Has Top Scholar Xu Gone to Court Today?

Xu Shi was the youngest top scholar of the dynasty and the most promising investigating censor in the Censorate. But his uncompromising integrity and inability to be tactful offended the old emperor, who demoted him to a low-ranking post on the fringes of court: an eighth-rank messenger in the Office of Diplomatic Ceremonies.

In plain terms: a runner and a bearer of imperial edicts.

Xu Shi, a court clerk who had transmigrated into this world, slapped her thigh. "This is a great job! I won't have to spend every day with my boss, and I can travel at public expense. What a beautiful life."

So she made the most of her official trips, touring the beautiful landscapes of the dynasty and sampling all the local delicacies...

But the good times didn't last. The new emperor ascended the throne and ordered her back to the Censorate.

She was to become a vice chief censor, a post that made her loathed by all and left her facing salary cuts, reprimands, court beatings, exile, execution, and even punishment extending to her family.

Her carefree days were over. Xu Shi was furious, but she couldn't disobey the emperor's command. All she could do was make the censor's merciless side shine in full, hoping to return to the Office of Diplomatic Ceremonies and her "quiet, thankless job" as soon as possible.

But when she stood before the new emperor, dressed in her scarlet robe and looking up at the figure on the dragon throne, she was so shocked her soul nearly left her body.

"...Isn't that her original body's sickly fiance, whose family has a history of madness and whose engagement to her was arranged before they were even born?!"

-

Siyunlang, the legitimate son of the late empress, spent more than a decade lying low in the Shi family estate. Then he rallied the troops to defend the emperor, ascended the throne, and reclaimed the imperial power that had always belonged to him.

To clean up the court, he took the advice of his adoptive father, Duke Shi, and appointed Xu Shi, the young master of the censorial Xu family to whom he was engaged, as his blade.

But Siyunlang seemed to have underestimated the young censor's capacity for destruction.

In the days that followed, she showed no mercy to anyone, whether local tyrants, imperial relatives, senior ministers, or high-ranking officials. She seemed to be on a relentless killing spree.

In the past, ministers discussed current affairs and state policy before court. Now, before court, they first asked, "Has Top Scholar Xu arrived today?"

Siyunlang was unusually pleased by the atmosphere of fear her policies had created throughout the court. To reward Xu Shi, he began inviting her to private banquets with increasing frequency...

-

After a night of heavy drinking, Siyunlang went to the Xu residence and discovered that young men around Xu Shi's age were still hanging around there.

His spies reported that they were Xu Shi's cousins and distant relatives, who had come to the residence to study under her.

In Xu Shi's cramped bedroom, Siyunlang cornered her. "You have me now, so why haven't you sent them away? Or do you have other ideas? Don't forget, we were engaged first."

Inspired by material archived on 2026.06.03

Theme: I laugh aloud as I leave the capital. How could I be a mere weed in the fields?