He Shen, the most powerful official in the Qianlong Dynasty, was one of the first "corrupt officials" to be executed after Emperor Jiaqing ascended the throne. The ink on the death poem in prison was not yet dry, but he opened his eyes - returning to the moment when he was born forty-nine years ago.
He lost his mother at the age of three, his father at the age of nine, and he remembered the cold eyes and bullying from Xian'an Palace. But this time, he is no longer the orphan who can only accept everything. With the memories of more than forty years of officialdom in his previous life, he wanted to climb to the top of the empire as quickly as possible.
From the third-class guard to the guard of the Qianqing Gate, from the Minister of Household Affairs to the Minister of Military and Aircraft - every test on the way to promotion is a chess game carefully designed by him. The secret report on the Gao Pu case, the answers in the Old Summer Palace, the overnight liquidation of the accounts of the Ministry of Accounts... He knew the emperor's temper, the undercurrents of the court, and the weaknesses of his opponents better than anyone else.
But in this life, what he wanted was not the false reputation of "Second Emperor", nor the end of having his family confiscated and exterminated. He wanted to lay a net that no one could untie before Jiaqing raised the butcher's knife.
Relive his life again, and this time, he will never make the same mistakes again.
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