due to overthinking and worrying. Just rest more. If you’re still concerned, I can prescribe some tonics for you.”

Tonics were not cheap, and Shen Cui knew she was just tired. She was about to refuse when Mu Er Pang spoke up, “Please prescribe them.”

He now had more ideas and was no longer the ignorant child. Shen Cui didn’t want to contradict him in front of others, so she let the doctor write a prescription.

For the matter of getting the medicine later, Mrs. Li took charge to prevent Mu Er Pang from running around. She saw the worry on his chubby face and how his carefree smile had tightened into a thin line.

Shen Cui hurriedly reassured him, “I’m really fine… Well, I have been thinking a lot lately, feeling a bit tired, but I’ll take care of myself in the future. Just one or two doses of tonic will do, more than that… would be a waste.”

She didn’t need real money to buy tonics; she could buy modern health products in the system’s store. It was really unnecessary to spend real money.

Mu Er Pang couldn’t understand this, so he said, “Mother, don’t worry about the money. I’ll pay for it. Consider it my filial piety.”

Shen Cui smiled and asked, “Where will you get the money?”

“Of course, it’s from my New Year’s money…” At this point, Mu Er Pang’s mature expression couldn’t hold up.

His New Year’s money had all been spent on clothes for his older brother. He scratched his blushing face, and Shen Cui smiled and patted him, “You’re still cute like this!”

Later, Shen Cui was afraid they would worry, so when Mrs. Li brought the medicine and Mrs. Zhou helped to prepare it, she took the tonic first, then ate more food than usual.

Finally, everyone’s minds were settled.

Since she wasn’t feeling well, she definitely couldn’t go to the city for the festival. Mrs. Li went back the same day and informed the family.

Mr. Shen and Shen Cui’s two brothers couldn’t sit still. The Shen family, including Mrs. Zheng, were all very healthy, and they hadn’t heard of anyone falling ill.

During the New Year, they had heard Mrs. Zheng mention that her daughter had changed a lot since her illness.

Now that they knew she was ill again, they couldn’t sit still. They all wanted to go see her, but Mrs. Zheng stopped them, saying, “She has always been healthy since she was young. The doctor said there’s nothing wrong, just tiredness and fatigue. What could happen to her in the village? She’s just worrying about the academy competition…”

Here, Mrs. Zheng glanced unhappily at her eldest daughter-in-law, Mrs. Chen.

She regretted listening to Mrs. Chen’s words and bringing up this matter with her daughter. If she had known it would make her daughter ill, she wouldn’t have listened to Mrs. Chen’s advice, let alone mention it to her daughter.

Mrs. Chen shifted her eyes guiltily, as Mrs. Zheng had guessed. She had suggested that Shen Cui should not be allowed to read and had deliberately made her mother-in-law angry, thinking it would suppress Shen Cui’s arrogance.

She didn’t expect that the Shuiwei Academy would really register, and now she and her daughter were waiting to see a joke.

“With so many people, if she has to worry about entertaining us, then I’ll go see her alone.”

As the head of the family, Mrs. Zheng’s words naturally ended all objections.

On the day of the Mid-Autumn Festival, Mrs. Zheng took several mooncakes and eggs to Shuiyun Village.

At that time, Shen Cui took a day off to rest and ate a bowl of tonic, looking perfectly normal.

Mrs. Zheng was relieved.

After the Mid-Autumn Festival, the academy competition began as scheduled in late August.

A few days before the competition began, people from all over the county gathered in the town, not just from various academies coming to participate, but also many who came just to join in the fun.

At this point, Shen Cui couldn’t stay still in the academy anymore. She had to figure out an identity for her disguised self, right?

They trusted her, so they hadn’t urged her to find outside help.

Now that there were many new faces in town, it was the perfect time to act.

She left the care of the academy to Lao Buyu, saying she was going out to inquire about someone skilled in mathematics.

These inquiries were sure to be fruitless, but she also had Lao Buyu come up with a few of the most difficult questions he could think of and told him to take this with him for a small test.

After coming and going for a few days, Shen Cui came back and told them she had found someone.

To rationalize this, she racked her brains for an explanation, saying she had met a foreign student who had taken ill from the local water and soil and had fainted by the roadside in the town.

She gave him a bowl of water, chatted for a while, and then he agreed to help.

Although it sounded like a fabrication, given her history of unexpected actions, this small twist and turn wasn’t considered much of a stretch for her.

