Chapter 680: Chapter 680: Posting the Imperial List

For instance, for a scholar, if a family produces a scholar, then the family can be exempted from tax.

Currently, all the farmlands of their house are recorded under the name of Qiao Changshun. Five hundred acres– all under his name. To be eligible for the tax exemption, they can only wait for Qiao Dami to pass the scholar examination.

With that in mind, Qiao Xiaomai started to incessantly tell Qiao Dami about the benefits of studying until the return of Tong Sanlang at which point she stopped.

She couldn’t wait to start washing the carrots, then cut them into small pieces and ground the carrots into juice just like grinding sweet potatoes.

She poured this juice into a pot, added a small amount of water, and put the peeled sweet potato into it to boil.

She first used a small part for experimentation and if it wasn’t successful, she would think of other methods.

The sweet potato was ready after a short while, and as she expected, the surface indeed took on the color of the carrot juice, but the inside remained unchanged after cutting it open.

Upon seeing this, Qiao Xiaomai cut the sweet potato into extremely thin slices and put them back into the pot to soak.

The sweet potato slices were thin enough to ignore the slight gray-brown color inside when the surface was completely dyed with carrot color.

She put the dyed sweet potato slices in the oven to bake and the result came out quickly, proving this method workable.

The carrot juice masked the gray-brown color very well. Although the effect was not as good as the naturally red sweet potatoes, it definitely wouldn’t remind people of rat feces anymore.

Moreover, the carrot itself had a very mild taste which didn’t affect the original taste of the dried sweet potatoes.

With this appearance, it could be presented in front of those rich and distinguished people.

However, this method was a bit troublesome, and the idea of raising the price flashed through Qiao Xiaomai’s mind.

Well, forget it, it’s ok if it’s troublesome for the first time.

Besides, Fan Jia had already paid the silver according to the price of three hundred Wen per Jin.

Moreover, some also needed to be sent to Yang Ye’s side, and an explanation was needed…

Oh my, there are so many things to do!

And along with all these, the day to post the Imperial List approached.

The Imperial List was to be posted outside the County Government Office for public display; every county had five vacancies every three years, but since Bailu Academy was in Huai’an County, it had ten vacancies.

Early this day, the County Magistrate personally posted the Imperial List outside the County Government Office.

It clearly wrote ten names, and at the top of the list, was a person named Tong Zhan.

The second person was named Sun Junyan.

Qiao Xiaomai and Tong Sanlang got up in the middle of the night, ate something casually, and then rushed to the County Town in a bullock cart. On this big day of posting the list, both of them couldn’t keep calm.

They both came early, but others arrived even earlier. When they arrived, it was just dawn, and the entrance to the County Government Office was already crowded with people. They could only park their bullock cart to the side.

After waiting for another hour, the County Magistrate arrived at the government office, wearing his official uniform, and posted the red Imperial List on the wall outside the office.

Qiao Xiaomai stood in the bullock cart and tiptoed to peek at the paper. Tong Sanlang, tall with long legs and excellent vision, saw his name on the list the moment the County Magistrate unfolded the Imperial List.

Good, as long as his name was there, it meant that he had passed the imperial examination and had become a scholar.

The anxiety he had held for the past few days was finally released.

By the time the County Magistrate began to post the list, he had already read all the content on it.

He really got the first place– he became the Jieyuan.

However, there was something not so good – Sun Junyan was second.

The confidence on Sun Junyan’s face that day was real, he really knew the answers in the examination paper.

Licking his lips, Tong Sanlang looked at Qiao Xiaomai and whispered, “I’m first, Sun Junyan is second.”

Along with his words, the County Magistrate stepped aside, revealing the Imperial List that had previously been blocked by him in front of everyone.

Qiao Xiaomai stared at the contents on the Imperial List, and with Tong Sanlang’s words in her ear, she instinctively blurted out a curse, “Fuck!”