Shen Yan's official identity is the newly crowned top scholar.
There's just one problem: he can't read a single character.
He can't write traditional characters, can't compose poetry, and remembers only half a line from the Four Books and Five Classics.
The entire court is waiting to see when this "top scholar" will be exposed.
In the Golden Throne Hall, the emperor suddenly asks him: Three million shi of canal grain, with thirty percent lost along the way. Where did it go missing?
He raises his head and says, "This... I will calculate it."
The entire hall falls silent.
Three days later, he accounts for every one of those nine hundred thousand shi, grain by grain, and traces it back to the people responsible.
From then on, a new rule takes hold in the officialdom of Dajing:
What is written in the books must match what is piled on the ground.
If it doesn't, someone has to pay it back.
