Great Ming: My Imperial Examination Simulator

Shen Zhou has transmigrated into the dying days of the Ming Dynasty, waking in the body of a destitute scholar who had failed the examinations and was driven to hang himself by sheer poverty. The good news: he is now bound to an "Imperial Examination Simulator." Doesn't know how to write an eight-legged essay? Then simulate. The bad news: every simulation costs him three months of his lifespan. The county exam, the prefectural exam, the academy exam, the provincial exam, the metropolitan exam, the palace exam—six rounds of testing lie ahead. Shen Zhou runs the numbers: if he uses the simulator to clear every stage, he might just live long enough to walk into the palace exam. But that would be all—merely walking into it. The moment his name is inscribed on the golden list would be the moment of his death. Unless... he can rise through every rank on genuine ability, without ever relying on the simulator. The problem is that winter of the sixteenth year of Chongzhen has already arrived, and less than half a year remains until the Jiashen Incident—the fall of the capital. A poor scholar with only twenty-three years of life left to him must, before the Great Ming collapses, test his way to a path of survival.