I, Fan Jin, Have Finally Seen the Light

(Zuowang Dao! I get it! Taking only The Scholars’ Fan Jin Passes the Provincial Exam and setting it in the late Ming period) “Look at this poor scholar. He’s over fifty and still hasn’t amounted to anything. He nearly starved his own mother to death!” “Right, what a useless piece of trash!” “Look, he didn’t pass the lower-level exam until he was over fifty. Even the examiner thought he was too old and took pity on him!” “Exactly. I bet they just felt sorry for him!” “Look, he’s only just passed the provincial exam, and now he’s gone mad!” “Oh, what a shame for his wife and mother. They waited on him their whole lives for nothing!” Fan Jin slumped to the ground, clutching his chest as if it were wounded, and shouted furiously. “Why?” “You’re living in a dream. What gives you the right to call me less than human?” “You don’t eat or drink, yet you’ve got clothes on your backs, lazing around in other people’s dreams!” “I need to eat. I have a mother and a wife. Without this title, my whole family would be done for today!” “I wrote those damn essays, studied those damn classics, and bent my back begging for money and food. I did it to support you ungrateful wretches!” “I hate that my father raised me all wrong. A poor man has no backbone. With no food, no clothes, and no one to support us, I’m covered in wounds that no medicine can heal!” “I hate that I can’t be a wolf. My kindness is wasted. I hate that I’ve stupidly lived like a sheep, sinking my sharp teeth into my own family!” A basin of cold water splashed into Fan Jin’s face. He jolted awake from his dream and saw the chicken in his arms and the gatekeeper cursing him out in front of him. He was left bewildered. Oh! I passed? Oh! I get it!