The Days of Being Pushed to Excel by a Villainous Power Minister

. Xie Tiao, a miserable high school senior, transmigrates into an imperial-examination novel and becomes the adopted son of a future villainous minister. Her adoptive father doesn't know she's a girl and is extremely strict with her. From then on, Xie Tiao's life turns darker than ever: she enters the Imperial Academy, studies from five in the morning, goes to bed at ten at night, and writes essays on schedule for her adoptive father to review. If anything displeases him, she gets beaten and made to kneel in the ancestral hall. Xie Tiao: Heavens above! Who will stand up for me? Her powerful minister of a father is devastatingly handsome, but his aura is so cold and forbidding that even the stray dogs on the street tuck their tails between their legs when they see him. While being driven numb by her father's relentless academic drilling, Xie Tiao is pushed into taking the imperial exams. Later... Her cousins, who thought Xie Tiao spent every day lazing around: What?! She passed the exams? Seeing her name on the list, Xie Tiao breathes a sigh of relief: Now he'll stop drilling me, right? But she was being far too naive. At the Hanlin Academy, a man in official robes approaches with a cool expression. Xie Tiao nervously stands and lowers her head to call him, “Father.” “What do you call me when we're outside?” he asks, giving her a cool glance. “...My lord.” - Back then, Xie Qi adopted Xie Tiao for a secret reason no one knew. Over the years, however, he had been away on inspections and neglected her. After returning to the capital, he tried to make up for it by personally overseeing every aspect of her upbringing, devoting himself to the task and keeping her under strict control. He had thought raising a son would be much easier than governing a country. He didn't know whether he had managed to nurture a pillar of the state. But time and again, she left him utterly at a loss. She got into fights at the Imperial Academy, slacked off when writing essays, came up with all sorts of ways to play hide-and-seek with him at home, and tucked cushions behind her to dodge a beating. Once she became an official, things got even worse. She got tangled up with all sorts of people, leaving the entire Hanlin Academy in a scandalous mess. Rumors even spread that she was involved with men. In the ancestral hall... To refuse an arranged marriage and conceal her gender, Xie Tiao has decided to make the rumors about her being involved with men come true. She kneels upright before her father, ready to take her punishment. The man holds a ruler and looks at the young man he personally raised from childhood. Her face is as flawless as jade, and her frame is slender, yet she is already beginning to show the bearing of a true scholar. His gaze grows profound, and for a long time he cannot look away. With her father staring at her, Xie Tiao, who's only pretending to be involved with men, suddenly shivers. Reader's Guide [Must Read]: 1. [Important] This is not a child-rearing novel. The father is the male lead, and he strictly disciplines the female lead early on. He has a very patriarchal, old-fashioned fatherly vibe. Their souls are about the same age, but their bodies are twelve years apart. Please proceed with caution if this bothers you! 2. The male lead is pure in body and mind. The leads are not actually related by blood, and he did not personally raise the female lead. At the start, they have only spent two years together, and the female lead's soul is already an adult. Early on, the male lead doesn't know her gender and treats her purely as a son, pushing her to study. Their relationship is purely father and son, with no other feelings. The romance develops very slowly and only progresses after they reveal her gender and establish that they are not father and daughter. 3. The female lead has a natural charm that makes people fall for her, with many men harboring one-sided feelings for her. She starts out studying for the imperial exams and later becomes an official. Theme: Study hard and serve your country