The Dali Temple Civil Service Exam Handbook

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Sweet romance and crime-solving, aloof beauty x sweet schemer, an arrogant jerk turns into a loyal puppy, both are pure and devoted. Also known as The Dali Temple Exam Handbook.

[Blurb One]

Yang Zhi buys a copy of The Dali Temple Handbook outside the examination compound. After studying all its tricks, she strolls boldly into the exam for a cook’s position at Dali Temple.

The first rule in The Dali Temple Handbook: win over the presiding official.

Hearing that the Minister of Dali Temple loves dried fruit, she puts all her flattery into a dried-fruit fish cake for the selection exam.

Who could have known... The handbook she bought was an outdated flop, and the Minister of Dali Temple had been replaced three months ago. The new minister...

Is allergic to dried fruit.

Who can tell her how many years she’ll get for poisoning the Minister of Dali Temple?!

Just as she is preparing to spend the rest of her life in prison, the new minister, Liu Yichen, holds out a hand. “I need a clerk. Twelve hundred coins a month, with room and board. Are you in?”

“I’m in!” Roll up my sleeves and get to work!

A few days later, Yang Zhi sees Minister Liu calmly and elegantly eating a walnut pastry.

She also hears that the flop of a handbook was something he wrote before his promotion to make ends meet!

Sir, there’s a washboard here you might want to kneel on!

#The Layers of Lord Liu’s Schemes#

#A Sweet Trap Falls from the Sky#

[Blurb Two]

The day his older brother died a brutal death, twelve-year-old Liu Yichen knelt in the mud, his chest scorched again and again by rage. At that moment, he hated this world with all his heart.

A little girl who looked like a beggar came over and handed him a freshly baked bun. “Big brother, my big brother told me to look after you. He said you’re clever and kind, and that you’ll become a high-ranking official and protect the people.”

One thought can turn a person into a demon; another can make them a Buddha.

They say that when people are at the end of their rope, they’ll meet an immortal who points the way. His little immortal was a beggar girl no taller than the corner of a table.

Later, the little beggar grew into a smiling young woman. When she smiled, the springtime beauty of the whole mountain seemed to gather in her dimples.

That young woman took the book he had written and used the nonsense he had made up to trick him. Then, with no sincerity at all, she shouted, “Have mercy, my lord!”

At that moment, he thought, “No problem. But if I spare your life, it belongs to me.”

Note:

1. An ancient-style office romance. Both leads are highly intelligent. A love story sparked by an unsold book, with crime-solving, episodic cases, light mystery, and political intrigue.

2. The leads share a past and save each other.

3. Many chapters are already written. Updates twice or three times daily, around midnight.

4. Please support my upcoming novel, The Eastern Palace Tofu Shop: a groveling romance, with a pregnant heroine who runs away. See the blurb below.

The Eastern Palace Tofu Shop: Big Bad Wolf Crown Prince x Little White Rabbit Tofu Seller

As Shi Ranjian washes clothes by the river, she thinks about the tofu beauty on East Street who stole her business. She sighs, wishing she had a glamorous beauty to draw customers to her shop, when a blood-soaked man drifts downstream.

The man is handsome as a painting, with an extraordinary bearing.

Without a second thought, Ranjian picks up the unconscious man and drags him home.

Ten days later, the man has recovered. Ranjian hangs up a sign reading “Tofu Pan An” and officially opens for business.

The man is good in every way and lets her order him around, but he doesn’t like to talk or smile.

Just then, the palace sends people to select women for the imperial harem. Unable to take Ranjian for himself, the county magistrate adds her to the list.

Everyone knows the old emperor is gravely ill and won’t live much longer. Any woman selected for the palace will likely be sent to her grave alongside him.

Ranjian thinks hard but can’t find a way out. At the end of her rope, she turns to the man.

Ranjian: “You sleep in my bed, wear my clothes, and eat my tofu. Don’t you think you owe me something in return?”

Man: “My hand in marriage?”

What a sensible man.

Ranjian knows this is a relationship she has forced on him, so she treats him as well as she can to keep him from feeling miserable.

But the man is a cold-blooded snake whose heart can’t be warmed. When Ranjian is heavily pregnant, he runs off with some other woman without a word.

Ranjian wipes away her tears and immediately finds her child a cheap stand-in father.

She closes her shop and heads to the capital to make her fortune.

**

The Eastern Palace’s purchasing office has had a major headache for the past year. Ever since the Crown Prince returned to the palace, he hasn’t wanted any delicacies, only tofu pudding.

Seventy-two tofu shops have opened in the capital in a year. He has bought from every one, but the Crown Prince hasn’t liked a single shop.

He has even secretly sent people across the land to search for tofu pudding.

He specifies that the proprietress must be a woman living alone, with a round face and a silly air, who always serves customers an extra ounce of tofu pudding.

Before long, every tofu shop in the land has hired female shop assistants and started operating at a loss.

Ranjian’s tofu shop no longer has a competitive edge.

On the day she is closing up and returning to her hometown, Ranjian dumps the last half-bucket of tofu pudding into the bowl of an old man who comes to her door.

Half an hour later, all nine gates of the capital are shut. Not even a mosquito can fly out.

Ranjian and her family are in the line to leave the city. As the sky grows darker, they have no choice but to turn back.

At that moment, a column of black-clad riders rushes over. The man at the front dismounts and runs straight to Ranjian, throwing his arms around her.

“Ranjian, I’ve finally found you!”

An ill-timed voice sounds beside them. “My wife, who is this man?”

Ranjian: I-I’m your late husband...

Author’s Weibo: Maiyusheng2022

Theme: Discard the false and preserve the true.