The Director's Office is choosing a new seal-holder, and three people are fighting for one position.
Shen Yanzhao, born into a poor family, is an official who worked his way up step by step from the banks of the Bian River. He has nine guaranteed votes in hand and needs four more. He hosts dinners, makes promises, and passes messages, calculating every ballot cast.
Su Wanniang keeps another ledger for him: which examination cohort is close to whom, whose mind is on official business, and whose is on personal favors. She misses nothing. That ledger isn't in this book.
He thinks winning this round will let him turn his life around.
Until the celebratory banquet, when the Bian River embankment collapses.
Theme: The struggles and vicissitudes of a low-ranking official from a poor family caught in the cracks of the system. Political maneuvering always comes at a price, and cause and effect never fail to catch up.
