The Romance of the Five Hearts

In the seventeenth year of Wanli, Shen Yanzhi was appointed magistrate of Jishui County, Jiangxi Province, at the age of twenty-five. At that time, the dynasty was gradually weakening, and the officialdom was like a big sauce vat - three walls of system, human feelings, and thoughts. If it is muddy, it will be turbid, and it will be difficult for the pure to stand up. There is a book of notes hidden in the young man's sleeve, and he secretly deduce it with the "Five-layered Mental Method": the falsity of the six colors' speculations can be traced back to the roots of the yellow book's disrepair, seizing the rhythm of the six steps from passive to active, and accumulating thickly to achieve neutralization in order to strive for self-improvement. The six volumes progress: breaking obstacles and rejecting routines, identifying falsehoods with the past, regaining the rhythm, clarifying the source, following the trend and observing the law, and finally reaching compound interest and progressing from Qingjin to middle age. During this period, the king's records gradually became clearer, Zou Shou's examination bureau was transferred to asylum, and Zhou Banxian County controlled people through taxation.