Officialdom: Starting in the Most Remote Small Town

Shen Yifan is an orphan who grew up in a welfare home and earned a master's degree in law with the help of student loans. To follow his girlfriend, Lin Xiaoya, he gives up an offer from a law firm in the provincial capital and takes a civil service job in Qingshi Town, the most remote part of Cangxi County. On his first day, he is assigned a folding table in the hallway, without even a decent chair.

In his third month on the job, Lin Xiaoya leaves him for Liu Wenbin, who has better prospects. She tells him to his face, "You make three thousand yuan a month. Why should I wait for you to spend your whole life in a place like this?" Shen Yifan is also saddled with the blame for a major mess: when the town's accounts turn up irregularities, all responsibility is pinned on him, and he nearly loses his job. Everyone thinks he's finished. His predecessor is waiting for him to pack up and leave, while Liu Wenbin drives in from the county seat to take Lin Xiaoya away.

But no one knows that Shen Yifan holds a set of books that do not add up, along with a refusal to accept his fate. He has an old friend in the provincial capital, quietly laying a web of connections. When the truth about Qingshi Town comes to light, a sweeping transformation, from the township to the county seat, will begin with him.