[Failed Scholar] [Last Survivor of the Shen Family] [Court Intrigue] [Revenge and Schemes] [Secrets of the Northwest Army] [A Contest of Emperors]
After failing the imperial exams time and again, Shen Qingwu tears up the Four Books, puts down his scholar’s brush, and takes up the weapon his father left behind. He wins twenty-seven consecutive bouts in the arena to qualify for the military exam, then uses an iron meteorite brush to rout elite cavalry. In the Golden Hall, he uncovers the fifteen-year-old massacre of his family and gains half the emperor’s tiger tally. Just as he thinks he has earned the emperor’s trust, the Shen family’s rebel banner rises in the northwest. He can no longer tell which of his former comrades are true or false, and the court is rife with undercurrents. His failure in the imperial exams was never a dead end, but the beginning of his patient entry into the game. This time, he will not rise through the imperial exams. With the iron will he has forged in blood, he will set the rules of Chang’an himself.
