The entrance is a zigzag verandah, with stones flowing into a road under the steps, and a huge banquet hall of white marble, red curtains, shiny intarsia floors, many embroidery frames in the middle of green columns, a faint sandalwood fragrance filling the side, and speckled sunlight in the hollow carved windows.

Pearl slightly approached Su Xiaoman's side and whispered, "Madam, this palace is comparable to a palace!" is so magnificent, how rich this prince is! ”

Su Xiaoman glanced at her and signaled her not to talk nonsense, and when she entered the banquet hall, she saw that several embroiderers had been here for a long time, and even the children of rich families with good embroiderers also came.

Everyone was talking nonsense, and what made Su Xiaoman curious was that none of the people who participated in the competition had a preliminary round or embroidery samples as a basis, and they didn't know what their rules of the game were.

In half an hour, the gate of the palace was closed, and it was not the prince who was praised by others who came out of the inner hall, but his princess Suhanalan.

Most of the people looked like they were a little disappointed, Suhannaran sat in the hall, covered his mouth with a handkerchief at the corner of his mouth and smiled: "What? Isn't this princess the prince who disappointed you? ”

Everyone didn't dare to raise their heads or answer, they each stood beside their embroidery frames, and Suhanalan spoke again: "There are important things in the palace today, let this princess preside over the first scene instead of him, and of course those who can meet the prince later!" ”

As he spoke, he waved his hand to the maidservant girl beside him, and then said, "Ruyi, announce the topic!" ”

Ruyi stood respectfully in front of the hall, holding the document in his hand and announced: "Today, there are the rules of the palace splendid competition as follows: the first pen and ink exam, the second brocade making, the third embroidery matching, whoever passes a pass can get five taels of silver, the top three can participate in the production of a hundred birds and phoenixes, and the final gift is determined by the emperor. ”

After speaking, Ruyi accepted the paperwork and respectfully retreated behind Suhanalan.

"Alright, now let's prepare for the first level, let's sit down!"

Everyone sat down one after another, and the official slaves distributed the test papers to the hands of each embroiderer, and many of the official embroidery girls who came to participate, even the civilian embroidery girls also spent a few years in the school, but there were still a few embroidery girls who shook their heads helplessly after reading the test papers and walked out.

Su Xiaoman opened the test paper and looked at it, and sure enough, it was the same as what he thought, the test was the origin of the cloth brocade, and the origin of the embroidery thread, etc., and it also involved the origin and structure of the weaving frame, and the last question was to embroider the girls to write their views on the Silk Road, Su Xiaoman smiled, which is the embroidery girl's exam, and the difficulty of the exam questions is comparable to that of Jinke.

But for Su Xiaoman, a businessman, it was a breeze, after writing his exam papers, the moment he put down the brush, Su Xiaoman breathed a long sigh of relief, looked up at the embroidery girls around him, and couldn't help but feel that if a woman doesn't know a little more things, she is really embarrassed to come out of the house.

Su Xiaoman raised his hand slightly, and said, "Princess Niangniang, the folk girl is done!" ”

Suhanalan looked at her in surprise, didn't she know how to write it so quickly, but she gave up, and saw Suhanalan nodding and signaling.

Gong Nu walked in front of Su Xiaoman to collect the scroll, and looked at Su Xiaoman's dress, but the ready-to-wear clothes on his body were like never seen in Jiangnan.

Gong Nu handed the test paper to Suhanalan's hand, she raised her eyes slightly and glanced at it, the hairpin in one hand was written quite handsomely, and the neat test paper made people look refreshed.

In fact, Suhanalan said that Wei Yuan went to the palace to be busy with important business, Wei Yuan has been sitting in the inner hall observing everyone's reactions, and is particularly interested in Su Xiaoman's first test paper, after all, it is the senior embroidery girl in the palace who came out with this test paper, and it will take a stick of incense to complete it at the earliest, but Su Xiaoman only took two quarters of an hour to complete it.

Suhanalan glanced at the test paper and handed it to Ruyi, his eyes signaled, Ruyi turned around and took the test paper into the inner hall, Wei Yuan looked at Su Xiaoman's test paper, and was very interested in the Silk Road in the last question.

After all the cadres and others handed in the examination papers, the maidservants successively served melons, fruits, tea and food to the embroidery girls, and Suhanaran said: "You guys wait a little longer, the examiner will release your results in a while!" ”

After speaking, he got up and walked into the inner hall.

After a while, seeing that noon was approaching, the maid Ruyi walked to the banquet hall with the exam results in her hand.

Ruyi cleared his throat and opened the paperwork and said: "The finalists are: Zhao Fu embroidery Zhao Yu, Huangfu embroidery Su Xiaoman, Qin Linshuang, Zhou embroidery Wu Yue, and embroidery He Zi, Liu Liya, Du Chunyue, Feng Xiaotao, and a male embroidery Zhang Hua. ”

Hearing about the male embroidery, everyone looked up one after another, but they never saw the man, but Zhang Hua covered his mouth and smiled at this time, thinking that it would be strange if you could see my dress.

