Snow Blankets the Azure Cloud Steps

An old register has bound my family for three generations. I mean to defy it and climb to the heights through the imperial examinations.

Shen Yan was born in Stove Lane, south of the city. His ancestors’ household registration was never cleared, which by law barred him from taking the examinations.

He was supposed to spend his life mending nets and selling fish, copying accounts for others, trapped in the old salt-tax ledgers just like his forebears. Then, on the day the county school selected students to sit in on classes, Instructor Zhou set an essay question on people’s livelihoods: Thirty-seven households of stove workers south of the city owed back taxes. Should the fish tax be raised again?

The hall was full of scholars quoting the classics. Shen Yan alone wrote two words: No.

His policy essay shook the county school. A single beat on the grievance drum brought to light a decade-old salt administration case. Only then did the world learn that the Shen family had never been lowborn nobodies. A single vermilion annotation had stained their good name for three generations.

From the last seat in the county school to the imperial court, from old fish-market accounts to the empire’s salt laws, Shen Yan entered the game with a brush in hand and climbed the examination ranks one step at a time.

Others studied to elevate their families.

He studied to restore to the light of day every person erased from the old registers.