An oil lamp illuminates the aspirations of Lin Mo, a young man from a poor family. From a humble background, he opened the door to the imperial examination with his outstanding talent. From a rural private school to a county school, he emerged in the turmoil of the county examination, outsmarted the powerful in the government examination, and finally won the first place in the college examination and became a scholar, taking the first step to change his destiny.
After passing the examination and becoming famous, he did not change his original intention. He went to Beijing with his pen and honed his knowledge in the Imperial College. After nine days of life and death tests in the Chunwei examination room, he finally won the gold medal and became a Jinshi. From being an aristocrat in the Hanlin Academy to being a magistrate in a foreign country, and from directly confronting political opponents to presiding over justice in the imperial examination room, he worked step by step and stayed true to his true intentions amidst the ups and downs of the officialdom.
In his later years, when he was in charge of the imperial examination, he tried his best to select talents from poor families, built academies to educate students, and promoted the reform of the imperial examination. The light has not been extinguished for ten years, illuminating not only a person's progress from a child to an important official in the imperial court, but also reflecting the innocent feelings of a generation of literati who settled down with their pen and ink and helped the world with their loyalty. This is an imperial examination epic about struggle, perseverance and inheritance, describing the ups and downs and glory on the road to fame.
