Chapter 886 Top of the List

"Si Pei, take the cake and eat while you clean up the mess." Old Master Jing handed him a grain cake and patted him on the shoulder, saying, "The ability to remedy the situation is one of the skills that an official must have... Today, you all did a good job."

Uncle Qin curled his lips. Isn’t this good?

Fortunately, this is Taifeng Town in peacetime. If this were a battlefield or a front line against the enemy, the mistakes made by the students today would have dragged down the Wei Dynasty and led to its destruction.

"Sir... I'm sorry to disappoint you." Si Pei choked up and quickly bowed, saying, "I learned a lot today and will continue to study hard. Please continue to watch, sir."

"Okay, I'll wait and see." Old Jing was pleased.

Si Pei bowed again and hurriedly followed Lu Fengshou back to Lu’s Inn.

Unfortunately, the inn kitchen had already started cooking noodles and had ordered more than twenty bowls.

Even so, Si Pei did not feel that he was unlucky. Instead, he said thankfully, "Fortunately, fortunately, not all of them were cooked... Don't cook the remaining raw noodles for now. Cook them at twilight hour. There are still 232 servings. Don't make the reserved dinner. Change it to lunch tomorrow."

"What do you think, Shopkeeper Lu?"

My God, he was actually polite.

Lu Fengshou was flattered and said, "Okay, I'll do as you ask."

Si Pei bought more than 20 bowls of cooked noodles and invited the soldiers who stayed behind to watch the cooking and the servants in the Lu family kitchen to eat.

He also discussed with Lu Fengshou about ordering meals in the future, but he did not sign the contract immediately. Instead, he said, "Let's do it first. I will go back and discuss it with my classmates. If they have no objection to the price and the combination of meals, I will sign the contract later."

"But we have to cook breakfast, lunch and dinner tomorrow."

Si Pei didn't want to go through today's chaotic situation again, and he didn't want to faint from hunger again!

Lu Fengshou was always steady, so he held back his smile and nodded in agreement: "Don't worry, our three meals tomorrow will be ready. But if you want to order food the day after tomorrow, please let us know before you come to pick up tomorrow's dinner so we can prepare the ingredients."

Si Pei: "OK."

Half an hour later, Si Pei returned to the construction site again.

The servants of the Si family who followed behind...the young master has made great progress, they have to write a letter back to inform the lady of the good news!

Dangdang Dangdang!

"The time has come, everyone get up and work!" Captain Zhong came personally to shout.

The students were too tired to move, so he directly ordered them to be splashed with water.

Hula hula!

After drinking a few buckets of water, the students dared not delay any longer. They endured the pain in their bodies and got up to continue working.

As they were working, something went wrong again, and sounds of screams, crying, and conflicts began again.

But at least everyone has the energy to argue and won’t faint from hunger.

Dangdang Dangdang!

"It's the exact hour of You, time to call it a day!" The craftsman struck the gong to end the work, and the students heaved a sigh of relief when they heard it.

Woohoo, finally the work is done, they survived!

Craftsmen, oh God, the work has finally ended. If these young masters continue to mess things up, it will be wishful thinking for them to finish the work safely!

The craftsmen couldn't stand these students anymore, so they secretly went to find the two great craftsmen Gong and Liu and asked them to go to the familiar Master Xun to talk...

"You are a noble young man, you are going to take the imperial examination and become an official, so you should go back and study hard."

"No." Old Man Xun refused, and then said, "How about this, when they finish their work at the construction site, I will trick them. No, I will ask them to give each of you one or two taels of silver as a thank you for teaching me. How about that? Deal or not?"

This?

The craftsmen gritted their teeth and thought that they could still endure it.

After work, the students cannot leave as they have to do the final finishing touches... reconciling accounts, checking for errors and omissions in registration, and paying fines.

Si Pei topped the fine list today.

"The top of the list, Si Pei, has a total fine of fifty-two taels of gold!"

Hiss, not to mention the craftsmen, even the students, including Si Pei, gasped with heartache.

Fifty-two taels of gold is a considerable sum of money for Si Pei.

But this penalty...

