I Am the Great Ming's Top Scholar! Why Are You Asking If My Daughter Is Betrothed?

[Ming Dynasty + political intrigue + clever protagonists + deep devotion + (The Lamenting Geese: Lin Pianpian)] (This book features characters from The Lamenting Geese, but it is not fanfiction!)

The ninth year of the Chongzhen reign.

The top provincial examinee of Central and Southern Zhili.

The people of the realm called him a heretic, all because he wrote an essay titled “Commerce and Industry Are the Foundation of the State.”

Some said he could save the Ming Dynasty. Others said he would bring it to ruin.

But none of them knew how the Ming Dynasty would end.

They had never seen the rope on Coal Hill.

They had never seen the bloodshed of the Yangzhou Massacre.

Nor had they seen the chilling words recorded in countless history books: The Ming fell in the seventeenth year of the Chongzhen reign.

This time, he would give it a try.

He would see if he could change the fate of this dynasty.

It was just that when I first met Chongzhen,

the emperor who would one day understand me as both sovereign and subject stared at me for a long time.

Then he asked earnestly:

“Miss, are you married?”

[Reader's Guide]:

The story starts slow and picks up later. This is not a brainless power fantasy. The everyday romance is tender and full of emotional push and pull, while court intrigue cuts deep!

[Gu Qingqiu]: A noble young lady from a prominent Suzhou family.

“If you would mend the rift in the heavens, I would carry a candle and walk beside you; if you would save all under heaven, I would bind my hair with yours and follow you.”

[Lin Pianpian]: A poor courtesan, rescued from the willow-lined alleys of Yangzhou.

“My life has always been insignificant. What does death matter? If I could become a single candle to light your long road, I would die without regret.”