Gu Xingzhou, a history graduate student, wakes up as a poor scholar in the Great Qian Dynasty, in the seventeenth year of the Jingyuan era. The original owner has just been stripped of his scholarly status for "cheating in the examination hall." Now he is kneeling outside the county court, facing his smug enemy, indifferent constables, and a baton about to come crashing down. At the brink of despair, he suddenly hears the enemy's innermost thoughts: "Beat him to death. Then no one will know about the secret accounts for that salt license scheme." His golden finger suddenly activates: he can hear everyone's truest thoughts and ambitions. From exposing a corrupt salt-license scheme to save himself, to joining a powerful official's household, taking the imperial examinations, commanding a network of spies, and shaping the political landscape, he cautiously navigates the treacherous halls of government and the underworld, where everyone has their own agenda. On the surface, ruler and ministers are in harmony; in their hearts, they point swords at one another. They speak of loyalty, filial piety, righteousness, and honor, while each plots for their own gain. Everyone thinks he's merely a courtier who can "read minds," but he has quietly become a player whose schemes even the emperor fears. Yet mind-reading cannot reveal his own fate. The earth-shattering secret buried in the foundations of the dynasty is about to seep
