Once outside, they saw the courtyard was indeed teeming with people.
Many of the faces were unfamiliar, but there were familiar ones among them, of course: their friends from the Zhao Village, the stipendiary scholars the two had found to act as guarantors, and De'an's fellow students.
Seeing this, Zhao Jing and Chen De'an hurried over to meet with their friends, then led them to find the stipendiary scholars.
With the stipendiary scholars acting as guarantors and their friends from the Zhao Village providing mutual guarantees, Zhao Jing and Chen De'an were, as expected, the first to complete their registration.
They each paid the two-tael silver deposit and asked Li'an if he wanted them to wait.
Chen Lian had also registered for the county exam this year, and his mother was already dreaming of him becoming a Scholar. She even said that if he truly achieved that rank, she would arrange a marriage for him with a bride from the county seat.
