After Becoming the Foil in an Imperial Examination Novel

[Previews: Divorced Auntie Transmigrates to the Qing Dynasty, South City Memories. Please add them to your collection]

After transmigrating, modern-day orphan Jiang Yuan becomes the doomed foil in an imperial-examination novel.

The male lead, Jiang Mao, is unloved by his parents and ignored by his grandparents, yet he cuts through every obstacle and earns the highest rank in the imperial examinations.

The original Jiang Yuan is begged by his grandfather, a licentiate, to study, but he refuses to the death. He indulges in drinking, womanizing, gambling, and every other vice, and ultimately meets a tragic end.

Jiang Yuan scrunched up his small face. In his previous life, he had no parents, and to afford an education, he collected trash, sold scrap, washed dishes, and did every dirty, exhausting job there was.

In this life, he can eat his fill and stay warm without having to work himself to the bone, and he has a family who loves him. His own grandfather even runs a school in the village, and there are no tuition fees!

Could there really be such a good thing?

Jiang Yuan, a true small-town exam ace, clenched his little fists. Studying was what he was best at!

In the Great Liang Dynasty, where everything else was inferior and only scholarship was valued, he vowed to forge a bright path of his own!

Reader's Guide: 1. There is a System, but it is not very useful and does not appear right away.

2. The story has a farming and homestead style, with family life, earning silver, and the everyday grind of the imperial examinations.

3. The original male lead is not villainized, and the protagonist is not at odds with him.

4. The setting is highly fictionalized, so please don't nitpick historical details.

Divorced Auntie Transmigrates to the Qing Dynasty [Blurb]: In her previous life, Ms. Zhang Hua lived a life that followed the usual script.

She married through a matchmaking date at twenty-two, quit her job, and stayed home to support her husband and raise their child.

At forty, her husband cheated on her. She got into a scuffle with his mistress, and her husband protected the other woman, shouting hysterically at her, "She's pregnant! Don't hurt her!"

After the divorce, her son called and gave her a furious dressing-down. Worried that he would get less of the family fortune in the future, he accused her of being selfish and not thinking of him.

Clutching the phone, Zhang Hua suddenly lost her breath and fainted.

When she opened her eyes, she had transmigrated to the Qing Dynasty more than two hundred years in the past, becoming a young concubine who had just been assigned to Fourth Master Yin's household.

Zhang Hua, who had only just come around, fainted again...

South City Memories [Blurb]: Gu Yueliang returned to the year she was eleven.

She leaned on the peeling windowsill, looking out at the rain and the sparrows.

She heard her grandmother calling her to eat. "Coming," she replied.

On the table were loofah and scrambled eggs, candied tomatoes, pork stir-fried with green beans, and pumpkin porridge, all Gu Yueliang's favorites.

Her grandmother waved her palm-leaf fan back and forth. "Eat slowly, don't choke. When you're done, we'll watch The Legend of the Condor Heroes."

Listening to the soft patter of rain beside her, Gu Yueliang smiled contentedly. "Okay."

Theme: Study hard and keep improving every day.