Qingyun Ladder Covered with Snow

The old records have held me back for three generations, but I insist on taking the imperial examination to reach heaven. Shen Yan was born in Zaohu Lane in the south of the city. His ancestral records were not clear and he was not allowed to take the imperial examination according to the law. He was supposed to spend his life mending nets, selling fish, copying accounts for others, and being stuck in the old salt class books like his father's generation. On the day when the county school selected auditors, Zhou Jiaoyu raised a question about people's livelihood policy, asking thirty-seven households in the south of the city who owed taxes whether they should increase the fish tax. There were a lot of scholars in the hall quoting scriptures, but only Shen Yan wrote two words: No. A policy paper shocked the county school; a public announcement brought out ten years of old salt policy cases. Only then did the world know that the Shen family was not humble and unknown, but that three generations of the Shen family had been cleansed by a brushstroke. From the last seat of the county school to the imperial palace, from the old accounts of the fish market to the salt law of the world, Shen Yan wrote and entered the game, and succeeded step by step. Others study to improve their families. When he read, he wanted to rewrite the people who had been erased from the old books back under the sky one by one.