Cast Out, I Defy Fate Through the Imperial Exams

After waking up, Gu Mingzhao, a literature PhD from the twenty-first century, finds herself a starving country woman in the Great Yong Dynasty. She also has four little girls wailing for food, each of them looking like a refugee... Her husband has gone off to war, his fate unknown. Her mother-in-law makes her life miserable, and her sisters-in-law bully her. What a catastrophic start. Gu Mingzhao rolls up her sleeves. She kicks the nephew who was pinning down and beating her daughter, slaps her foul-mouthed sister-in-law, and gives her mother-in-law ten palm strikes for trying to sell her daughter. Brandishing a kitchen knife, Gu Mingzhao glares furiously. “Since none of you will let the five of us live, then we can all die together.” The Lu family members shake their heads in terror. Gu Mingzhao raises a torch. “You broke the rules and ran your mouths outside. Looks like you all want to go to hell.” The Lu family turns around and beats the real culprit senseless, then fawns over Gu Mingzhao, wagging their tails like dogs. With the Lu family thoroughly subdued, Gu Mingzhao can finally focus on preparing for the imperial exams. In the Great Yong Dynasty, women can take the exams and become officials, too. Before long, she passes the county and provincial exams, and just as her career seems to be taking off, her husband, who disappeared while serving in the army, comes back. He even brings along his beloved, his “white moonlight.” Heh. Gu Mingzhao calmly turns around and fetches a knife from the house. You were already dead and buried. What did you come back for? Do you want me to finish you off myself?