The locals cheered when Hu stepped forward and the magistrate went to take his seat. The guests were not as trilled. This all seemed rigged, not that if the semifinals were in their own village it wouldn’t have been as rigged, but still.

“I, ah, I have come here to…” Little Hu looked nervous, the magistrate tipped a sand clock upside down and the boy palled. “We all know that China is, um, it is…”

“Psst.” It was Han Shanyuan who had moved a little to the front so little Hu can hear him. “Tell them your key points and you’ll be fine. They have probably read your essay already. Just look at how they are smiling at you.” With that the boy returned back to his place and little Hu cleared his throat.

“We are numerous, but there are many regions which face shortage of hands! That is why there has to be a stipend to encourage women to have more children. And we need more schools, or else there will be none of us left.” Said the boy, breathing heavily. Han Shanyuan thought about his key points but there was one major flaw. A woman from the crowd, one of the guests, stood up and pointed a finger at little Hu.

“Do you know how dangerous giving birth is, little boy? And even if it wasn’t what are we women to you? Broodmares?” Many women voiced their agreement, which was ironic. Seeing as they were going to all get pregnant soon.

“Madam, I didn’t mean…”

“Are you a noble, little boy? Is that why you were picked to represent your village? All that noise over nothing!”

Little Hu looked ready to cry. Then he looked around and saw Han Shanyuan glaring daggers at the woman. That gave him courage.

“Our village suffers a shortage of workers, madam. Our rice is still in the paddies, even though it should have been collected by now. Children around here are expected to work. I am no noble and I have two jobs. One as a farmer during the day and another as a cook. I help support my family with the money, true, but I can barely go to school. This is not a good start for a child.”

The woman sat down, not knowing how to counter that. That got Han Shanyuan thinking. Wei Zhaohui’s essay was something along these lines. And yet Han Shanyuan had felt insulted when he read it. But now, hearing these arguments, he felt guilty for dismissing his friend’s work like that.

“Well done, childe Hu. Well done.” Said the magistrate as he climbed on the stage. “And your family is beyond reproach too on that front. Four healthy children, all working two jobs. If there were more like you and your siblings then we wouldn’t have been in such dire straits. Now, remember everyone. We all vote when the last one makes his case.”

The magistrate placed an arm around little Hu and lead him down the stage, clearly showing everyone for whom they should vote. Next up was a girl with lotus buns on the side of her hair. She looked more confident than little Hu and Han Shanyuan wished her luck in his mind.

“My essay is about the importance of using herbs while cooking and how we can get herbs cheaply so no one has to go without.” Then she began to explain in simple matters about indigestion and what caused it and how everyone could fit a few pots with herbs in their home. When she was done many began to ask her questions that should have been asked to a doctor, ignoring her main points entirely. The girl hung her head low when she failed to answer the questions. These people would forget all about her essay and probably just remember their medical issues.

The magistrate ushered her from the stage and placed her next to little Hu.

“I always use plenty of herbs in my cooking.” Said the boy in an attempt to cheer her up.

“I do chores around the neighborhood for some pocket money.” Said the girl with a faint smile. Then they huddled together and stared at the stage where a tall boy was beaming at the crowd.

“I came here today to talk about proper animal husbandry.” Said the boy with a lisp, although he was so happy to be here that even some of the locals smiled up at him. He finished his talk by saying that closely related animals shouldn’t be allowed to mate and then he bowed and hopped off the stage by himself to sit with his fellow contenders.

“Very enlightening. I see a bright future for you, my boy. I learned a lot. Who knew that animals might get sick if they eat only weeds?” Said the magistrate chuckling. The boy’s enthusiasm for what he spoke had even made him think on the essay, but he still wanted the stipend.

Next up was a slightly plumb boy who looked like he was ready to bolt. The rest of the children, who had seen what Han Shanyuan had done for little Hu, smiled incorrigibly at him and clapped politely. The boy puffed up his chest and begun to make parallels between eating sweets and happiness. He would have talked the entire day had the magistrate not shown him the empty upper part of the sand clock.

“And I want to say one last thing, if you all allow me.” Said the boy and the magistrate nodded, the children had behaved so well that he didn’t want to look bad in front of them by sending the boy off the stage.

“We, heavier people, are very good wrestlers. So, if you want to be happy and still be able to walk after all the sweets: exercise and wrestle! Thank you all.”

The boy, now in a much better mood, went to the other three contestants who gawked at him and asked him to show them his muscle. Which he did and he ended up impressing the lotus girl who sat by him. Little Hu sighed. Maybe he should start eating sweets and wrestling if the girls liked it.

Then a very muscular boy stepped to the front and he send his predecessor a glare. “My essay is about proper nutrition. Unlike what the one who came before me says muscles shouldn’t be build from candy and…” He ranted until the last grain of sand disappeared from the clock. The previous boy had given him counter arguments every chance he got. Then, when that didn’t work, he had challenged the boy to a wrestling match after the competition. The adults looked more exited about that than of both of the essays and the two boys shook their hands in a promise that their muscles will decide which of their essays was the misleading one. The girl looked between the two boys but the first one was handsomer in the face than his more muscular competitor. So, she stood by her first intendent.

Child number five looked more interested in watching a wrestling match for free than his own essay. It was about jade and why it was a useless luxury item. Had he not rushed many would have agreed with him but he gave only one of his key points. That jade mining had the potential of causing landslides. And then, without looking at the magistrate, he hoped down to egg on the two wrestling enthusiasts.

