Chen Changsheng, a modern graduate student, transmigrates into ancient times and finds himself in hell mode from the start:
His predecessor was a notorious wastrel. To raise money for the imperial exams, he even planned to sell his younger female cousin!
Then his younger cousin smashes him dead with a stool, just in time for Chen Changsheng to take over!
Chen immediately protects his cousin, turns over a new leaf, and resolves to pursue the proper path of the imperial examinations.
His family is dirt poor?
He has a photographic memory, so he treats the ancient exams like graduate-school entrance tests and drills practice problems!
He extracts pine soot to make premium Huizhou ink and compiles Five Years of Imperial Exams, Three Years of Mock Tests.
He joins forces with a bookshop to print The Top Scholar's Notes, quietly cornering the market on scholars across the empire.
Even the current chief grand secretary has to ask around to get his hands on the books for his children!
From the lowest level of the exams all the way to third place in the palace examinations, others spend ten years studying by lamplight,
while he trounces them all with his practice-question strategies and exam-taking techniques.
After placing on the imperial honors list, he turns down a cushy post and volunteers to head to Lianghuai, a region riddled with longstanding problems, to reform the salt administration.
He establishes a commercial bureau and overhauls the laws, making a fortune.
A clever salt merchant's daughter falls for him, while a cool, talented beauty secretly gives him her heart!
In this life, he swears to be the one moving the pieces,
holding the power of the world by day and sleeping in a beauty's arms by night!
From a wastrel born to a farming family, he becomes a winner with power over the realm, changing the course of history!
