As a Concubine-Born Son, I Passed the Provincial Exam Alongside Fan Jin

[No System, multiple heroines, the world of Confucian scholars, the late Ming, food, and an exhilarating imperial-examination story] Shen Yan transmigrates into The Scholars and becomes an obscure scholar, the unrecognized son of a concubine. He has a photographic memory and knows classical literature inside out, but he has neither a powerful family nor a vast fortune. To keep studying, he writes on behalf of his clan cousin during a matchmaking meeting, only to catch the eye of a wealthy young lady instead. To earn travel money, he copies books and tutors students, while also helping Fan Jin, who is traveling to take the exams alongside him. From the provincial exams to the metropolitan exams, from the Hanlin Academy to the provinces, from the social niceties of the Confucian world over a plate of roast goose and a pot of rice wine to the affairs of state in the Golden Throne Hall. The path Shen Yan must walk is about more than rising through the ranks by passing the exams. He also wants to ask the people of this world: Is studying meant to make you an official, or to make you a better person?