Hello, everyone. I’m a newly appointed second-place graduate.
Although in popular novels written several centuries from now, people with this title are often reduced to plain, unremarkable background characters beside handsome, dashing first-place graduates and debonair third-place graduates, I’m still very proud of myself.
After all, I earned second place in the final round of the national examination, which is held once every three years.
By now, I’m sure you’ve figured it out: I’m someone who transmigrated.
I’ve been bottling things up for so long that I’ve decided to start keeping a diary, in a way the locals can’t decipher, of course.
When my memory wasn’t so good, I once heard some unknown Mr. Lan say, “Who keeps a diary, anyway?”
But now I have no other choice. Chatting with imaginary readers is the only way I can fend off the loneliness.
To sum up the current emperor in one word, he’s an idiot.
He’s obsessed with the Dao, yet everything he does is just pointless window dressing that achieves the opposite of what he wants. They say he started his education early and mastered the Thirteen Classics while still young. Maybe he’s been emperor so long that he’s forgotten even the lessons of The Battle of Changshao.
Some people might say he never chose to be emperor.
You don’t know the whole story. He really did choose it himself.
Besides, the sage said: “To bear the nation’s disgrace is to be its ruler. To bear the nation’s misfortune is to be the king of the world. Straight words sound like their opposite.”
A ruler without virtue or ability is a great calamity to the world.
It’s a shame I was transmigrated before birth and arrived in such a hurry that I brought no material truths with me.
Alas! How tragic!
Theme: One may stay silent for a time, but not for a lifetime.
