In the twelfth year of Shaoxing in the Southern Song Dynasty (AD 1142), the current situation was complicated and the officialdom was plagued by long-standing malpractices. Song Weili, a 22-year-old young man who was not good at poetry and calligraphy, unexpectedly obtained the official position of chief registrar of Jiupin County by virtue of the "En Yin" system after the death of his father (who was an official from the sixth rank), and thus entered the story of survival and growth in the dangerous officialdom.