“Well, that was…brief.” Said the magistrate and a woman called from the audience that the child was going to get a whopping when they got home. Probably the child’s mother. “Madam, calm yourself. The youngster did his best. They can’t all be like our village’s childe Hu.” The magistrate chuckled nervously at the dirty glares he received from the guests and some of the locals. It seems that the children had set a good example of fair play and now the adults wanted to follow in their footsteps. “Next child!” Squeaked the magistrate and he climbed down. Little Hu would be on his own, from now on. He had done all that he could to cement his image into the audience’s minds.

Child number six was a girl and she smiled at the crowd and then pulled a huge sheet of paper from behind her back with diagrams and plans for a building.

“I’m here to present our village new invention. The water wheel!” It was clear that she wanted the attention of those around her so she could get them to pay for the water wheel and she kept bombarding them with numbers and investment returns. People were beginning to fall asleep when the magistrate tiredly ushed her down after telling her that no, he was not willing to get a five percent share in exchange for one hundred silver coins.

The girl slumped in her seat. Her whole village had expected her to bring back investors. She had done the plan herself. And her father had invented the water wheel. She felt someone tap her shoulders and she looked at the two wrestling boys.

“People are going to bet for us. And there will be a winning purse. I don’t know if it’s going to be a hundred silvers, but I’ll invest if I win.” It was the plainer, but more muscular boy that had spoken. The girl smiled and hugged him, asking him if he had a lady at home. To which he blushed and he hugged her back.

Child number seven was another girl who talked about the importance of not washing one’s clothes in the river so that it doesn’t get polluted. Her essay was met with many counter arguments, among which was that washing one’s clothes in the river was cheaper and faster. To which she had replied that not washing the clothes was faster still and that it didn’t matter how much someone washed if dirt flowed downstream from other people who washed their clothes. Feeling like the silence after her response was going to be the high of her presentation she climbed down before someone else tried to poke holes in her essay.

Child number eight bowed and then begun to talk about child rearing, using her arguments as a counter to little Hu’s essay. Stressing that children were not slaves and shouldn’t be born just to fill in the work slots.

Child number nine spoke about the importance of a good diet. The candy loving boy didn’t like his arguments and challenged him to a wrestling match too. The child declined which made his opponent smugly state that he was right. The more muscular boy didn’t agree with mister candy lover and he supported the balance diet plan of the boy on the stage.

Child number ten spoke about how there should be a cultivation sect on each mountain peak. Giving Samjin’s very own corpse infestation as an example.

Child number eleven, ironically enough, spoke about how cultivation sects were useless. Pointing out how Samjin’s sect has failed and a foreigner had to step in and scourge the tombs. He even pointed at Nikola who smiled and waved at the crowd and raised his sign in support of Han Shanyuan high. That made Han Shanyuan hide his face in his hands in embarrassment.

Then stepped in child number twelve. It was Han Shanyuan! He stared at the other eight children still on the stage who were giving him thumbs up. He saw the sign in his support raised high and he counted to three in his mind before stepping up.

“Poverty is a big problem in this land of ours. Bigger than the lack of population in some regions and it is the cause of bad choices in agriculture and in one’s personal diet and development. Because when one is expected to survive on a copper a day, they make that copper count. And I will tell you how.”

To his relief no one interrupted him as he spoke. They all had thoughtful looks on their faces. Then the girl with the water wheel project got up and pointed at Han Shanyuan.

“You have good ideas about saving money, can some be saved with the water wheel?” She asked and everyone looked at him waiting for his answer.

“Of course, cheaper materials and large quantities to be sold. When your craftsmen are capable of making the wheels quicker then install them in your village.”

“How do I survive on fifty coopers per week?” Asked one of the locals and Han Shanyuan made him an entire grocery list on the spot. Then his time was up and he went to the other children.

The rest of the children did their best to present, but all that everyone could talk about was Han Shanyuan’s essay. The organizers begun giving away copies of his work but since they had made little Hu’s essay in bulk, they only had ten copies. People clustered together and didn’t pay attention to the rest of the children. Or rather, the adults didn’t. The children, both contestants and in the audience, kept the debate going. That lifted the mood of the remaining contestants, but since children weren’t allowed to vote it gave them little hope for recognition.

When number twenty stepped down and dragged her feet to her fellow contestants the children huddled together and tried to cheer her up. The adults might not be fair, but they were. And they made a promise to each other that they would treat everyone fairly. The magistrate announced a pause but people were still reading Han Shanyuan’s essay trying to plan their next grocery trip by it so, no one paid him attention.

The magistrate looked at little Hu and sighed. Maybe next year.

When the voting was announced jars made the rounds among the seats with the names of the different contestants on them. Han Shanyuan ended up with first place, but a lot of locals still voted for little Hu. The girl who had wanted them to stop polluting the river by washing their clothes in it came in third. What the adults didn’t know, however, was that the children had also made a vote on a sheet of paper taken from Nikola which made the rounds in the audience.

Han Shanyuan had still won, but the girl with the water wheel project had come in second followed by the child who spoke about animal husbandry. Feeling like he had truly deserved his first place Han Shanyuan happily joined in the eating of candy supplied by the wrestling candy enthusiast. Full of sweets the contestants were far happier and more paper was given so the children could write their top three choices a diploma and sign it.

The adults waited for the contestants in front of the school and the two wrestling boys wrestled to a standstill. The few adults who had bet on that collected their winnings and the rest went into the winner’s purse which was given to the water wheel girl. She counted the money, made some calculations and grinned.

“Whit this we can make twenty wheels. And once we sell them, we can made fifty new wheels and so forth. Soon there is going to be a grain mill with a water wheel all across of China!”

The contestants then mingled with the other children who asked them about copies of their essays. Then a trader pushed up a cart with rice and duck pots and another with tea and everyone enjoyed a bite to eat while their children made new friends.