A Failed Student Transmigrates into a Stand-In Exam Taker and Turns His Life Around

Prologue

The smell of ink stung her nose. Su Xiao jolted awake at a pearwood examination desk. The sign reading “Jiangnan Provincial Examination” glared down at her. A proctor’s boots stopped beside the desk. “One incense stick left to hand in your paper. Are you giving up?” She looked down. The small-seal script title, “On the Essentials of Livelihood,” mocked her, the girl who had failed Chinese class. Her sleeve yielded a cheat sheet, but the unfamiliar ink marks were a death sentence: the mess left by the original owner’s impersonation had landed in her lap. As ash fell into the inkstone, Su Xiao clutched the paper. Should she accept her fate and be expelled, or risk everything in the imperial examinations with her half-baked modern knowledge?

Synopsis

Modern-day poor student Su Xiao wakes up in the body of a scholar who has been impersonating someone else in the Jiangnan provincial examination. Her answer sheet is blank, the incense is nearly burned out, the cheat sheet is a trap, and the spoiled Wang Yuanbao is waiting to get revenge. She uses the logic of modern argumentative essays to write her policy paper, catching the proctor’s attention. She also learns that the original owner impersonated someone to save her father, who had been framed in a grain-depot case.

With nowhere to go, she follows Zhou Tong to a school for poor scholars and teams up with Lin Ya to form an “investigation squad.” Su Xiao uses modern methods to organize the clues, Zhou Tong gathers information, and Lin Ya calculates the conclusive evidence that grain merchants are hoarding food. From clearing her name at the school and conducting field research in the countryside to a wager at a debate conference, Su Xiao transforms from a fugitive just trying to survive into a champion for the poor.

The turmoil in Jiangnan has barely settled when trouble stirs in the capital. The grain-depot case leads to powerful figures at court, and exam fraud pushes her all the way to the palace examination. This time, armed with a broken brush, she uses modern insights into people’s livelihoods to fight the prejudice and injustice of her age.