After Failing the Imperial Exams, I Switched to Studying the Art of Ruling

In the early years of the Great Zhou dynasty, an empress takes the throne, aristocratic clans hold sway, and imperial authority has fallen into decline.

Eighteen-year-old Su Yan travels to the capital to sit the imperial exams. His essay astonishes everyone, yet the examiners fail him, branding him “insolent.” On his way home, his family is framed and brought down overnight.

Everyone thinks Su Yan's life is over.

No one knows that his mind holds the wisdom of an entire age:

He uses game theory to untangle court politics, information warfare to undermine the aristocratic clans, and financial tactics to rebuild the foundations of the state.

He rises from the mire, step by step, until he reaches the very center of power.

The empress sees him as her sharpest blade, yet fears he may become her most dangerous adversary.

But she doesn't know that from the very first day Su Yan entered the capital, he had been laying out a game of his own.

A game to ensure the realm no longer rests on the whim of a single person, and to place power in the hands of institutions.

When every opponent has fallen and the empress asks him with red-rimmed eyes, “What is it you really want?”

Su Yan smiles.

“I want there to be no second Su Yan in this realm.”