The protagonist is a newly recruited civil servant with absolute photographic memory and absolute sanity. He lives in an old-style officialdom where favors outweigh regulations and hidden rules are rampant, but he uses all open or dusty regulations, systems, and documents as his only weapon. By internalizing a large number of provisions into an impeccable logical closed loop, he used "malicious compliance" to crush all hidden rules one by one, starting from tough leadership and rectifying the workplace atmosphere. He gradually grew from an isolated "stupid young man" to a "system insider" who frightened the entire municipal officialdom, becoming the nightmare of all violators and the ultimate patron saint of rules.
