A Woman's Guide to Entering Government and Rising Through the Ranks as a Finance Official

My next novel, Professor Liang's Residual Value Theory, is a story about a Chinese-educated professor who returns from overseas and rekindles her romance with her first love. The blurb is at the very bottom. Please add it to your collection!

-------------------- Blurb --------------------

Shi Yueying, a modern accountant, transmigrates to ancient times. By a stroke of luck, she secures a contract position outside the county office's official establishment, becoming the county's first female clerk. She audits the accounts and taxes for the magistrate, and soon becomes a star at the county office.

The county magistrate is easy to handle, but the prefectural authorities are another matter, especially Xu Mu, who comes from a prestigious family. As a junior clerk, Shi Yueying does everything she can to avoid him, but she has no choice but to grit her teeth and deal with him. If her superior points east, she absolutely wouldn't dare go west. After all, he was handsome and came from a powerful family.

But the junior subordinate is used to doing as she pleases. When her temper gets the better of her, she even slams the table and talks back to her superior. He often gets so angry he jumps up and down, but somewhere along the way, his feelings begin to change. This irritating junior subordinate is both sweet and fierce, and rather unlike anyone else.

A quick-witted yet straightforward, free-spirited female subordinate x a haughty official's son with a bad temper, cocky on the outside and secretly flirtatious within

A bickering couple joins forces to solve a major financial case

Little scene:

After the Double Ninth Festival, Xu Mu, Director of the Court of the Treasury, was presiding over the regular meeting.

Shi Yueying slipped quietly into the meeting hall and stood carefully in the shadow of a corner, trying to avoid her superior's notice. She was exhausted after an outing the day before and had overslept that morning. For once, she was late.

Xu Mu's sharp eyes swept over her. Seeing her sneak in, still carrying some of the festival's lingering lethargy, he was furious. He said sternly, "Clerk Shi, this meeting is an important matter for our office. How can you be so careless? I'll dock half a month's salary in grain. Take this as a warning, and from now on, be punctual and devoted to your duties!"

Shi Yueying seethed. There was no overtime pay, but being late by just a little meant having money docked. What a miserly, exploitative boss!

Please note:

1. This is a partially fictionalized setting. Official ranks and place names are based on the late Northern Song, but much is invented, so please don't treat it as historically accurate.

2. The career plot is the focus. The early chapters cover the lower levels of government and the imperial examinations; later chapters add a little court intrigue. The overall feel is a slice-of-life farming story.

3. The romance develops slowly. There is no System, and the golden finger is modest. Her career has its ups and downs, so this is not a wish-fulfillment story.

-------------------- Next Novel's Blurb --------------------

A cool-headed, rational, hyper-competitive professor x a laid-back, easygoing, urbane doctor

Liang Yue always thought toothaches and first love worked the same way: endure them, or pull them out.

A month after returning to the country, one of her wisdom teeth, which had tormented her for a long time, became badly inflamed. At the oral surgery clinic of the city's most expensive private hospital, where appointments were booked three months in advance, she met the specialist everyone said was "impossible to get an appointment with, even if you had a fortune."

Chen Xingyang wore an immaculate white coat and leaned lazily against the computer at the examination table, looking over a patient's file.

Their reunion was not a tender one.

Liang Yue lay in the dental chair, forced to keep her mouth open. Chen Xingyang wore a mask and leaned forward slightly. All she could see was the light reflecting off the goggles above his eyes. Holding a probe, he said calmly, "Professor Liang, your tooth root is badly damaged, much like your views on relationships: stubborn and refusing treatment."

After work, Chen Xingyang cornered her against a wall.

Liang Yue coolly tried to avoid him. "Chen Xingyang, between us..."

"The residual value of our love has already been accounted for and written down to zero, right?" He tilted his head and flashed a roguish smile. "I've always remembered that very distinctive breakup speech."

"..."

He moved closer. His warm fingers brushed her temple, his voice both dangerous and alluring.

"But Professor Liang, did you forget that you were the only one who assessed our assets back then? I haven't signed off on my end yet."

Core theme: Women are just as capable as men.