On the night when Xie Yanzhi burned the imperial examination rolls, all the scholars in the world formed an army. Shen Zhiwei lurked with a secret file, Huo Jiuzhang cast armor in the dark, Liu Qiniang weaved a net in the market, and Zhao Tiegu carved military documents with his remaining fingers. While the powerful still regarded poor families as ants, they used pens as guns and scrolls as shields, setting off a transformation of the country without a blade. This is not revenge, but a backlash from the system - and Xie Yanzhi is the fire that burns away the old order.
