The Bandit Scholar and Her Curious Student

Setting: An imagined ancient China where women can take the civil service examinations and become officials.

Blurb:

A new teacher, Lin Xi, arrives at Huazhou Academy. Well-versed in the past and present and gifted with great learning, she quickly gets along with the students.

But her student Tang Li doesn't see it that way. This woman has far too many identities.

One moment she's a bandit with a full beard.

The next, a learned female teacher.

Then she's a secret agent assigned by the local authorities.

And after that, she's rallying people under the banner of justice.

She's at the center of every single mess.

At first, Tang Li sets her sights on Lin Xi because she's a bandit chieftain. Tang wants to capture her and trade her in for an eighth-rank official post.

Then Tang Li, bored with her peaceful life, realizes that sticking with Lin Xi is a sure way to find adventure and excitement.

Finally, Tang Li becomes inseparable from Lin Xi. She promises to protect her for the rest of her life, and never let them be parted again.

Lin Xi served as an official for three years, only to end up exiled to military service. With no other choice, she became an outlaw to stay alive.

Later, to make it easier to work in secret, she entered the academy as a teacher. In her spare moments, she enjoyed the peace and quiet of academy life.

But! It was all an illusion. These students were harder to manage than the bandits in her old hideout.

Have you ever seen a teacher get pinned to a door by a hidden arrow on the first day of class?

Have you ever seen a teacher try to break up a fight, only to get drenched in soup?

Have you ever seen a teacher go to a brothel to drag out a student, then end up helping him fight?

And especially that Tang Li, who chatters at her side all day. She asks about everything, from coded slang and secret signals to picking locks and breaking into houses, but never about the classics.

Her big eyes blink with curiosity at everything. She steals my dagger, takes my sword, and now she wants to claim me too.

I'm her teacher!

What a disaster.

Blurb Two

1. When Tang Li finds out she's fallen for her teacher:

I'm the bravest woman in the world!

2. When Lin Xi realizes she's fallen for her student:

Smack.

Smack.

Slapping herself twice doesn't feel like enough, so she has to berate herself until she comes to her senses.

Reader's Guide

1. Both leads have only each other.

2. Set in an imagined ancient China where both men and women can study, take the civil service examinations, and become officials. The details will be explained in the story, so I won't go into them here.

3. Ensemble cast.

Theme: Study hard! Be a good person!