He was betrayed at the beginning, from a cake seller to a wealthy person

Qingming Festival was approaching within a few days after Lu Sheng came back. The main activities of Qingming Festival are ancestor worship and outing. Here in Hengzhou, the tradition of burning paper is "early Qingming, late at eleven". They have already finished worshiping ancestors before Qingming, and will not wait until the Qingming day.

So Mrs. Xu had been preparing for it for a long time. Two days before going to burn the paper, Lu Yan and she folded the ingots with yellow paper for several days.

The ancestral grave of the Lu family is on the back mountain. Several people prepared incense candles, yellow paper, ingots and fruit offerings and went up the mountain early. After burning the paper and going down the mountain, Mrs. Xu also gathered wild vegetables along the way.

On the Qingming Festival, it’s time to go for an outing. But the Lu family lived in a suburban area. Neither Lu Sheng nor Lu Yan had any intention of going on an outing. They both thought they might as well take advantage of this time to pick more blooming flowers and study soap.

During the Qingming Festival, peach blossoms are already blooming all over the mountains. Lu Yan and Lu Sheng went up the mountain and carried a basket back down.

Lu Yan has never extracted peach blossom oil, but she has made peppermint oil before and used it to make peppermint ointment. So she decided to try it the same way she did peppermint oil.

You can no longer use lard when making soap, so Lu Yan replaced it with rapeseed oil. When the grapes come down, she wants to squeeze some grape seed oil. Wash the peach blossoms, chop them into pieces, soak them in oil, leave them soaked for about three or four hours, pour them into a bowl, cover the bowl, and steam them in a pot. This step is to allow them to blend better and release more of the peach blossom fragrance. After taking it out of the pot, filter out the peach blossom residue, leaving only the light pink oil, which is the squeezed peach blossom oil.

The soap made with peach blossom oil is light pink and exudes a light and elegant smell. When it was delivered to Qingyanfang, Qing Niangzi's eyes lit up after hearing the ingredients, and ten thousand marketing strategies flashed through her mind.

Regarding Peach Blossom Soap, Lu Yan is still a little regretful, because Peach Blossom itself has a weak taste and its efficacy is not outstanding. After a while, the cloves will bloom, and the fragrance will be overwhelming. Mint soap is also very useful in summer, repels mosquitoes and is refreshing.

Thinking of this, Lu Yan went to a seed shop on her way back and bought a few mint stems and planted them in her yard to make peppermint oil and peppermint soap in the summer.

Spring is the season for eating wild vegetables. The wild vegetables growing all over the mountains and plains are endless. Lu Yan steams wild vegetable buns, makes wild vegetable pies, cold wild vegetables, and wild vegetable egg soup every day. She eats them in various ways and sells them at stalls. Big buns with shepherd's purse and meat cost four cents each, and pies with noodles, vegetables and eggs cost three cents each, and they sold quite well.

When this crop of wild vegetables was almost eaten, the lilacs finally bloomed. Red lilac grows in the North China Plain, and its flowers have small light red leaves, which are very cute.

The method of squeezing clove oil is the same as making peach blossom oil, but Lu Yan added an extra step, which is the cold suction method to absorb the fragrance of cloves. When the flowers are alive, they will continue to emit fragrance. Use oil to absorb all the fragrance molecules emitted by the flowers, and you can retain the fragrance.

Find a flat plate, apply a layer of solid grease, spread a layer of lilac flowers on top, and put some benzoin bought from the drug store. This step has an antibacterial effect. Finally, take a flat plate and snap it on to seal it. Change the flowers once a day, and by the time you change them ten times, the aroma on the oil will be very strong.

Only half of this flower oil is used to make soap. This time, the clove soap has a fragrant aroma, and people can smell the eye-catching smell from a distance.

The other half of the lilac oil was mixed with beeswax and Lu Yan made it into a balm. It comes in a small bottle, and you just need to rub a little bit on your skin to get a very noticeable scent.

Lu Yan sold a small bottle of balm to Qing Niangzi for twenty cents. She was happy to take it and accepted it happily. Clove soap is somewhere between styling soap and functional soap. It has no particularly obvious function, but it has a distinct fragrance. It costs [-] yuan a piece. Qing Niangzi is no longer dissatisfied with the price. It is really easy to sell.

After making this batch of clove soap, it was time for Lu Sheng to go to the house to test it. This time the process was already very familiar and I went to my aunt’s house one day in advance. After taking the exam for three full days and waiting for the results for another seven days, Lu Sheng has officially become the master of Tongsheng.

Lu Sheng was confused when he received the news of the summons from the magistrate, because his examination results were not that good and he only ranked eighth. The magistrate usually only summons the top three, so he didn't know why he was there this time.

When he walked to the county government office and saw the top three in the children's examination, the corner of his mouth couldn't help but twitch. He knew why he was summoned, because except for him, they were all middle-aged people who were over [-] years old, and he was the youngest among them.

The county magistrate thought so too. The county magistrate Liu Hongtu is actually used to this event every year. After all, there are the top three every year, but this year is different. Yaoshan County, a poor place, has not seen the top three of fourteen-year-old children in many years. There is a high probability that he will be selected as a scholar. By August, he will be a fourteen-year-old scholar. This talent for reading can be imagined.

So Liu Hongtu specially ordered Lu Sheng to come with him. During routine encouragement, Lu Sheng was also the one who paid the most attention.

Liu Hongtu kindly asked everyone about their situation, and was overjoyed to learn that Lu Sheng had only attended private school for a few months because of his poor family. He was basically completely self-taught.

The top three boys were each rewarded with ten taels of silver, and after some encouragement they were let go. Liu Hongtu specially kept Lu Sheng.

Liu Hongtu took out ten taels of silver and handed it to him: "I know your family is poor, but now you have won the childbirth, and your bright future is just around the corner. Go back and talk to your family. You don't have to wait until the college entrance examination is completed in August. You can come directly to the county school to study now."

Lu Sheng was stunned for a moment, then quickly said: "Actually, students have longed to go to county school for a long time, but they have always been short of money. This year they only saved enough to study in the county school. If they have the opportunity to go to county school, students will do their best. , live up to adults’ expectations.”

Liu Hongtu laughed loudly: "You, you, do you know that you don't need that much money to go to county school now?"

Lu Sheng was confused: "Huh?"

"Our county school has no identity requirements. As long as you pass the entrance examination, you can enter the school. However, you need to pay twenty taels of silver for a year's education. You are right." Liu Hongtu stroked his beard: "But Did you know that if you are a child student or above who enters a county school, you are not only exempted from the exam, but also do not need to pay so many stipends. A child student only needs to pay five taels of silver a year, and a scholar only needs to pay two taels of silver a year. If a child student is admitted as a scholar, The county school will also refund three taels of silver. If you want to enter the county school, you don’t need to pay for repairs. You have earned ten taels of silver today, which is more than enough to enter the county school!"

Lu Sheng was dumbfounded. Is this the solution to the high-cost repair issue that he has been worrying about? ? ?