A disgraced scholar barred from the imperial exams uses a history PhD’s “exam toolkit” to teach a cowherd boy to become a provincial top scorer and a merchant’s son to pass the palace examinations.
He helps poor students use their exam papers to prise open the door to the exams, monopolized by the great clans, while turning his own wrongful conviction into a chain of evidence hidden in his students’ answer sheets.
When the emperor asks who taught him, he replies: “Your condemned servant, Gu Yan, has students throughout the land.”
