Chapter 1
After twenty years of grinding away at my books, I passed the imperial examinations and placed in the top three.
In the throne hall, the emperor smiled benevolently down at the three of us standing side by side.
“Excellent. Great Qing has gained three more gifted young men.”
“Your name is Long Aotian, if I remember correctly?”
The fellow on my left, with his rugged features and enormous chest, nodded.
“And you are Hua Yingxiu?”
On my right, a young man as beautiful as a flower, with a peculiar fragrance about him, lowered his head and smiled faintly.
“Fine names, both of them! Clearly men of elegance and distinction.” With this observation, the emperor raised a hand to point at me.
“And you? What is your name?”
“Your Majesty, my name is Liu Bo.”
The emperor fell silent for a moment, then put on that benevolent smile again.
“Excellent,” he said. “You shall be this year’s second-place scholar.”
Me: “?”
Long Aotian was personally chosen as the first-place scholar and appointed assistant director in the Ministry of War.
Hua Yingxiu was personally chosen as the third-place scholar and appointed a compiler in the Hanlin Academy.
I was personally chosen as the second-place scholar and appointed an investigating censor.
On my first day in office, I had barely warmed my seat at the Censorate when word reached me that Prince Rong and Hua Yingxiu were committing indecent acts in broad daylight in the middle of a busy street. Their carriage would not stop rocking.
The deputy chief censor said Hua Yingxiu and I had passed the same examinations, which made us acquaintances, and told me to write a memorial impeaching him.
“Huh? Me?”
Prince Rong had always been an arrogant bully. I was supposed to impeach him?
He would tear me apart!
“Yes! You!” The deputy chief censor glared, his beard bristling. “How can a censor cling to life and fear death?”
I stayed up all night writing a thick stack of memorials and submitted every one of them the next day.
They sank without a trace.
The day after that, Prince Rong brought his men to corner me.
“Liu Bo, is it? You’ve got some nerve.”
Our dynasty had laws forbidding officials from taking private revenge on censors.
Prince Rong did not actually hit me.
But that very day, two stalls appeared outside my front door.
The one on the left sold stinky tofu. The one on the right sold fermented mung-bean juice.
Every day I had to pass through that stench of kitchen slops, looking sick to my stomach.
I secretly wrapped up some silver and gave it to the vendors, hoping they would move their stalls farther away.
Instead, they dropped to their knees before me.
“My lord, we’re only following orders.”
“When great men like you fight, please don’t make life difficult for us servants!”
Before I had resolved the Hua Yingxiu problem, Long Aotian stirred up trouble too.
Apparently, he had taken the second, third, fourth, fifth, and sixth princesses to a brothel to drink, recite poetry, and play licentious music.
Long Aotian and the princesses had behaved indecently, their clothes in disarray. Everyone present had witnessed it.
At the deputy chief censor’s urging, I submitted another memorial.
Once again, it sank without a trace.
But a few days later, a troupe of musicians moved into the house to the right of mine, playing and singing day and night.
I threw on a robe and knocked on their door in the middle of the night, hoping they could keep it down.
The performer who opened the door rolled his eyes at me.
“The princesses have asked us to rehearse urgently for His Majesty’s birthday!”
“If we fall behind, will you take responsibility?”