Imperial Exams and the Minister’s Path of a Peasant Scholar

Chen Yan, a workaholic, dies suddenly and becomes the only son newly born to a jinshi in the Great Liang dynasty.

His father has a bright future, so as his son, he happily lies flat and lives a life where food and clothes are handed to him.

Who would have thought that at age six, he would learn he had been switched at birth with the child of a farming family, the Chen family. On the very day the fake young master returns to the Chen family to work in the fields, he is drained by leeches for an entire morning and lies in bed for two days before recovering.

Since he can’t lift anything and can’t carry anything on his shoulders, the only path left to him seems to be the imperial examinations.

In order to pass the exams and keep lying flat, he works himself to the bone, and by accident steals the top scholar spot that had been reserved for the son of a powerful minister.

That finally kicks a hornet’s nest.

Leaky roofs, toilet-numbered exam rooms, suppression by exam officials, and other injustices come one after another.

Since they won’t let him lie flat, then he’ll work them to death instead—those old men in officialdom!