Because of Liu Chunmiao's leg injury, Zeng Rong has also frequently been in and out of Liu Chunmiao's residence in the past few days, helping her pound radish puree to compress her legs, helping her boil mung bean soup to remove the fire, and helping her rub the medicinal wine.

And Liu Chunmiao didn't want outsiders to know her condition, so she still gritted her teeth every day and asked the palace maid to help her go to the workshop, and at the same time repeatedly told her not to mention her knees to anyone, especially Qin Chuxue.

During this time, Zeng Rong was worried that he had the eyes of the queen or imperial concubine by his side, and he never went to Qin Chuxue to verify Zhu Heng's matter.

Zeng Rong saw Qin Chuxue again on March 20, and it was also the fourth day of the Queen Mother's birthday.

As soon as the two entered the door, Liu Chunmiao clapped his hands first, saying that the selection of the harem is basically over, and the next thing will be the assessment of female officials.

What Zeng Rong didn't expect was that the five people who entered the palace at the same time in this phase all signed up, and there were ten seniors from before, and there were fifteen people in their workshop, accounting for almost half of the number of people in the workshop, which obviously exceeded Qin Chuxue and Liu Chunmiao's expectations.

When I asked, I realized that most of these people have followed Zeng Rong, Amei and Lu He to learn to recognize braille and read some books in the past few months, and they feel that they are older after leaving the palace, and they may not be able to find a suitable person to marry. If you're lucky, you might be able to improve the lintel at home.

In order not to make enemies for Zeng Rong, and at the same time in line with the principle of fairness and justice, Qin Chuxue gave everyone a chance, ordered someone to prepare a set of pen and ink for her, and personally wrote an article in the "Analects", so that everyone could come forward and read it one by one.

If she can read it completely, Qin Chuxue will leave her to copy it again, and there are only three who can achieve neat handwriting: Zeng Rong, Luhe and Hongling.

Zeng Rong also knew that Hongling had been silently practicing calligraphy with Luhe some time ago, as for whether this was Hongling's own ability or whether Luhe wanted to find a companion for herself to persuade her, Zeng Rong didn't know.

But she knows one thing that Hongling and Green Lotus are from the same embroidery workshop, the two have known each other for at least two or three years, and Hongling has always been very tolerant of Green Lotus, which is the way Zeng Rong and Amei get along.

After informing Zeng Rong, Hongling and Luhe of the assessment time, Qin Chuxue and Liu Chunmiao both left, and Zeng Rong couldn't say a word to Qin Chuxue in private.

Early the next morning, Zeng Rong, Hongling and Luhe, who Liu Chunmiao personally came to find, took the three of them to the gate of the Shanggong Bureau, and when the three of them arrived, Qin Chuxue brought six people and waited.

A few people waited for a while, and an aunt in charge in her thirties brought six more people over, and finally, these fifteen people followed Qin Chuxue into a side hall next to the gate, and there were three people sitting in the side hall, Liu Gonggong and two other female officials in their forties.

This is another layer of assessment, the process is similar to the previous in the workshop, it is also to read the article first and then write, this time half of the number of people was brushed, Hongling was also brushed down, and Lu He and Zeng Rong stayed.

Coming out of the side hall, Zeng Rong and his party of eight female officials followed Liu Gonggong and one of the grandmothers surnamed Wang to a house in the back garden, and Zeng Rong saw the door plaque on the gate with three big characters written "Bei Xi Zhai".

According to Mama Wang, this North Xi Zhai is the princess, the county lord and the prince under the age of ten and the children of the royal family study, the main building is a two-story small building, the upper floor is the study, the downstairs hall is the place where Mr. corrects the homework and takes a short break, the two sides are classrooms, divided into men and women, and the wing room next to it is a special piano room, chess room and places such as pitching pots and archery.

When Zeng Rong and his party entered, there were only a few older grandmothers and a group of sixteen or seventeen-year-old palace maids standing in the middle of the courtyard in Beixi Zhai.

Zeng Rong thought about it for a while, the eight of them are all female workers from the Shanggong Bureau, and they are different from the palace maids in the harem, their main business is to do needlework, not to serve people, therefore, the rules and etiquette in the palace have only learned a little fur, and these mothers in charge are obviously the old people in the palace, most of them are still nurturing grandmothers, and they don't look down on the vulgarity of Zeng Rong and others.

Because the number of people had not yet arrived, Zeng Rong and others also stood in the courtyard for about a stick of incense, during which more than 20 people came one after another, and what made Zeng Rong happy was that Amei was also among them.

It's a pity that there are too many people around, and the two belong to different camps, so it's impossible to secretly say something private, and soon, they were taken into the two classrooms in the upper room, Zeng Rong entered the west, and Ah Mei entered the east.

When Zeng Rong and his entourage entered, there were already three people sitting on the podium, judging from their clothes, they were eunuchs, gentlemen, and grandmothers, all of whom were about forty or fifty years old, all with the same face, looking at these girls who were rushing in.

There were only 20 low tables in the classroom, and a set of pen, ink, paper and inkstones were placed on the low tables, and Zeng Rong and his party had about 30 people, so everyone consciously did not go to sit and stood on both sides of the classroom.

Seeing this, the three examiners on the podium nodded slightly, and then, the lady in charge spoke, first talking about today's assessment content and rules, and then repeating the main destination of the female officers screened this time and the number of recruits.

Zeng Rong also knew that a total of 40 female officials were recruited this time, including two internal attendants, two each from Kunning Palace and Cining Palace, one from each of the other six palaces, and the rest were divided into six palaces and 24 bureaus.

At present, thirty female officials have been screened from the women sent from all over the country for selection, and the remaining ten are selected from the palace maids, and the selected ten female officials will be combined with the previous thirty to take the exam again, and they will be selected according to their personal performance rankings.

After the lady in charge finished speaking, the eunuch supervisor also said a few words, saying that this assessment was held according to personal ability, no matter what the result was, no trouble, no confrontation, and no subsequent errands, otherwise they would be severely punished.

The next is the formal assessment, the first level is also simple, each palace maid takes turns to take an article to read again, the article is also from the "Analects", after reading the article, the three examiners will ask one or two questions, some are related to the article, some are related to my resume, and some are related to personal aspirations.

When it was Zeng Rong's turn, the gentleman did not rush to let her read the article first, but asked her age first, and learned that Zeng Rong was only thirteen years old, and the gentleman looked at the lady in charge.

Zeng Rong knew that it turned out that there was a lower age limit for the assessment of this female official, fifteen years old.