Dream of the Red Chamber: The Jade Board's Golden Ring

Wang Gui, a master’s student in computer and agricultural sciences, transmigrates into Ban’er.

His great-grandparents passed the imperial examination and joined their lineage with the Jinling Wang family, gaining only the empty title of clan kin. Their family has fallen into decline, and they’re stuck in the countryside. By now, the Jia and Wang families are only impressive on the surface. Even proper collateral relatives like Master Rui and Second Master Yun are struggling to get by, so distant relations on paper are worse off still.

They can’t count on their "distant relatives" for help anytime soon.

But they might be able to glean something from their "nearby neighbors".

To the left of the Wang family’s place are the fields of the Marquis of Baoning. To the right is a retreat belonging to Prince Zhongshun. The surrounding hills are dotted with Buddhist temples, Taoist shrines, and nunneries, all bustling with worshippers year-round. Several consorts’ families have also taken over a great stretch of lotus ponds to build villas for their visits home.

When the lords and young masters, ladies and young mistresses, come out for spring outings or summer retreats, they bring a grand procession of carriages, horses, servants, and maids. When they’re in a good mood, an offhand tip is enough to support a farming family for half a year.

Wang Gui doesn’t resent the rich after transmigrating into a book. He’s genuinely grateful to the nobles for providing his family with jobs.

His father runs errands, and his mother cooks.

His grandmother grows vegetables, his little sister spins thread, and he clears wasteland.

Riding the wave of a family "resplendent as flowers and blazing like fire";

Waving the banner of "The Jinling Wang family is my own clan";

Trading on the reputation of being "a child prodigy from the capital who became the top scholar at ten";

Wang Gui smoothly integrates into the circle of the Great Yin Empire’s nobility. He spends his days sitting in on lessons and reading, claiming mountains and tilling fields. He turns a barren hillside into poor farmland and plants ramie, supplying lamp oil to the temples and shrines of the capital all year round. His family grows richer, he builds pavilions and towers, and he rises above the treacherous currents of court politics.

Wealth lies in strategy, not in exhausting oneself.

Profit lies in securing a position of influence, not in hard farming.

On Salt and Iron, Han Dynasty, "Trade"

Theme: Ride the tide to rise in the world and build a fortune.