“What if I ranked fifth in the written exam? I got in by sheer luck. From a staff member in the government office to a leader’s secretary—on the day my ex-girlfriend begged me to get back together, I was accompanying my boss to investigate her divorce mediation case…
My girlfriend passed the exam and cut off old ties, while I got in as a replacement and saw the world for what it is. Petitions in the townships, power struggles among big shots, hidden reefs and undercurrents… this battlefield of the system is a hundred times more brutal than the civil service exam.”
