Rising to Power as a Top Student, Starting by Rejecting Big Money and Beautiful Women

Qin Tianji, the top scorer in the national civil service exam and a direct-entry master's and doctoral student at Qingbei University, had been promoted just a week ago. On one side, powerful capitalists were circling him; on the other, an heiress from one of the capital's elite families had offered him a marriage alliance.

Everyone was waiting for him to make the "smart" choice, but he rejected them all on the spot and applied to work in a poverty-stricken county in a remote border region.

With no powerful backers and no reliance on others, he used the sharp logic of a top scholar and his commitment to integrity to tackle the most difficult livelihood issues at the grassroots level. He exposed the disguises of interest groups, took on long-standing problems affecting people's lives, and established himself in a local bureaucracy riddled with unspoken rules, winning the people's support.

Building on that foundation, he revitalized the countryside, developed emerging industries, and advanced cutting-edge big-data technology, forging a path to power in public service where achievements spoke for themselves.