Dong Xiyun was furious. She had never expected Xie Qiao to do so well!
Meanwhile, Qi Huai was also standing at the same spot.
He was a little absent-minded.
Earlier, he had heard Xia Yayun say that Xie Qiao always slept during class, and he had never seen her attend classes such as tea classics, scriptures, and way of flowers. How could such a person get first place?
While he was puzzled, he was also embarrassed.
At that moment, he was no longer in the mood to comfort Dong Xiyun. Instead, he turned around and left.
Dong Xiyun was criticized and pointed fingers at. When she saw that Qi Huai had abandoned her and left, she could not help but cover her face and run away.
Xie Qiao had gone to collect her prize money.
That was right. The interval of the academy’s examination was uncertain. Sometimes it was once every two months, sometimes once every three months. Occasionally, there would be a small test. The prize money for both the big and small tests was also uncertain. Now that it was a big examination, the reward was generous!
One thousand silver beans for first place. 500 silver beans for second place. If it was third place, 100 silver beans.
She got eight first places! Eight!
She was not going to the Peony Courtyard, so naturally, she had to collect the silver beans.
Eight first places was unprecedented. The overseer looked at the silver beans in her hand, and his eyes were shining.
She must be thinking of how to bring her silver beans home!
With so many silver beans, Xie Qiao chose to keep accounts and take out some that were enough for daily use.
With so many silver beans, Xie Qiao even thought that the flowers in Mr. Sang’s yard were not important anymore.
However, the silver beans that she earned from copying books came from her hard work. It was terrible to waste them, so she went to take care of the flowers again.
Although she said she was going to cultivate the flowers, in fact, she was only going to water and fertilize them.
“Young Lady Xie hasn’t come in three days. The flowers are a little wilted again,” the little boy heaved a sigh of relief when he saw her coming.
The flowers were almost dead. When Xie Qiao first came, the branches were a little yellow. It seemed like even gods could not save them.
Who knew that after Xie Qiao came and took care of them for a few days, they actually became lively.
Later on, Xie Qiao came less often. He watered the flowers. When he was in charge of taking care of them, the flowers had been exposed to too much sun. The leaves were soft and weak, but when Xie Qiao was taking care of them, they were very lively and charming.
Xie Qiao smiled as she slowly watered the flowers.
These flowers were indeed some rare species.
Most of the orchids were grown on the cliffs.
When she was at the Taoist temple, she hardly planted flowers. She mostly planted herbs or vegetables. After all, she had to take many pills in the early years. Mo Lingzi could not afford to feed her, so she had to save money.
However, her health was lacking, so she could not be too meticulous in keeping medicinal herbs.
She only tried to cultivate them. Occasionally, she would sit near the medicinal herbs and read a book. She would only hire the villagers at the foot of the mountain to do the watering occasionally.
Even if it was difficult, the herbs could still be harvested.
As time went by, she realized that all the plants that she cultivated, whether they were edible or not, could grow well as long as they were alive.
Such skills gave her a lot of comfort.
“The teacher loves flowers so much. I think he must have had many flower seeds, right?” Xie Qiao asked.
“Yes, he has a greenhouse with over a thousand flower seeds. There are over a hundred classifications of chrysanthemums seeds alone,” the little boy said proudly.
Flower addict.
Xie Qiao laughed dryly.
The reason why she was able to get first place in this examination was because of… her Third Junior Brother’s eccentricities.
All these years, the most gifts she received were stacks of books about flowers. Many of them contained Third Junior Brother’s annotations, and there were also many poems about… senior sister and flowers.
