The so-called female history is actually a palace maid. The court maids were one rank lower than the concubines and female officials in the court, but they were one rank higher than the miscellaneous servants who only did rough and heavy work. As the name suggests, the female history of the "Imperial Tea Bureau" is the palace maid who is responsible for making tea for the emperor, managing tea utensils and receiving tribute tea.

Although it is only a selection of women's history, the women of appropriate age are lined up from Xihua Gate to Xilang Long Street. Some of these women had to sacrifice themselves as slaves in order to earn money to support their families because of their poor families, and some were just like Yimei who had already been separated and found a place to live. However, most of them entered the palace with the idea of "getting the moon first near the water" in a vain attempt to choose the king's side to enjoy the glory and wealth of one day. The girl in front of Yimei was half a head shorter than her, and she looked two years younger than Yimei. She seemed to be very important to this selection, and she kept nervously clasping her hands together and chanting words in her mouth, and beads of sweat appeared on her forehead on such a cold day. She just cared about chattering, and she didn't even realize that something fell from her body, Yimei bent down to pick it up, and found that it was a piece of paper full of words, so she stopped her, "Your thing has fallen." After speaking, he handed her the paper in his hand. She thanked her as she quickly took the paper from Yimei's hand and read it from beginning to end, as if she had lost all the words on the paper just now. Yimei finally couldn't help but ask curiously: "Why are you so nervous?" The girl suddenly became mysterious, made a "shhh" gesture, and then approached Yimei and whispered: "This is the question of the exam later, I finally asked someone to get it." Yimei felt a little funny, "Isn't it just to choose a palace maid, and what are the exam questions?"

"Of course, the one I chose today is the palace maid of the Imperial Tea Bureau. The girl looked at the paper a few more times as she spoke, then carefully folded it and put it in her sleeve.

"So what?"

"Because I am the palace maid who chooses the Imperial Tea Bureau, I have to test the knowledge of tea, such as the type and origin of tea, such as how to make tea, such as how to taste tea, these are all particular. After the girl finished speaking, she looked at Yi Mei as if she was looking at a bun from the countryside who didn't know anything, and asked, "You don't even know this, do you?" Before Yi Mei could answer, she muttered to herself again, "And the maid of the tea palace is the closest to the emperor, in case the emperor takes a fancy to ......" she didn't continue, but blushed and smiled shyly. This smile made Yimei see a young girl with a spring in her heart, and instantly felt that she was cute and funny, and deliberately teased her, "It turns out that you want to be the emperor's concubine!"

The girl's face turned even redder, and she hurriedly denied it, "Don't talk nonsense! I just want to see how powerful the emperor is." With that, he turned around and followed the team, and Yi Mei hid her face behind her and snickered. After a while, when Yimei thought she was really angry, she suddenly turned around and stuffed the paper to Yimei and said, "Take a good look, so as not to fail the test." ”

"Thank you!" Yimei said gratefully looking at her back, but she didn't glance at the piece of paper and put it in her sleeve.

My father used to be very fond of tea, and he also had a lot of research on tea, so everything about tea was easy to come by. In the past, my father liked to read the "Seven Bowls of Tea Poems": one bowl of throat kissing, two bowls of broken loneliness, and three bowls of dry intestines, only 5,000 volumes of words. Four bowls of light sweat, life injustice, all to the pores. Five bowls of strong bones and light bones, and six bowls of fairy spirits. Seven bowls can't be eaten, but I feel that my eyes are used to the breeze. Penglai Mountain, where is it? Yuchuanzi wants to return by this breeze. He said that being able to have a good cup of tea is also a great blessing in life.

Thinking of his father Yimei, his eyes were wet, and he wondered if he could drink tea with peace of mind over there?

"Su Qi, Yimei, you come with me. The words of a proclaimed eunuch pulled Yimei back from her thoughts, and at this time she knew that the girl in front of her was named "Su Qi".

