Saving My Family Through the Imperial Exams: I Win Top Honors with My Talent

Zhao Yan, a doctoral graduate, pulled an all-nighter and died suddenly. When he opened his eyes, he had become a sickly child from a poor family in Great Zhou!

His scholar father had been framed and had the tendons in his hand severed. His mother had cried herself dry, and his sister traded embroidered handkerchiefs for rice to keep the family fed. Then the Ma family’s thugs came to force his father to kneel and sign a contract, trampling a scholar’s dignity into the mud!

Zhao Yan clenched his fists. “I’m going to put an end to this miserable life!”

Using modern knowledge, he made top-grade pine soot ink and devised a new blank-space painting style to break into the Wen Gu Zhai market. He earned the family’s first much-needed money, only to be framed by the Ma family and Scholar Sun as a maker of “heretical ink”!

At a critical moment, Zhao Yan persuaded the academy head to test the ink and clear his name. He wrote a stunning policy essay and won first place in the county exam. At Bailu Academy, he stood up to the gatekeeper and earned admission to the inner school. Then he took first place in both the provincial and metropolitan exams!

In the Golden Throne Hall, the emperor personally named him the top scholar!

After joining the Hanlin Academy, he feared neither the old forces at court nor their influence. He championed new policies that balanced agriculture and commerce, surveyed farmland to curb the powerful, built waterworks to relieve droughts and floods, cracked down on corruption, and reformed the civil service examinations.

From a poor family’s top scholar to a capable minister of the dynasty, he did more than clear the Zhao family’s name. He filled Great Zhou’s granaries, brought peace and prosperity to its people, and even drew envoys from foreign lands to pay tribute.

Standing at court and gazing out over the vast realm, Zhao Yan proclaimed, “We study not merely to seek fame and office, but to give the world a guiding heart!”