The Greatest Talent

The Greatest Talent is an alternate-history web novel by Huaxili, serialized on Qidian since 2012, completed, and roughly 1.34 million Chinese characters long. The story is set in a Ming dynasty slightly different from real history: here, anyone with genuine ability can rise to fame through the imperial examinations regardless of humble origins. The protagonist, Wu Jie, is an ordinary white-collar worker in modern society who is transported by a thunderstorm to the Ming dynasty, becoming a boy from a declining family whom others regard as dull-witted. Drawing on historical and literary knowledge beyond his era and his foreknowledge of how history will unfold, he passes the county, prefectural, and academy examinations and goes on through the provincial and metropolitan examinations, entering scholarly circles as top graduate and first-place provincial laureate, then proceeding to the capital examinations, entering the Hanlin Academy, and becoming a close minister to the emperor. The book includes details of examination life such as exam fraud, eight-legged essays, and literati gatherings, as well as "literary borrowing" episodes in which he adapts Tang and Song poetry, the prose of the Eight Great Masters, and even writes a vernacular story, The White Snake, making the protagonist famous in literary circles. As his identity shifts from poor scholar to court official, he is drawn into the court conflicts of the Jiajing era, crossing paths with historical figures such as Yan Song, Hu Zongxian, and the Prince of Yu, maneuvering through events such as the fight against Japanese pirates, imperial audiences, and qingci prayers, and finally entering the Grand Secretariat at the transition from Longqing to Wanli. The book centers on advancement through the examinations, blending officialdom intrigue with literati taste, and is a fairly typical Ming-dynasty examination-themed power-fantasy novel.