The Farmer’s Young Scholar Breaks Off His Engagement (Imperial Exams)

★★ Male-focused, imperial examinations + progression + farming On the day he carried his father's coffin to the grave, fourteen-year-old Xu Yanqing had his engagement broken off. His childhood sweetheart promptly married his classmate, who had just passed the prefectural examination and become a licentiate. Xu, meanwhile, had violated a major rule of the imperial examinations by passing while in mourning, so his eligibility to sit the exams was revoked. Once he buried his father, he was supposed to be thrown in jail. On the mountain, Xu Yanqing knelt before the coffin, lacquered red, without shedding a single tear. He burned incense, dug a pit, buried the coffin... Xu Yanqing did it all himself. Just as he was nailing the coffin shut and laying it to rest, Xu Yanqing, who had endured humiliation for years, suddenly stood up. Since they had treated him unjustly, he would show them no mercy. He ran all the way to the dock and intercepted an official boat. In a corner of the boat's cabin sat Xu Yanqing's father, who should have been lying dead in the coffin. Xu's father stared in shock, covering his face as he tried to flee. Xu Yanqing laughed in fury, his voice cold and vicious as he spat out each word: “I'll put you back in your coffin.” Xu's father was so frightened he stopped breathing for a moment. He never could have imagined that his usually refined and courteous son would one day become more terrifying than an evil spirit, personally shoving his very-much-alive father into a coffin, nailing it shut, and burying him. After this, Xu Yanqing went from being a modest young gentleman to a vicious wolf in the mouths of the common people. His father was cruel, so he knelt in the ancestral hall with thorns on his back and begged to sever their ties. His stepmother was unkind, so he wrote a story that spread the rumor she was like a red apricot branch leaning over the garden wall. The imperial examination path was blocked, so he used his clever hands to build a fortune, until even the county magistrate became his lackey. His childhood sweetheart disliked him and married someone else, so he could just find someone else. Licentiate, juren, jinshi. Born a farmer's son, he climbed step by step toward the imperial court. However, Xu Yanqing entered the cabinet four times and became chancellor three times, with students and former subordinates all over the land, yet his marriage prospects were the one thing that never went smoothly. The history books say that Lord Xu did not wear red and marry until he was thirty. Little extra: On their wedding night, Xu Yanqing learned that he was the male lead of a plot outline for a story with no romantic pairing. Looking at his new bride asleep with her head resting on his arm, Xu Yanqing fell into a long silence. Xu Yanqing: I've married a wife, so I suppose this story has gone off outline? Left here on 2020.12.28, screenshots recorded. Theme: Do good deeds and don't worry about what the future holds