The world is fraught with danger, and the halls of power are ever-changing. Water has no fixed shape, and purity or corruption lies in the heart. History is a mirror that distinguishes the loyal from the treacherous!
In the third month of the forty-seventh year of the Wanli reign of the Ming dynasty, during the palace examination for the Jihai year, Nurhaci of Jianzhou dealt the Ming army a crushing defeat at Sarhu in Liaodong, shaking the court and the country. Zhang Yu, a candidate from Licheng, Shandong, traveled to the capital for the metropolitan examination and placed second in the top tier. When the top scorer, Zhuang Jichang, submitted his examination paper with an error, Zhang Yu was exceptionally appointed a compiler at the Hanlin Academy. Later, in the capital, Zhang Yu unexpectedly met two women and found himself drawn into a web of sinister rivalries...
This is a partially fictionalized historical novel set in the Ming and Qing dynasties. The protagonist is fictional.
