short series

Writing a Novel in the Imperial Exam, the Female Emperor Breaks Down

share time: 2025-11-01 06:00:21

Down-and-out scholar Su Yan takes a risky gamble in the imperial exam: instead of writing the required policy essay, he pens a folk story about a seamstress and a minor official who miss their ten-year rendezvous. To his surprise, the female emperor Chu Zhaoyi—who is grading the papers—gets hit hard by the line “the unsaid ‘I like you’”——a regret from her youth with her late childhood companion. Su Yan expects to be charged with “desecrating the exam,” but instead, the emperor, eyes red, throws him a royal brush: “Bring the next chapter tomorrow!” Since then, the palace has a “royal storyteller” who writes daily, and the softness the emperor hides under her dragon robe is quietly seeping into Su Yan’s pages through every line…

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