"The student acknowledges it!" Si Pei saluted and signed in the registration book to confirm that he accepted the fine. He then took out a silver note and handed it to Uncle Qin who was collecting the fine.

That’s right, Uncle Qin was assigned this task.

Qin Xiaogu, Xiao Jiang Erlang, Qin Xiaomai, Qin Jingyi, and even Qin Sheng, Qin Mao, and Qiao Songguo were all thrown here to gain experience.

Mr. Jing was a famous scholar, and it would be a great idea for me to gain some experience by his side, so the family made such arrangements.

Mr. Jing did not refuse.

"Xiao Gu, Xiao Erlang, watch out, in a few days it will be your turn to do this job." Uncle Qin was teaching the younger generations just so he could get away quickly and continue to be lazy.

Kojiro Otani nodded and looked at it seriously.

"Hey, Xue Mingyi, you were also fined... Not bad, you were only fined eight taels of silver."

Xue Mingyi smiled obediently and handed over the fine.

Qu Da, Jia Xiang, Zhou Rong, and even Ying Zilin were all punished.

Ying Zilin was fined twenty taels of gold and ranked second on the list.

The reason for the fine is...

"As the leader in charge of the students, you failed to find the problems of the students in time and failed to remind them in time... Your mistakes are even worse than Si Pei's. If you hadn't made up for it in the end and provided safe meals for the students, you would have been the top of the fine list!" Mr. Jing became more and more angry as he spoke, and finally said: "Write an article on this, discussing the harm of the incompetence of the leaders."

what!

The students were moved and admired Master Jing.

As expected of a famous scholar who cursed everyone in Taizhou Academy, he even dared to ask such a question... This question is meant to allude to the king.

Master Jing glanced at them and said, "If you are interested, you can also write a policy paper and submit it."

Zhou Rong struggled, and he felt that it was not impossible to try harder.

Half an hour later, when it was completely dark, the students finally finished all their affairs for the day and were able to return to Taifeng Restaurant to rest.

Si Pei was in a miserable state, yet he couldn't even rest and had to accept the food sent by Lu's Inn.

The students were really exhausted. After eating the noodles with meat sauce, they didn’t even take a bath. They just washed their faces and feet with well water and then went back to their assigned collective dormitories and fell asleep until dawn.

Dangdang Dangdang!

The death-threatening gong sounds came again.

The students really cried... It hurt, it hurt so much, their bodies felt like they had been tortured, and they fell back onto their bedding in pain if they moved.

but……

Bang bang bang!

Captain Zhong led his soldiers to kick the door and said, "Everyone, get up! If you fail to show up on time, your evaluation for this month will be poor, poor, poor, and in serious cases, the rewards that have been issued, such as the Imperial Academy recommendation book, will be confiscated!"

Woo woo woo, can’t you just leave us alone for a day or two?

"Kids, hurry up and get up. After working for three days, you will be given two days off!" The voice of old man Xun rang out.

Zhong Baihu: "..."

Old man, you are so accurate in judging people's gender.

"We can have a holiday. Grandmaster Tai Gang said that if we work for three days, we will be given two days off. Two days!"

"Hurry up, we'll have two more days before the holiday."

"Yes, yes, yes, you must not be late, otherwise your vacation will be cancelled."

The students thought of Master Taigang's temper and were afraid that the old man would change his mind at the next moment, so they did not dare to delay any longer. They endured the severe pain, got up, washed, and gathered to work at the medicinal materials workshop.

It was past noon and we had breakfast delivered by the Lu Family Inn.

Today was a day full of problems for the students, but fortunately no one was hungry and no one fainted.

August 18th was the third day of work for the students.

On this day, the students were extremely excited as if they were injected with chicken blood, but also very nervous, fearing that Mr. Xun would not keep his word.

Fortunately, Mr. Xun was afraid of overworking them, so he kept his promise and announced that he would give them two days off when the work was over.

The students were so excited that they shouted: "It's vacation, it's really vacation!"

The folks from Taifeng Town who watched them every day had a decreasing impression of them: "Alas, the noble young masters are just like that, all of them are rotten."