A record of advice submitted in a rather free tone by the author, a private secretary, in the course of discussions with his employer Zhang He 張和, the magistrate of Lulong 廬龍 (Zhili). (A note at the beginning says that Zhang assumed office in 1884.) The contents of this short text (8 folios) deal principally with the more desirable ways of examining the county’s government students and selecting candidates for the first degree (童生). Wang displays his low opinion of the present state of scholarship and of literati morality and his scorn for “modern prose” (時文, i.e., eight-legged essays) as a means of assessing scholars; hence his preference for “orthodox studies” (正學), i.e., “ancient studies” (古學) and metaphysics (性理), and his advice to create a local academy that would teach it (he proposes a set of rules at the end of the text); at the same time, he is careful not to antagonize public opinion. There are also considerations on the official’s budget, gifts, and maintaining integrity. Albeit short, the book is a good illustration of the ways muyou tried to smooth out things for their employers.