They followed the eunuch to what looked like a pavilion. There were three women sitting in front of the attic, all expressionless, who were supposed to be examiners. Not far in front of them, there were all kinds of tea leaves and utensils for making tea, and then down were two futons, and the eunuch motioned for Su Qi and Yi Mei to kneel on the futon and sit down and bow to the three women before leaving. After he walked away, the woman sitting in the middle said, "Today's exam is divided into three parts: tea knowledge, tea brewing, and tea tasting. The first is to know the tea, you have five kinds of tea in front of you, you can determine what kind of tea they belong to by smelling and looking, and what their names are, write them on paper and hand them in, and we will judge them. After she finished speaking, the woman on her right continued: "After knowing it, it is to make tea, you can choose any kind of tea in front of you and any kind of tea set to make tea, we just see whether your technique is right." ”

"Finally, there is tea tasting, that is, you taste each other's tea, and the tea brewed by each other is also written on paper and handed in for us to distinguish. ”

After listening to what they said, Su Qi was so nervous that he trembled a little and whispered: "Oh no, what should I do if I forget all the things I just remembered when I was nervous?"

"It's okay, take your time. Yimei tried to comfort Su Qi, but even she herself was a little frightened by this situation.

At the beginning of the tea recognition process, it was very smooth, but Su Qi suddenly made a mistake when he reached the last tea. This is brick tea, she knows, but forgets whether brick tea belongs to black tea or green tea. Just when she was as anxious as an ant on a hot pot, Yimei's hand shook and dripped a large puddle of ink on the paper, and Yimei was shocked and said, "Oops, it's dark." Su Qi glanced at Yi Mei with emotion and quickly wrote down the answer on the paper.

After the exam, they returned to the original place to wait, and when everyone finished the exam, not long after the eunuch also came out to read out the list of selected female histories. Naturally, Yimei and Su Qi were not unexpectedly selected, Yimei was very calm, Su Qi was so happy that she screamed and jumped at sunset, and her smiling face was covered with a thin layer of gold sand.

Yimei sighed, Cheng Jun used to say such things to himself.

"The female history who was admitted to the exam can go back tonight and prepare to come here early tomorrow morning to concentrate on someone to take you to the Imperial Tea Bureau, as for the rest of the people, let's disperse." After the eunuch finished speaking, he ignored the pleas and complaints of a group of girls who were not admitted.

"Thank you just now, Sister Yimei!" When he left the palace gate, Su Qi was already holding Yimei very affectionately, and naturally called Sister Yimei, but soon realized that something was wrong, and whispered: "I don't know how old my sister is when I am fifteen this year?" Yimei laughed out loud, "I'm seventeen, you can call me sister in the future." ”

"Okay, Sister Yimei. Su Qi sweetly called out and remembered something and asked, "Sister, aren't you unprepared, how can you know so much?"

"I," Yimei thought for a moment but decided not to tell the truth, "My family used to sell tea. ”

"No wonder!"

Then, along the way, Su Qi kept asking Yimei about her life experience and her preferences, and also took the initiative to tell Yimei about her life experience and preferences. It turned out that even though Su Qi was innocent and happy on the surface, in fact, she was also a child with a pitiful background. She grew up with her grandmother following the death of her parents when she was a child. But because grandma was getting older, she couldn't work, and even eating became a problem, so Su Qi decided to enter the palace as a palace maid to make money for grandma. Speaking of this, she suddenly emphasized: "I didn't enter the palace because I wanted to be the emperor's concubine!"

"Okay, it's okay for me to apologize for what I just said!" Yimei seemed to see in her the carefree shadow she had back then.

Su Qi remembered something very important, "You said that your parents are gone, and you are not locals, so where are you staying tonight?"

"I haven't figured it out yet. ”

"Don't think about it, stay with me tonight. ”

"Is that good?"

"What's wrong, grandma will definitely not worry if she knows that you will enter the palace with me. Su Qi couldn't help but say that he pulled Yimei to his house.

This night, after Su Qi fell asleep, Yimei got up and walked to the window, facing the bright moon in the sky, clasped her hands together, and secretly prayed in her heart. Pray that fate will be calm from now on, and pray that you can grow old in the court well, even if you grow old alone.