After transmigrating into the body of a poor scholar from a family on the brink of ruin in the Great Yong Dynasty, Lu Wenyuan faces two choices: sell his younger sister for food, or take the imperial exams and change his fate.
He chooses to pick up a book and set out on the path to success, the very road thousands compete to travel.
Yet when he finally stands in the imperial court, he discovers a far harder choice awaits him:
On one side is a reformist leader determined to change the system, though his new policies may throw the realm into turmoil.
On the other is a conservative minister who clings to the old institutions while watching the empire fall into decline.
The tides of history surge forward, and no one can stay untouched.
This time, Lu Wenyuan takes up his brush. For a dynasty weighed down by a century of accumulated ills, he will write a third path.
He can neither be a lone minister nor a pure Confucian. Then he will become the most pragmatic “corrector” in the realm, reshaping the land from within its cracks.
