Poor Scholar: Top Scorer in the Imperial Exam, and You Want to Sell My Sister?
Upon awakening, an outstanding student from a top university’s Chinese Department found himself transformed into Chen Pingchuan, an eight-year-old cowherd in a remote, impoverished mountain village of the Daye Dynasty. From the very start, life was set to hard mode: a home stripped bare, grandparents who favored others, and relatives who sneered and mocked! Even worse, to fund his uncle’s pursuit of the imperial examinations, the family planned to sell his five-year-old sister for money! Trade my sister’s future for someone else’s glory? I, Chen Pingchuan, will never allow it! Who says greatness cannot rise from humble beginnings? That’s only because they’ve never witnessed a true, overwhelming advantage! Imperial exams? With the knowledge of nine years of compulsory education and university studies, I could sweep through them with ease! Those self-serving relatives now hoping to ride my coattails? You looked down on me before; now you’ll find yourselves unable to reach my heights! With treacherous ministers wielding power and fierce struggles at court? A millennium’s worth of strategy and political wisdom rests in my hands to toy with as I please! Barbarians threatening the borders and powerful enemies encircling us? Any who block my path to enriching and strengthening the nation shall be crushed, no matter how distant! From a humble cowherd to the top scholar of the realm, from a commoner to a man who holds sway over the entire court! With the full wisdom of modern civilization, Chen Pingchuan will show this era: only knowledge can change one’s destiny!
Poor Scholar: Top Scorer in the Imperial Exam, and You Want to Sell My Sister?
Volume One, Chapter One: Selling My Sister at the Start? I Can't Stay in This Miserable Home Any Longer!
The sun was slanting westward, painting the distant mountains in a hazy blend of gold and crimson.
Chen Pingchuan drove the old, emaciated yellow ox at a slow pace back toward the village. The ox was hungry, and so was he. His body was only eight years old, the prime age for growing, yet the thin gruel in his stomach had long since turned to water. Now, he felt nothing but the hollow ache of hunger, his belly nearly caving in on itself.
In this impoverished and backward era, his greatest longing was simply to eat his fill for once.
Yes, Chen Pingchuan did not truly belong to this world.
He had been a top student in the Chinese Department of a prestigious university in the twenty-first century. Who could have foreseen that, upon waking from sleep, he would become a cowherd boy in a remote mountain village under the Daye Dynasty? Daye—a name that had never appeared in any history book, a dynasty with no trace of the renowned sages and scholars of his past life.
His only solace was that this body, at least, was healthy, and his mind remained sharp.
“Brother! Brother! Come home for dinner!” A soft, sticky-sweet voice called from afar. A small figure, her hair tied into two neat buns, was running toward him—his little sister, Chen Pingyu.
Chen Pingyu was five years old, thin and small as a bean sprout, but with delicate features and a gentle, obedient manner.
Chen Pingchuan stopped and waited for her to catch up, reaching out to wipe the sweat from her brow.
“Don’t run so fast—watch your step, or you’ll fall.”
Chen P
