Born into a Family of Bandits, and You Want Me to Go Undercover and Become the Top Scholar?

The only transmigrator in a bandit stronghold, the pale-faced scholar Lin Tianlang, wakes up one morning • His father, Lin Batian: “Son, I’ve seized all of Qingfeng Mountain by force, but winning over the whole Great Yan Dynasty is up to you and your exams!” • The second-in-command: “Don’t kill the officials yet. Ask our strategist which answer to pick first!” • Tens of thousands of refugees: “If the chief’s son passes the imperial exams and becomes the top scorer, we’ll change our household registrations at once and become model citizens!” So: By day, he is the aloof “poor-born prodigy” at the county school. While others cram the Four Books and Five Classics, he studies Operations Research and Management. By night, he sneaks back to the stronghold to revise cement formulas and adjust cannon trajectories, even turning the government’s bounty board into his own points system. Corrupt officials? He bankrupts them with economics. Grandmaster-level martial artists? He blasts them to near death with trigonometry. The eldest princess? He wins her over, then forms an alliance, and even finds time for romance. The emperor personally orders him to enter the capital as an undercover agent, while his father thumps his chest and promises, “If you can’t take it anymore, just rebel.” On the day the results are posted, his three identities are exposed at once: top scorer on the prodigy list, consort to the regent princess, and young master of the bandits’ stronghold. The entire court goes weak at the knees: should they bow to the new top scholar, or to the bandit stronghold’s crown prince?