The Officials’ True Colors: Infinite Reincarnation

Li Mingyuan, a modern history student, accidentally falls into the officialdom of the late Qing dynasty. Bound to a Reincarnation System, he becomes characters such as Zhao Wen, Qian Dianshi, and Wang Daotai from The Scholars, trapped in one trial after another that will determine his fate.

He was once a scholar sitting for the imperial examinations. After trusting a local gentryman, he became a tool for exam fraud and froze to death in the wilderness while being exiled. He also served as a minor local official, only to be framed by his superior and put in the stocks for public humiliation when he tried to remain honest. While handling foreign affairs, he tried standing up to foreigners and was dismissed; he also tried going along with corruption, only to become a scapegoat. In the powerful post of provincial governor, currying favor with foreigners brought popular resentment, while resisting them invited military disaster. Either way, he faced a dead end.

Each time he failed, time reset. He returned with memories and scars to guide him, learning to read human nature through the exchange of gifts during the three festivals and two birthdays, to understand the rules of a hierarchy where “one rank above can crush you,” and to maneuver amid the bloody struggles between factions. The traps that had once cost him his life, the secret signals of exam fraud, corruption in disaster-relief funds, pitfalls in foreign contracts, and the minefield of the conflict between the emperor and empress, gradually became stepping stones to breaking the deadlock.

After a hundred cycles, he was no longer the reckless young man who thought he could turn history around. He knew the late Qing's deep-rooted ills could not be cured overnight. The so-called “perfect ending” was neither to be an upright official who kept himself pure nor a warlord who toppled everything, but to sow seeds in rotten soil: to preserve the desire to serve the world in scholars like Zhao Wen, help petty officials like Qian Dianshi find an honest path, make modern enterprises truly serve the people, and spare the dynasty a little more war and displacement as it came to an end.

This is a journey through a thousand cycles of reincarnation