Three-and-a-Half-Year-Old Dumpling: I Want to Be the Top Scholar

If the three-and-a-half-year-old little dumpling knew that the bite of locust blossom cake he was munching on at the threshold of the clan school would change the fate of the entire Dasheng dynasty, he would probably just blink his big eyes and ask, “Can I have an egg with it?”

In Bluestone Alley, cooking smoke curled into the air as the little dumpling and his grandmother scraped by with a battered pot. His mother embroidered by lamplight, each stitch like a line of poetry, while his grandmother tended the stove and cooked through the seasons. As for him, he squatted on the threshold, imitating chickens and dogs, reciting the Thousand Character Classic, and practicing arithmetic on an abacus. Life was like a crumpled sheet of paper, but he could always find a little sweetness in its folds.

Fate did not turn with some miracle from the heavens. It turned when, at the clan school’s dinner table, he traded a plate of sweet-and-sour radish for a remark from the Crown Prince: “You little rascal, you’re rather interesting.”

From then on, books and exams became his playground. At the imperial examination, the old chief examiner stared at the topknot on his head, dumbfounded. How could this child solve problems faster than he could eat candy?

But there is no such thing as free candy in life; every piece comes with a price. The greater his fame, the fiercer the storms; the younger he was, the heavier the burden. He was the little darling everyone held in the palm of their hand, but also the one who sat alone by lamplight in the dead of night.