As soon as this thought passed, he turned his head and looked at Su Xiaoman and smiled meaningfully at him, and in an instant Zhang Hua's face was surprised, everyone heard that there was a male embroiderer but did not see him, but they didn't dare to ask more.

Ahem......

"Blind to everything, listen to it, even if you don't read the name, no matter how good your embroidery skills are, you don't even know the most basic or need to know, you are not worthy of being a qualified embroiderer, so those who are not shortlisted can be invited back!"

Ruyi leaned over and said, only to see those embroidery girls who were not shortlisted shaking their heads and walking out of the banquet room, some of them were holding a handkerchief to wipe the tears from the corners of their eyes.

Su Xiaoman was puzzled, it was just a splendid competition, why did he cry so badly, and he didn't really get fame and fortune.

"Please ask the above nine shortlisted embroidery girls to go to the side hall for dinner, and the next competition will be arranged after lunch!"

Saying that, he half-squatted, got up and took Su Xiaoman and the others to the side hall, and Pearl was placed in another hall to wait for a while after sending Su Xiaoman in.

Walking on the winding verandah, the other embroiderers talked and laughed as if they had partners, only Su Xiaoman and Zhang Hua walked alone.

When they came to the side hall, the cooks had already prepared their meals, and they saw Wei Yuan sitting on the chairman, Suhannaran sitting on his side, and several old embroiderers in the palace sitting at the main table.

Nine people sat at the deputy table, waiting for Wei Yuan to speak, since ancient times, the master said that he could only move chopsticks if he could eat, not to mention the dignified prince's mansion, among which there were also a few people who admired Wei Yuan, and they all threw their eyes of admiration, but they didn't block the ruyi around the princess one by one.

Wei Yuan was really curious about the first person to hand in the paper today, and before he could say the word start, he quickly got up and said, "Who among you is Su Xiaoman?" ”

Hearing her name called, Su Xiaoman was a little stunned, put down the tea bowl in his hand, got up and half-squatted and said, "Go back to the prince, the folk girl Su Xiaoman!" ”

Looking at Su Xiaoman, who was sitting at the farthest place, Wei Yuan's eyes lit up, and he hurriedly got up: "Get up!" Come, come, come, sit here with this king! ”

waved her hand and hurriedly motioned her to step forward, but the princess stopped his hand and leaned over in her ear and said, "Lord, you are not very beneficial, let's wait for the afternoon competition to meet you!" ”

Su Xiaoman looked at Wei Yuan, who was in his early twenties at most, with fair skin that girls envied, tender, as if it would be scraped when the wind blew, long and dense eyelashes slightly curled, covering a pair of bright and deep eyes, his calm gaze was unpredictable, adding a sense of mystery, and his handsome figure showed his royal demeanor even more...

Thinking of a man with such a face, it is no wonder that many family members admire him regardless of etiquette.

Wei Yuan nodded and admitted: "Yes, what the princess said makes sense, then you sit down first, and then come forward to answer when you pass the second round of exams, this king has a question in his heart!" ”

Su Xiaoman squatted down and said, "Yes!" ”

After speaking, he sat back in his place, and the food on the dinner table was comparable to the royal meal of Canglan Kingdom, among which the white jade and green meatballs made Su Xiaoman like it very much, and the immortal stuffed tofu also melted in the mouth.

After lunch, Suhannaran also specially ordered someone to make tea to eliminate food in the side hall.

Everyone discussed the virtue of this Suhanalan, and after eating the tea, it was already the end of the hour, and the officials and slaves returned to the banquet room with nine people.

This time, Wei Yuan also sat in front of the hall, Suhannaran sat on the side, and the officials and slaves had already prepared all the things for the exam when they had lunch at noon.

The second test is brocade weaving, that is, all the weaving racks are placed in the banquet room, and the topic is to make a piece of cloth out of the weaving frame according to the question, and it will not take an hour.

Ruyi stood up and opened the document and said: "The title of the brocade is embroidery!" ”

Just one word, Su Xiaoman smiled at the corner of his mouth, isn't it embarrassing for those embroidery girls who don't understand the meaning? As the so-called embroidery has hundreds of embroidery methods such as Shu embroidery, Bian embroidery, Guangdong embroidery, etc., it is really a difficult problem to understand the meaning of a single embroidery word!

But Su Xiao confidently selected the silk thread he needed from the embroidery thread next to him, sat back in the position of his weaving frame, and began to weave with a shuttle in his hand.

Just as Su Xiaoman had already started, there were still a few people who looked at it at a loss, because they really didn't understand what this embroidery word meant, did they want to weave an embroidery word?

Although I didn't have an idea in my heart, I still chose the silk thread and began to weave it, after all, the first one will never lose.

However, Wei Yuan looked at Su Xiaoman, who was careful and serious, and was really interested in her, because Su Xiaoman's view of the Silk Road was different from that of others, and after several old embroiderers in the palace read the answers, they felt that this woman was not ordinary.

However, what exactly is written in Su Xiaoman's Silk Road?