Riddle Duel

A folding fan made of xiangfei bamboo holds a spirit that has refused to disperse for five hundred years. Ma Siwen was a prodigy of the riddle arts in the Ming dynasty. He died unjustly after a riddle duel before the emperor. His spirit dwelled in the fan for centuries, until Liu Yiming heard his voice. Liu Yiming, a descendant of Liu Yong, hates reading classics and histories and has no interest in lantern riddles. In an accidental riddle duel, Liu Yiming borrows the power of Ma Siwen's lingering spirit and defeats Wu Jialiang, who comes from a riddle-scholar family and whose depth of knowledge surpasses all his peers. That battle creates a grudge and also forges an unbreakable rivalry. From then on, on the riddle stages of the Ning-Su region, the two youths pursue each other step by step, each displaying brilliant literary imagination, competing and transforming through countless clashes of riddles. More youths are drawn into this game of words—a group of young people support one another and move toward their own peaks. They think they are solving riddles, but in truth they are completing, on behalf of a man from five hundred years ago, the road he never finished. — Description from novelcodex.orgFull novel: Riddle Duel — read the rest free on N​o⁠v​e⁠l​C⁠o​d⁠e​x⁠.​o⁠r​g⁠