Lao Buyu didn’t think she was lying, but rather that she had been deceived. He asked her privately if she had given the person any money.

Shen Cui hurriedly said no, “The young man seemed quite honest and sincere, he said he would receive payment after the end of the competition.”
Lao Buyu finally calmed down, and later Shen Cui showed him the test questions she had prepared for him.

Those test questions were, of course, made by her, and she had checked them repeatedly, ensuring they were all one hundred percent correct.

Lao Buyu no longer doubted the non-existent boy’s math skills, only asking, “What’s the matter with his handwriting?”

Shen Cui had never seriously practiced handwriting. In her past life, being an orphan, she couldn’t afford interest classes when she was young. She never practiced in front of others at the academy either; only secretly practicing in her room every night, and then immediately destroying the evidence. She was afraid her handwriting would be recognized.

So, her handwriting… to put it nicely, it was like ghostly symbols; to put it bluntly, even Mu Er Pang, who had just learned to write, could be compared to her as mud from the bottom of a pit.

Shen Cui hesitated and asked, “Is handwriting important compared to math?” If it was, she would have to practice her handwriting for a few more days.

Lao Buyu said, “It’s not important, just… strange.”

Such handwriting coming from a math expert’s hand was indeed unsettling.

Shen Cui felt a little relieved.

On the day of the big competition, Mu Er Pang and Wei Xi changed into their school uniforms.

Because they had been preparing for many days, today was the day to test their efforts, so everyone looked particularly serious.

No one spoke on the way to the city.

Until the day before, Shen Cui had been studying hard, but now, as they were about to set off, she began to busy herself sculpting a face in her mind. As she sculpted, the system couldn’t help but complain: [Host, your sense of aesthetics is definitely flawed. Even if you don’t sculpt like Mu Yunchuan’s exquisite beauty, shouldn’t you be at least better than two ordinary trainees? The face you’ve sculpted… is too ordinary!]

[I’m not playing an online game, what’s the point of looking good? I’m only going to appear once, I don’t want to attract too much attention, so the more ordinary, the better.]

She sculpted the most ordinary face of a passerby and set her height and weight in the system to buy the most ordinary scholar’s robe, determined to make her new face blend in with the crowd.

Finally, she thought of Lao Buyu’s previous doubts and sculpted the right hand of the new image into a strange shape.

With a disabled hand, even if ‘he’ was talented, it would be normal for him to have bad handwriting. Also, officials nowadays pay attention to appearance; even if you’re not disabled, if you’re too ugly, it’s easy to be eliminated in important exams like the imperial examination.

In this way, even if ‘he’ performed exceptionally well, no one would think of recruiting or cultivating ‘him’, and then inquire about ‘his’ various information.

The academy’s grand competition was hosted by Qingzhu Academy, so the competition naturally took place here.

They arrived half an hour early, but even with such an early arrival, the area outside the academy was already packed.
A literary gathering like this isn’t just for the academy students competing; there are many more spectators who come to watch and broaden their horizons.

Shen Cui and Lao Buyu each accompanied a child, finally handing in their proof of participation and entering the inner courtyard.

Although it was troublesome to enter the academy, having a large crowd also had its advantages. Shen Cui could quietly bring out the other version of herself later.

The preliminary rounds had many people, so they were held outside the academy, in an open space with a surrounding grandstand.

One after another, many local and out-of-town academy principals came with their own students.

These people might not be personally familiar, but they had all heard of each other’s academies and could exchange a few words of greeting.

As for the most popular, besides the principals of several old academies, the focus was naturally on the host of this event, Ling Qingming, the principal of Qingzhu Academy, who had just produced the ‘Little Three Geniuses.’

Regardless of whether people from other academies were envious or unwilling to admit it, they had to admit the strength of Qingzhu Academy.

Watching the crowd around his senior brothers while no one paid attention to them, Lao Buyu felt a bit sour and turned to ask Shen Cui, “Where’s that young scholar the headmaster mentioned? Why hasn’t he shown up yet?”

Shen Cui said, “No need to worry, he’s probably reclusive and doesn’t want to approach the crowd. I described his appearance to the orderly in charge of maintaining order. When it’s time for the mathematical competition later, he will participate.”

After two quarters of an hour of lively greetings, when the sky was bright, an orderly from Qingzhu Academy rolled out a wooden frame with red silk tied to it and a large bronze gong hanging from it.

Principal Ling Qingming walked up the steps and struck the gong.

“The first round, calligraphy competition! Please have the students from each academy come forward in turn!”