When the Fish Leaps Through the Dragon Gate

Su Wan had spent three years taking the civil service exam, with her accuracy stubbornly stuck at 35 percent. A “seasoned almost-made-it contestant,” she posted on a book forum to complain that she’d “studied herself into an NPC.” The post unexpectedly went viral, and netizens dubbed her the provincial civil service exam’s official lucky mascot.

By chance, she pushed open the battered wooden door of an old neighborhood and stepped into an ancient training academy called Dragon Gate Academy.

When she leapt through the Dragon Gate, she rose from the mud, covered in dirt, her eyes shining.